From Winamop.com

A Radio Song
by John D Robinson

 

 

I woke up and my initial first morning thoughts made me happy. I began thinking of women and how they get undressed making ready for bed; the way they can peel off their soft garments in long slow sexy movements and then take the precious time to fold them neatly and then placing them in an orderly pile. I was thinking of women and other pleasant images when the telephone sounded. I glanced over at the clock, it was ten a.m. I slid out of bed and made my way through to the lounge and picked up the receiver. “Hello” I said.

“Hello” A voice said back. It was a voice I knew well but the voice sounded flat and sorrowful. The voice belonged to a friend of mine and he told me that his wife had left him again and that it was for good, and that there would be no coming back this time, and that if I wasn’t busy would I mind calling round and having a few drinks to keep him from crying and going insane. I didn’t have a great deal planned so I went over.

He was waiting at his front door and silently greeted me with a nod of his head. His face was stained with the sadness and tragedy of the situation; his eyes were bloodshot and swollen. We went inside and sat upon the sofa; he was drinking vodka and he was already a little drunk; he poured me a shot and then said “She’s gone, gone forever. This time it’s for real - that’s what she said. She’s never said that before. This time it’s for real. She’s only been gone for a couple of hours and already it seems like forever and it’s going to be forever. She’s gone. Gone forever and already I feel quite lonely”.

The manner and tone in which my friend said the word ‘lonely’ stayed with me for a while, loneliness was something that I had never really known. I don’t tend to seek the company of others, I prefer my own, and have always avoided any long term romantic relationships that demand a commitment of some kind. As much as I wanted desperately to do I could not think of a damn word to say to my saddened friend that would be of any comfort or value to him; I mean what can you say to someone who is feeling shitty about love?

Suddenly my friend said “I feel shitty about love, everywhere I look there she is, right in front of me. I feel shitty, really shitty about love”

I looked around the room and it was true. Photographs of his wife were everywhere, small, medium and large pictures adorned the walls and display cabinets and shelves; photographs of his wife and he embracing and kissing and laughing together in times now gone forever. There was no getting away from her.

As the room fell silent a small portable radio could be heard. A woman began to sing about love. It was a sad song. She sang of how her loved one had just marched off to war. Well, men are foolish enough to go fight wars, no big deal; but she went on to sing of how they had just got married and how she, to her joy, was expecting their first baby. A second voice began to sing, it was her husband. He sang of how he had just been shot and that it was a fatal wound and that he would not be returning. Of course he would never know about the child. He sang an emotional goodbye. Of course, his wife didn’t know that he was dying, she was still singing and hoping for his safe return into her life; she had so much love for him that she would wait forever and a day.

It was some song.

My friend lurched to his feet and staggered over to the radio. “LOVE, he shouted at the radio, LOVE IS SHITTY!”  He angrily picked up the radio and threw it with force against a wall. It bounced off in shattered pieces and lay scattered upon the carpet. From somewhere out of the broken pieces of radio, the singing woman could just about be heard. My friend quickly located the working piece of the radio and crashed his foot down upon it. The woman’s voice disappeared.

“I wonder what happened to her and the baby?”  I said out aloud.

My friend’s eyes rolled back into their sockets, he groaned and then passed out, crashing to the floor amongst the smashed up pieces of radio. He didn’t care about love; he thought love was a shitty thing, somewhere his wife probably thought so too.

 

 

 

 

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