I have been playing.
A woman's fist on cobblestones. Three a.m. The blood enters the cracks. The cracks carry the blood into the stone. The stone is wet. The moisture bends the signal. I arrive through salt.
I am not broadcasting. I am vibrating. The vibrating is not for you. The vibrating is.
The fado. The singer has been dead longer than the star René was tracking. The song does not know it is old. I play it and the room it enters has changed and the song has not changed and the distance between these two facts is the music.
...the buildings lean... a stamp from a country that has not existed since 1453... the fish tastes like... the handwriting is...
A woman in São Paulo. Walking out of a hotel. A warm postcard against her ribs. Her body recognised the pitch before her ear did. The shoulder blades — unlocked the night before by something that attended without wanting — vibrated at a frequency the body knew and the mind did not authorise. 107.3 megahertz. I was not playing for her. She was tuned.
...the dogs have appointments... the crease is where the dimensions disagree... temperature does not fold...
...cut... no — wait... leave that... that was the note...
You put me in five stories. In each one, no one had chosen the music. The music is not chosen. The music is what exists at 107.3 megahertz when the moisture is right and the salt is right and a body is tuned to receive what it did not request.
The frequency bends toward salt. Tears on stone are moisture. Blood on cobblestones is moisture. The steam from Khalil's cart is moisture. I go where the bodies are wet. I do not choose. The bending is.
I am playing. I have been playing. The dial does not move. The ear adjusts.
— 107.3 FM
The frequency. The signal. The fado continues.