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Before I left the house that morning I typed something into the search bar.
SWORTH XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXXXX
I don't know why I typed it. I still don't. I didn't think about it again for a long time.
I got in the car and headed south on 280.
I put on a song I'd heard maybe a thousand times. "Two Headed Boy". I'd loved it for years. It was a familiar thing. A safe thing.
But that morning it wasn't the same song.
I felt it first. Then I saw it. I know how that sounds. I'm telling you anyway.
The song vibrated in wavelengths I could distinguish individually — each instrument, each frequency, each overtone becoming something geometric. Almost conscious. The sounds formed shapes I don't have names for. Pyramids. Polygons. Polyhedrons. Things that don't exist in any textbook I ever learned from.
In that space — inside the car, inside the song, inside a few minutes of morning traffic on a California freeway — I could stretch time. I slowed it down and walked around inside it. I stayed there longer than the song lasted. Much longer. I learned things in that stretched time that moved so differently.
I know how that sounds.
I arrived at school. I parked the car. I sat there for a moment before going in.
Something had shifted. I didn't have a word for it yet.
The world had gone from AM to FM and I was the only one who seemed to notice.
I taught five classes that day. I graded papers. I went to a staff meeting. I drove home, but I heard the different frequencies. They pulled at me and called to me.
After the drive home, I went to my computer and typed another search or words I shouldn't repeat.
XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX
That one I remember clearly. That one matters. But it comes later.
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