Here’s a part of something I wrote a while ago.

SOUNDS GOOD

It’s been about five years since the procedure and I hardly even think about it anymore. The doctors have stopped asking for daily or weekly updates from me, things I notice about my mind or my head at the injection site. They come to me now in unpredictable cycles, three months here, another six weeks after that, another six months after that. Now, every time I get a new email about it, it’s a different name, a different corporate title behind the same sets of credentials. 

I know that by now there must be many more, several others with my level of success after the procedure. But I’ve never met them and they’ve never told me about any of them. I check the internet regularly for evidence of this product, the one they told me in the lead up to the injection would shortly revolutionize the industry once more. I even check the more technical trades in the library database. Nothing. Meanwhile, the only revolution I’ve noticed is the continued cutting of wires — no more little white cords connecting ear to pocket. Just little white buds, or big clunky over-ear things, connecting them all to The Sound. Or at least a sound.

They do, however, still pay me, and the reason for all of this keeps landing in my bank account, which I check using an app on my phone, every month. $6000 a month for as long as the trial lasts. When I was still seeing the corporate doctors and the Product Magicians regularly, they told me that they were confident this would basically be forever, or as long as I live, provided the markets don’t catastrophically dissolve into the ocean (and even then, they seemed confident, in sync with the lawyer and financial advisor they recommended I speak to, that the company would be Too Important to drown). The money seems to come and go with a greater velocity each month. 

I’m walking to another job interview — small newspaper in need of sales rep — feeling distracted by this big large blimp that seems to be following me around today, at the periphery of my right eye line, every single place that I go, every way that I turn. It is the thing I am trying not to look at, trying not to examine. It is floating outside of me but it feels heavy in two places inside my body, like it is there too, in my chest and also a few inches down in my stomach. Something to do with success, with the prospect of another flaky job, with everything else I say I never even think about anymore. I either can’t be bothered to go into it, to rip open the blimp, or I know that I can’t bear to see what’s inside, know that it will just make me bomb the interview I know I need to go well. So I resolve to carry the masses with me, try to ignore them as best as I can. 

I reach out and pull in something that I love. Hop Along, that record Bark Your Head Off, Dog, one of those sounds I always grab, bring close when I don’t know what else to listen to. I can hear it all in an instant, if I want, but I decide to hear it linearly, from start to finish, an available method which a Product Magician once told me was going to be called “Classic Mode.” No one has a voice quite like Frances Quinlan. This record communicates a quirky, ecstatic kind of tragedy. The language of it is fragmented, like there is a particular long-form story behind the song, but it’s not accessible to you, no matter what mode you listen to it in. “Through the phone I pull you and drag your voice around.” There’s an intense loneliness there, but it is so enticing, so brightly orchestrated. 

I resolved to walk to the interview, but I’m finding that I really should have called a car or hopped on the bus — spring has not come through with a pleasant middle ground, the one I always dream about, say is the best part about the season. Instead, it’s waffled between four or five climate conditions a day for the last month, and this morning it is suddenly freezing to me — like puffy-coat freezing. I look at my phone. I used to always open the music app every time I looked at it, even if I pulled it out of my pocket for some other reason. That was one of the old habits it took the most time to beat. I used to sometimes open up whatever album I had pulled close, just so I could stare at the artwork for a while, like I used to, but I started to think that I was betraying the point of doing this in the first place. Well, Their point in having this done, I’m sure they hope (hoped?) someday to everyone.

The weather app tells me that, although my nose is running like a faucet and my hands are losing their dexterity in the chilling gray wind, it’ll be sunny and 80 degrees by the time the day is over. I am indignant, rolling my eyes and scoffing for no one’s benefit. How am I supposed to dress for a day like this? 

I start to feel that Hop Along is not the vibe as I cross the random four-lane street headed toward the newspaper office, so, out of a completionist instinct, I listen to the rest outside of time (they never told me a good branded name for this, and I’ve had fun trying to imagine what they’ve considered, what they might be calling it now, “Expert Mode” or “Binge Mode” or something else equally queasy) and try to think of something else to pull close. Come on…anything…. 

