15 minutes from now, everything will return to normal

I sat in the car motionless. No engine, no headlights, just the glow of the radio and the sounds flowing freely from it. I sat stoned in my driveway listening to "Us and Them" and "Time"; getting lost in another place. There was no one around me, no one around for quite a ways. But yet, I couldn't help feel connected to everyone else that might be listening to these same songs on this same station at this exact moment.

I couldn't just get out of my car and lose this moment. Not more than 20 steps from me I had the CD, the MP3s and the vinyl. I didn't want to hear any of that. I wanted to hear it on the radio, I wanted to feel that moment. So I sat in my car, alone in my driveway for 15 minutes at 1:33 in the morning just to have the experience. It was the 70s again, I didn't have a CD player inside, maybe I was listening to an AM station...

I had spent the entire night playing along with The Wall with a friend of mine across the city. You'd think the last thing I'd want to do would be to listen to more music, especially with work looming over me in the morning.

As I sat I wandered within my mind, tried to imagine how many other people were listening to the same song, maybe even doing the same thing MILES from me. I could just as easily been completely alone, only me and the guy at the station locked into the space and time we concurrently occupied... seven seconds apart.

How many others have had a moment just like this... what kind of significance do these songs have for other people? Certainly I'm not the first to get lost in music late at night. Or the first to make a slightly pointless call to sit in the car and wait for all 15 minutes to pass instead of just going inside and listening to my own copies.

I fell asleep, only for a moment. My energy was sucked from me directly into the radio and broadcast on the sleeping world. My eyes opened and I was still drifting along, in a minibus destined for Palo Alto... on a greyhound bound for Arizona... lying on the grass at any concert venue you want to pick... making love in a hotel room... following an ambulance to the emergency room... getting stoned under an overpass with a boombox... - "I'm through with standing inline to clubs I'll never get in..." - sitting stoned in my driveway, now listening to Nickleback...

At least I had my 15 minutes. I shut the car and went inside to bed.

 

Nice, I always enjoy reading your stuff.

 

that's awesome.

 

It was really good but one thing - Is this true or fictional? Cos ive had moments similar to the thoughts you said (tho never got stoned etc)

 

IluvMusic, This is a true story. Thanks for your positive comments everyone!

 

It's hard for me to believe that this is a true story. Are you saying that you actually got stoned and listened to Pink Floyd? That's incredible! I've never heard anything quite like it.

Sorry to say it, but I didn't think this story was really very interesting. It just seems like some boring, ordinary stoned musings out of some kid's journal, or something. Dope always makes boring things seem interesting, though... so it's not really your fault.

 

That's the idea behind the style I wrote it in. Though I think you missed the point I was trying to get across.

The whole point is that the entire thing IS trivial and boring but only seems important at the moment that it happens for seemingly no reason other than the influence of a drug. However, rewinding back in time, there was a time when a persons only chance to hear certain songs was on the radio in a situation just like that before modern conveniences were in every home.

...I don't usually feel the need to "defend" my work, so I'm not really sure why I wrote this...

 

So if it's trivial and boring why am I reading it?? What kind of point is that? You're right-- I totally missed the point.

 

because most of life is trivial and boring^

i liked this short story a lot

 

Speak for yourself!

 

I was actually listening to us and them when I started reading this...
But I really liked it. Good job!
I like the idea of people being connected through music and experiences. Thats pretty cool

 

I can't make you understand. It's not a matter of it being "too deep" or any of that nonsense. Different people think differently about different things. You found my story trivial and boring, I'm ok with that.

I suppose the point is; what's wrong with appreciating the commonality of trivial and boring experiences that are universal to us all?

 

I love this. I have had many moments like this. With no practical significance, but they are just special. for no particular reason. I love these events. They make life worth livine. you wrote wonderfully!
~Jen

 

No, you argued that it was supposed to be trivial and boring, and I asked why you would want it to be that way. Now you have given me the answer I pretty much expected.

I don't think there's anything wrong with appreciating boring or trivial things, it's just that when you introduce drugs you're not addressing the boring or the trivial in an interesting way... in fact, you're addressing it in the most predictable way possible.

I agree that getting people to appreciate the boring/trivial is a worthwhile endeavor, but at the same time I don't think what you wrote was particularly successful-- mostly because there's a lot of 'tell', and not enough 'show', if you know what I mean...

 

I notice your bias to drug infested stories, but I don't think, could be wrong, but I don't think was really the focal point of the story, more of a side note.

 

That's a sweet song!

 

I like it. I love appreciating the simple moments life offers us, forgetting and remembering at the same time. I think listening to a song in the radio in the car, is very personal and there's this feeling of being anonymous, being everyone else.
Yeah I like it.