Much of what I remember from childhood is rendered in the aspect ratio of an Oldsmobile's windshield and soundtracked by the scanning AM dial. Whole days crossing landscapes of umber, ocher, sage. Wincing against the glare of a cloudless cornflower sky. Hog reports and local news and talk radio before talk radio went batshit. Distance signs reading Socorro 125 miles, Roswell 249 miles, Las Cruces In Your Next Life. Pine log telephone poles precariously atilt. A spiral of vultures, a whorl of sand rising from the earth like a genie. The rare thrill of passing through a tumbleweed stampede. And then sometimes music, music broadcast from the far side of the moon and received through dashboard holes barely bigger than a rotary phone's, songs blurring as often as not into static or some other distant station's drifting signal. You will know, on a drive from Cline's Corners to Carlsbad, the kind of tedium that tends toward the transcendental.

Time Keeps On Slipping

Former DJ now mixing for the fun of it. Profile photo courtesy of Stacey Conant. Header illustration by Dan Namingha.

Time Keeps On Slipping

Josh Wilkinson