things move around

I am dragged from a distressing sleep, in which I dream that my daughter’s real middle names are Doug and Grant, by the static-laced rasp of the radio. The local station is pretty much a one-man band. The space in between the torturous bursts of country music is filled by the presenter’s voice, which, gnarled as dry oak bark, is suggestive of some kind of Desperate Dan-style gnathic deformity. When I wake up the voice is in the middle of a movie review. It’s a no-nonsense voice which deals its listeners only the straightest of hands. It gives the movie four stars, then fires off a weather report and a fishing report, growling and crackling like a forest fire, charring the ear. I lose contact with the words themselves in the midst of a gravelly skid of sports headlines. The voice plucks at the air in my hotel room like a calloused hand, gropes for me and holds me painfully by the jaw. It rubs my face vigourously until smooth, then slaps me on each cheek. Then it forms itself into chopsticks and, click-clacking, grabs atoms out of nowhere, structures a rough outfit for me, a pair of jeans, a beige golf shirt, work boots, and at spearpoint jabs me towards the door.