Instrumental Loop
By Jason Ruiter

 

At work, it’s YouTube. Some endless instrumental loop. Or a foray, maybe, into Chopin. Wagner. Mozart. And when I get home, she’s itching: nine to five, she does, at the guest room office desk—then right to grad school. “Give me a break!” I say. “I’m so tired. I didn’t sleep well last night. What’s for dinner?” She never gives up on that righteous and eternal work. Popping the bubble. And so we are laying down in bed now. Exhausted. Night is here. I close my eyes, but my ears open. And what I hear are trumpets. What I hear are violins. What I hear is Mozart.

 

Jason Ruiter from U.S. is a former journalist who has been published in the Washington Post, Politico and the Orlando Sentinel. He writes fiction in his spare time.