Radio on the Way Home

There’s an image in his head of a blonde haired woman pleading. An antiquated haircut from the early to mid nineties, complete with hairsprayed bangs. A white button up shirt with some kind of fancy black jumper/coverall thing. Either that or a pair of faded jeans and a plaid button up shirt.

It’s the middle of the night, soft lighting. Quiet everywhere else. Dark on the other side of the windows. There is an echo in the house, just before the pleading. An echo of yelling that seems to keep getting smaller and smaller but never goes away.

It’s been a day or a week of arguing with her husband. They are on the edge. The fighting is over. All that’s left is disillusionment. All that’s left is emotional exhaustion. They sit there, like sweaty roman soldiers depicted in an HBO special, staring at the scroll which contained the careful battle plans, the scroll torn and knocked to the floor, stained with wine and piss.

And in that moment she pleads. A simple plea. Something that, in any other circumstance would be the corny, cliché lyric of a pop love song, but in her tired voice, sounds like something else. As if preceded by a cracking, it reveals the something a little deeper inside, a golden chalice or a goo covered bird.

And before his response, it changes to a solitary figure, driving too fast down the highway, unshaven, sunglasses, clenching his jaw.