AN AGE BEYOND RADIOS

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN is playing way too loud because I am in the shower and it is on the radio. Not everyone wants to hear of a stairway to heaven at seven o’clock in the morning, and I imagine cranky Edna down the hall don’t want to hear a story about a lady who is told all that glitters is gold. But none of this worries me as much as what import this little piece of paper in my hands will have should it survive five hundred years and be read by someone who doesn’t know know the sassy frill tight jeans of Robert Plant and the double-neck Merlot-red guitars of Jimmy Page. How can I possibly explain that in an age beyond radios? Worse yet, what if ‘heaven’ is no longer a word in our sure-to-be post-apocalyptic utopia? Perhaps heaven exists beyond the words we assign to designate it as such. Perhaps in a generation far away, words will merge their meanings, and there will be only one word left, and it will play constantly on the radio. Yes, there will be those. And they will play the word, and also, be the word. And the word will be heaven. With only one word left, there won’t any choice in the matter. Who do you thank? You have no choice. You thank heaven for that.