At any given moment, somewhere in the world, The Eagles‘ seminal classic “Hotel California” is playing. Blaring from bar hall speakers. Stutteringly strummed on acoustic guitars in nervous basements. Rocked-out-to in the confines of gridlocked commutes. In and of itself this concept is intriguing. More to the point for our purposes, though, is a particular occurrence on this very day.
It was in the pit of Harvard Square’s T-stop at exactly 3:22 pm on Monday the first of May when our hero heard his daily iteration. Stranger than most, the familiar twangs and pauses were emanatingon this afternoon from a recently emerged Boston institution: Rambling Dan’s One-Man-Band.
Dan’s version was neither faithful to the original nor a singularly creative version of his own. For our hero, though, Dan’s slightly sharp rendition brought to bare an internal struggle whose grip was firmly wrapped around the reins of his story.
To remember or to forget; that was the normally unconscious quarry our hero had managed until this very moment to suppress. It was in this way that our hero resolved to go dancing. A good sweat, he thought, should show him the way, even if it were only a glimmering light.
How humiliating for our hero to admit that as an ambition.
Let’s join him in the very moment where that ambition gave way, and a torrent of inextricably linked events were set in motion; the moment when our hero relaxed and somehow found passage forward.
This is part one of Random Antonym’s Sunday Story Snippets series.
This sauce is really thick. Next time I think I’ll add another can of tomatoes and adjust the seasoning accordingly. Or maybe just add some pasta water to the sauce to thin it out a little. We made the full batch of sauce, then set half of it aside to freeze. We stirred in 1 lb. of spaghetti and have a ton of that leftover. I’m excited to eat every bit of it.
