“How long have you been in my radio?”
Hooked haphazardly into a car battery, the old truck radio flickers and seems to lose power for a moment. After that moment, an answer:
“Have you always thought that a thing must be inside your radio in order to hear it?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I am a projection,” the voice says and I can hear the old chuckle in its tone.
“So why project into my radio? Why did you come back after the drive-in?”
“Because I could.”
“You couldn’t before?”
“Not in a sense.”
“What do you mean by that?”
The radio goes dark again, I am cast into the moonlight. In this, the forest that took the use of my arm, I listen to the wind and to the crickets. The radio cracks and the voice returns.
“Do you know of the town, Boone, in North Carolina?”
“No, is it famous for something?”
“It’s not famous for anything.”
“So why mention it?”
“So, could you have gone to Boone before I told you it was there?”
“Yes.”
“And why didn’t you?”
“Because I didn’t know about it.”
“So you could only go to Boone by accident before, and now you can only ever go there knowingly. Now that you know Boone exists, you can go there anytime and as often as you like.”
“You’re not going to explain yourself, are you?”
“There’s not much to explain, owner of the… oh, hmm… I don’t know what to call you; there’s very little to your name anymore.”
“You can call me whatever you want.”
“Well then, traveler,” the voice says, its tone soft and knowing, “Where are we off to next?”