I’m at a loss. I listen to “Prior Things,” the last song on the Hop Along album, linearly this time. I’m getting closer to the office and I’m kind of weirded out by how few people I’ve seen. It’s only a little after the general rush to work, only 9:20 in the morning, but no one is around. “Vacation means leave, means obliterate all prior things.” The blimps are back. I finally see one person jogging in the opposite direction. They seem to be dressed for later in the day — they’re wearing a muscle tee and short shorts. 

I get to the office building. It is not in the main part of town, the part of town where most of the office jobs are. The building is a peach-tan color, stucco on the outside, quite old. The newspaper, New Day Times, is on the third floor. The tile is dusty in the reception area, with wood paneling, rather like the waiting room at the pediatrician’s office I went to as a child. I push The Sound away, sit in the public air with the phone ringing and the people mumbling and the office chattering on. The receptionist — an older woman with her hair piled high, thick-framed glasses holding firm on her nose — tells me to have a seat, that Rich will be here in just a moment, handing me a bottle of water I didn’t really want. I sit down in a wooden chair with an orange plush cushion, pushed against the wall, when a very tall man in his 50s approaches me. I didn’t even see him coming, somehow. When I look up, I am eye level with the bottom of his white, gridded button-down, noticing immediately that one flap is hanging lower than the other, an hours-ago buttoning error that has endured through this early part of the day. His shoes and his pants are brown. His hand is rough, and he smells of cigarette smoke. 

“I’m Rich Camoot, Local Head of Sales. You’re here to sell newspapers?” 

“Oh hi. Uh.”

“Sorry, to interview for the position of Local Sales Representative.” His voice is gravelly and deep, seeming somehow damaged. I want to hear him sing. 

“Yes, it’s nice to meet you.” 

“Jeff, right?”

“Yeah,” even though I can tell he’s pronouncing it with the “J” instead of the “Geo.” I feel bad for noticing, even.

“Great! Come this way.” 

He leads me down the hallway, halfway through which the tile suddenly gives way to thin, red, pockmarked carpet. He quiets down for a moment, and I try to think of something to listen to in instant mode, something to hype me up. I feel sick instead. I swallow. 

Rich does not have an office. He has his own, stand alone desk, however, while the other folks on headsets sit in a row of partitioned tables behind him. The setup is a bit unnerving — all of them, six or seven of them, are chattering away on the phone. Elsewhere, I assume on the news part of the floor, cell phones ring on the highest setting. I am overwhelmed by sound. I sit down in front of Rich’s desk. Not a single member of the sales team shows any curiosity in us. 

Rich is telling me everything about the job. “You have to be good on the phone, good at talking to people who don’t want to talk to you. Good at convincing people that it’s worth having a newspaper around.”

“I’m excellent on the phone,” I lie. 

“Fantastic. I don’t need to tell you how bad things are with print media?” 

“Oh believe me, I know,” I say, even though I really kind of want to hear what he has to say about the whole matter. 

“I could just cry.” He hands me a few back issues. This one with a local politician on the cover, running for an open seat on city council with the backing of a third party I have never heard of. He smiles — his smile is very nice, his eyes bright — and sticks both hands out to the crowd, unseen in the photo. “TAKING THE HIGH ROAD.” Another issue is turned to the sports page. Interview with some hockey guy. “STICKING TO THE ICE.”

“Wow, these are great.” 

“We have an amazing team. And I got to meet the national team a few months ago — they amaze me. I love the news.”

“Me too.”

“I knew you were just like me. So tell me about your experience.”

Having relied on the corporation and the procedure for the last five years, I actually have little to say. I did not lie on my resumé, although I can hear the voices of people smarter than me — my father, my college professors, my one friend in business with the indescribable upper-level director job — telling me that this was a bad idea. You must have done something — volunteering, freelance, anything that might fill the gap. As much as I hoped to have something more to my name, to have my artistry enshrined in some way worthy of documenting on this timeline of my life, buoyed by selling out in the biggest way, selling out my brain, I had nothing, not for the last two or three years anyway. 

