Via some trick of the volume or the spacing of the speakers or maybe something more orchestrated in the order in which the audio is played, the many voices of ‘The Audiobook Library’ come together in a small space to form the generic murmur of a crowd. It’s uncanny and it sounds so much like the real thing that I find myself constantly looking over my shoulder, ready to brush into a person that isn’t there.
When I focus in, I hear snippets of several novels, none of which I immediately recognize. It’s been ages since I read a book for fun. Ages since I read a book that wasn’t the guide. I used to have a paperback or two floating around the dash. I used to have several CDs from the middle of ‘The Catcher in the Rye.’ I haven’t properly started that novel. I haven’t properly finished it. I remember exactly where one of the discs was scratched, the way the words would loop.
But that’s gone now, too.
‘The Audiobook Library’ is small and empty but it sounds the opposite. I pull out my phone and start to record.
‘It has to do with copyright- that’s why the audiobooks can’t be properly checked-out or listened to individually. That’s why they’re all playing all the time. Does this make ‘The Audiobook Library’ something of a wash in terms of community resources?
Probably.
There are some rumors that the literary cacophony sometimes syncs, however, and reveal something else. The works coalesce into something new and beautiful.
This may well be a ploy on the part of ‘The Audiobook Library’ itself, which offers a steep lifetime membership and likely only sells a few.’
I try to play it in the trailer once I find my stride on the highway again but the recording doesn’t carry the weight of the lived experience. It was a stupid experiment, but a while has passed since I’ve been around a group of normal people and I thought it might help.
-traveler
