I don't want to disturb you. It isn't that you are all so quiet that I can hear a pin drop. From a mountaintop; perhaps I could hear it from there. But you all share and share, not quietly, but incessantly. You are discussing the varia; too many to count topics.

"I bought the cutest sweater for Jubbs";
"She was sick tight and so stacked";
"I wish you hadn't/I wish you were here"

So I will not disturb you all. I walk a path trod by many, but the dust on the pouch says that those many came this way for something else. The dust wafts off of the plastic as I undo the zippered lock; the dust finds its way back to all the books who are presently crying, jealous of digital media. The media is smug, and intend to connect to it, uncaring of the books' sorrow. It isn't my fault that I don't need them; they have their dust and now I have my headphones. As I cast aside the bag which sealed this digital highway away from the dust, I find someone sealed inside with them.

Plastic has no memory, but foam does!

The stem and cord of the set do not recall her, whoever she was, but the earpieces carry the fragrance of a woman's freshly washed hair. Shampoo is one of those unsuspectingly seductive intoxicants. It ranks up there with Laundry Detergent, Bar Soap, Fabric Softener and Under-arm Deodorant. These five smells do more to me than a bottle of CK-whatever-number-we're-on.

I slide the jack into my computer with a sensual brutality. It fits so snugly I giggle inside. I sit there and smile, and block out your dogs and conquests and tragedies, so that I do not disturb you while I listen to Britney Spears.

Later that evening I realize that I used to use my mother's "girly smelling" shampoo when I ran out. I wonder what the guy who used the headphones before me was listening too.