I tell Rich about college — my degree in 2D art and graphic design. I tell him about the award I won sophomore year, a third place scholarship for $75 dollars from a local gallery. I tell him about a few cartoons I published for free in the college newspaper (he liked that a lot). He nods along while I tell him about the tables I waited during that time, about how it taught me to be “conscientious of the needs of each customer, understanding what they needed before they did” (what?) I tell him about the office job I held for one year after school, setting up conference rooms and ordering catering. About the few projects I had completed since the procedure — a couple of album covers and a few posters for comedy showcases. 

I actually want to describe to him the ins and outs of the procedure, the way that I sold my brain, my hearing, to a major company for stability after the office job laid me off. But, although I was cavalier with my NDA (a lawyer I once consulted on my contract told me when I signed it that it’s beyond reasonable expectation for me to completely hide a consciousness-altering medical intervention from everyone in my life, that they probably would not sue because it would just be too easy for me to claim that said intervention severely screwed with my consciousness in such a way that I didn’t understand that I was breaking my NDA, which, even though that’s not true, would open them up to all kinds of other liabilities they are trying desperately to avoid, and besides soon everyone will be having the procedure anyway…) I did not think it was appropriate to describe to this man, this man who loves physical media so much, who doesn’t even like make the physical media, just sells it, or leads a team of people who sell it, I guess I should say, I did not think it was appropriate to describe to this man during a job interview the ways in which I was paid, am going to be paid forever by a major corporation because I had a procedure done which allows me not only to hear all the music in this major corporation’s streaming library without headphones or device in hand, but also allows me to experience music outside of the parameters of time, to hear everything all at once in a moment, in the past, in the now, in a way that has completely changed my relationship to sound forever. I just don’t think he would like that. So I just hope he doesn’t ask about the three year gap where I did nothing but listen. 

Rich does not ask about the gap. Instead, he says great and asks if I want a tour. He walks me around. 

He shows me the kitchen. There is a small countertop, the plyboard kind with the stick-on picture of marble, peeling off — that is covered with a puddle of coffee. “Decaf side of this machine is totally wrecked.” He opens the fridge to show me, for some reason. It is just a regular fridge. “So tell me about a time you had to overcome an unexpected obstacle, how you had to deal with that.” 

Now I lie, because this is a question that you can only possibly answer with a lie. 

“There was one day at the Haulix office when the TV in the boardroom was broken, as they always seem to be…”

“Oh, I know all about that,” he says, although I have yet to see any kind of meeting room. 

“And IT being busy somewhere else, as they often are…”

“You are going to be right at home here.”

I go on to tell him about how I troubleshooted the TV until it was finally able to project the Q4 projections slide, even though I barely know what that could possibly mean. He nods along as he shows me the news side, although he does not introduce me to a single person, their cell phones ringing loudly all the while. He just raises his rocky voice over them.

“What are you looking for in an office environment!” 

“I want to be part of a family!” 

One of the journalists, I assume, speaks even louder over us and the ringtones, into a landline for some reason, old and beige. I think he’s conducting an interview. “WOULD THE MAYOR’S PLAN ADVERSELY IMPACT YOUR ABILITY TO HOST WEEKLY PUPPY MEET UP PARTIES AT NORTH SQUARE PARK!?” 

We leave the news area, thank god, and come back to his desk. I really wish I could answer questions for him in a more private place, could open up to him like a therapist, could place all my cards on the table and just tell most of the truth, how I’m just desperate for some stability, some regularity, some rhythm in my life, how I cannot seem to function properly without a 9 to 5 job to fuck off to during the day, how I am lost and lonely and sad and there’s no way that I can really explain to you how often these three gray blimps stalk my person all around this town, but I can’t do that while the sales team is just trying to do their job only a yard or two away, and anyway it wouldn’t really endear me much to him, I don’t think. He is asking me another question. 

“[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr]?” 

“I’m sorry, can you please repeat that?” 

“[blur]. [blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr]?” 

I raise my eyes. I cannot understand him, suddenly. I turn around and look at the sales team. They are all on the phone. I try to tune in to their conversations.

