The Narrative Image

A plaintive yodel emerges from static on the radio as my car crests another hill. I think it could be Hank Williams and marvel that a human voice in a scratchy recording can cross time, defy death, and thereby interact with the living. I snatch snippets of song from the static like moments of sunlight streaming through the dappled shade of an immense oak. The road descends into a valley and the static roars and the strident condemnation of some holy faker (adopting the cadences of a Martin Luther King speech) overwhelms simple beauty with bankrupt religiosity (apparently content doesn’t matter as long as it’s punctuated with plenty of ‘Jesuses). I punch the console and switch to one of only two CDs I find in the newspaper, maps and camping miscellaneously slowly growing in the unoccupied passenger seat. Regina Spektor sings: “He stumbled into faith and thought, ‘God, this is all there is?’” This lyric out of context launches a cascade of fledgling responses. He stumbled into ...