Thursday, May 9, 2019

The Doors Are Closing

Her voice is perfect. Pleasing timbre with undertones of sincerely caring about your comfort and safety. "The doors are closing." A definitive statement of fact letting us know we are prepared for action.  "The train departing." She puts a slight up-rise inflection after the "ing" in "departing" that suggests we are about to share an exciting adventure and then she says with quiet urgency, "Please hold on." There is an accent mark in tone over the word, "on."

"The doors are closing.  The train departing.  Please hold on."

Whatever Max train you're on you will hear her (I think her name is Monique) repeat these three sentences at every station and it never becomes annoying. Not like those songs the Good Humor Man assaults us with every summer. Monique's calm message is an almost musical reassurance that we are moving out and we are going to get there.  Safe and sound.

I'm tempted to investigate how to find Monique so that I might retain her to record the words I will compose.

Everyone forgets things from time to time, Bill.  Just forget it.

It is OK to eat lots of ice cream because you can balance it by not eating lots of kale.

Being a bit older will only save you the annoyance of people stopping you on the street thinking you are George Clooney and asking for autographs.

Maybe I'll hop on the Blue Line to Gresham and give this some thought.


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