discharge

My childhood memories are of things felt and heard, more than of things seen.  And what was seen, I remember for what was imaginary, more than what was there.  

In the dark cold of the night, my young, soft hand on the radio, warmed by the solid state electronics within, as I swept the tuner needle across the frequencies, listening to the hiss and squeal just audible, what with the volume so low.  The scratch of the rough fabric that covered the large floor speakers.  And the soldered, dusty smell through the ventilation grill of the Sharp audio receiver, sitting beneath the turntable, with its amber plastic cover.  And then I would squint and look through the ventilation grill, to see the circuit board within, a little cityscape of dusty resistors, capacitors and diodes, and I would pick out, always, the same resistor, with its little stripes of red, green and yellow, and imagine that this, this resistor was the building in the circuit board city within which I lived, and that that, the great capacitor, a blue cylinder towering an inch high, was the hulking skyscraper in which I worked.

I think of this as I look at my emptied 42nd floor office, then out the window, to the new 23rd floor office across the avenue, where I will begin new work, on the first Monday in 2015.