I Listen To Tapes, Not CDs

I used to listen to cassettes, too. The Just William stories & Winnie The Pooh. Despite your fictional bear-coloured t-shirt, however, I somehow doubt you are listening to children’s stories on your pristine Sony portable cassette player (looped through your equally pristine leather belt) as you stare with catwalk precision at an empty space on a crowded Lizzy line carriage. My guess is its a niche Krautrock band or maybe a Bach overture. Either way, we ‘normies’ probably wouldn’t be familiar with it. Your t-shirt is the kind of well-fitted that flirts with being too tight (not too small like the aforementioned honey-loving bear) and your vintage Levi’s are also… pristine. (I am donned in work clothes not fully dry from last night’s laundry. I smell fresh, but also catch a whiff of my subtle judgement toward the hipster that I should probably rinse myself of.) You wear your cap well but I really wish you’d wear a smile; too bad you walk away too quickly to see if you are. Everything is perfectly put together in an admirable view of self-composure, but I wonder if you, too, are like a mannequin: an apparition of perfection carefully constructed atop cracked foundations, pressurised into upholding social convention until (inevitably) the ground within you gives way. As I consider this, I start to feel more connected to you, because we (humans, writ large) are all standing on a bed of insecurities, searching for any illusion that “affirms our place in the world”. (Nonsense.) Perhaps your presumed penchant for a pre-digitised era is just a sign that you hold onto the past to bring a sense of continuity into the future. Nostalgia is my best-friend too, but I wish my laundry was dry. Wet trousers only lead to a damper day.