rendering or reality

In the golden days of radio my dad’s family 

would gather together in the evenings

to listen to Captain Midnight, his favorite crime fighter

and to the comedy routines of Jack Benny. 

He retold his favorite jokes from the show

to the kids in the neighborhood. 

My dad once sent away for a Captain Midnight ring 
after drinking lots of ovaltine

so he could be a fighter of crime like his hero.

On Sunday evenings my mother’s family

would visit Aunt Katie in her home, now

close to ninety years old. They would listen to

her stories of bank robberies,

Bonnie and Clyde

and of prohibition days. They would 

look through her photographs of

short hair styles with bangs

and flapper dresses with fringe.

As a young girl my mother and I 

would run errands in the brown Buick that always ran out of gas. 

We went to the bank where the teller would wave and send me a sucker

through the tube and then off to the gas station where

the attendant would bring my mama a chilled coca cola from inside

after he had pumped our gas and washed

our windshield. Many times on our final stop

we delivered a casserole and a chocolate cake

to a family in need.

Today we pump our own gas 

and scan our own groceries

pull money from machines

or slip our ear buds in and disappear

when real people surround

we find friends on computers, watch mean girls

on you tube, text without emotion or sound

We engage with the Sims neighbors more like a witness

and dance with simulations, never touching a hand

and with unseen “friends” we play games. As our lives become 

a suppressed and replicated reality

our soul is left wanting.

Disconnected with imitations and suffocated by

reproductions the sound of a human voice 

can be startling.


rebecca frazier