“[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” “[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” “[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” “[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” “[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” “[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” “[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” “[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” “[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” “[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” “[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” “[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” “[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” “[blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr].” 

It sounds like a crashing wave, a hundred clashing waves, actually, coming from each of them. I turn back to Rich. His eyes, sunken in, I’m just noticing are two different colors, green and blue. They look concerned. His face is scrunched up as he frowns and speaks. Each time, a hundred crashing waves, beyond static. Bats in a cave, screeching, one million of them. A billion bass guitars, deep and out of sync, holding no rhythm. And I swear I hear Frances Quinlan too, somewhere in there, in the cave with the bats, in the ocean with the waves, singing “how simple my heart can be,” that voice that is only theirs. I stand up, take one more look at Rich, who stands up, ghost white, reaching his hand across his desk to me. But the lines across the sky, usually floating out there just barely within reach, now come forward to crowd my vision. And I fall down; I black out, but I can still hear everything, all of it. I am one with all the sound, gorgeous and varied and unpredictable and loud. And terrifying to my bones. 

///

I’m on the floor. The red carpet is not soft, and I can see under the long table where the sales team takes their calls — turning black from the scrape of their shoes against the floor. This is not a view you usually get during a job interview. The chattering around me seems to have stopped, though the ringtones come and go. The sales team has risen from their seats to look at me, at last. They all seem to wear running shoes with tan slacks. 

“Give him some space, folks.” That deep voice. The running shoes stay put. I push myself up. 

“Oh my god…,” I grumble.

“Here, have a small sip of water.” Rich hands me the water bottle I didn’t want earlier. I do as he says. 

“I’m so sorry…I’m really sorry,” I say, between small sips. I register his face for the first time since coming to — he pushes up his lower lip and waves his hands. I look around. All these faces, looking down at me. I realize in an instant that this is more like what I imagined when I pictured this interview, a large group of people, examining me, questioning me from above. Most of them still have headsets on, the pincer-like speaker portion stuck up, away from their mouths, to indicate that they are not on a call, in this place instead of somewhere else over the air. 

“I’m sorry I interrupted your work. I can go.” I start to fold my legs so I can stand up. Rich guides me to his chair, which he has pulled around from behind his desk. It’s warm.

“No, just sit for a minute. It’s okay.” 

“Should we call an ambulance?” One of the sales reps asks, her long red nails reaching up to her pincer, clacking against the silver plastic. 

Rich seems to know what to do, what to ask. “Has this happened to you before? Is this normal?” 

For some reason, flustered in the moment, I lie. “Yes — I’m sorry, it’s been a while since it’s happened to me.”

“So you have a history of seizures?” I blink. Seizure?

“Seizure?” Another one of the reps asks. Thank god. 

Rich turns to them. “I had a niece who had a type of seizure disorder. Sometimes you could just tell that her brain had gone into a kind of shock, even if her body didn’t move. Sometimes she would do that and be fine, other times she would fall and pass out for a few seconds, like he just did.” The reps all nod along. 

I rise up out of the chair, even though I want to stay there in the warm place. “I think I should go. I feel fine now. I’m so sorry to have interrupted your work day.” 

“Do you have a safe way home? Let us call you a car.” I open my mouth but can’t think of anything to say to this. He leads me up to reception, back over the tiled part of the hallway. “Ruth — can you call this fellow a cab?” He sits me back down in the orange chair. Now that I’m facing back toward the hallway, I realize that much of the sales team has followed us down here, their headsets all pointing up toward the sky in a way I can’t help but feel is hopeful, reaching. 

“Thank you.” 

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll be in touch.” At this I am stunned. “Ruth, can you lead him out to the car when it gets here? And send me the receipt for expenses.” 

“Of course,” the woman with the tall hair stands up to reveal that she is quite short, possibly under five feet. She circles around the desk and comes to me, reaches out her hand. “Come with me.”

The woman put me in a car. Through the haze of it all, I get a feeling that I won’t be hearing from them again.

My name is Jordan Walsh, and I’m a writer based in Philadelphia. I Keep a Diary is a newsletter about music, books, and writing.