Doppler Defect

It is a moving babel or snippets of phatic detail here and

there and gone, all announced as loud and quick as they

disappear. Mainly at weekends – in the quiet of what we

imagine these to be – the cyclists come and go with their

shared conversations like TV announcers on our auto-

alfresco screens. We have not turned them on but they

come and go in this Doppler reception as emphatic as the

overhead planes, and the narrative excludes as much as it

intrudes because like those flights, the journey begun must

continue and we are occasional passengers. For that moment.

Once more alone we do not care about what’s said could mean.

Talkers are far up the road with earnest continuing and new

if forced eavesdroppers picking up more deception - stories

quickly faded at their moving away to allow our full neglect.