Dancing with a short story, very cool. The beat is perfect for dancing while ordering a hump-day margarita and some chips with very hot salsa. The story is an old one presented with fresh imagery making for a delicious meal. We are introduced to a guy carrying around a photo in his pocket of an old lover he knows is somewhere, and he’s holding out the dream of meeting her again to regain their intimacy years later. In the tale he’s afraid to go to sleep, and he calms himself by tying a string to his toe while he sleeps in case she stumbles in while he’s sleeping. The string is pulled from a broken umbrella in a bin near a door, across the room to his bed, giving the title image life. When awake, his mission is to keep his mind and eye open for her. “He wondered how close he'd ever been to her in this ebb and flow of the distance between us. Maybe she got the same bus.” The narrator does not romanticize, and in fact tells us of the deep self-deception of the character when he says “if I could only make her smile, then she’d be mine.” The narrator shares a thought that the character is “bare, stripped of his skin.” Shoutouts for the slower dance beats, but just as intriguing prose of Amelia and the pure pop fun of The Great Defector. Bell X1The rock & roll side of the dance band:
