sent from: London, UK. destination: Culver City, California, USA

There was a town ahead, a town she knew only from the signs. It was the kind of place that might have a store that still sold cassettes, and cassette players.
It had taken 3 days on the road, pushing at the old buttons, to extract the jammed unlabelled tape from the unyielding player. It reminded her of the trip she’d taken 20 years before, a roadtrip that cemented her friendships and a trip they swore to repeat and never did. The car was so noisy, she wondered if she’d even be able to hear anything. The store owner looked at her as though they sold tape players all day long every day, registering no surprise. 40 bucks, they said. It must have been 20 for the player and 20 for the dust, she thought. Is it loud? she asked. I need it to be loud. The owner shrugged, sure. She grabbed it and returned to her car. She put in the tape and hit play. For a moment she thought it would break from the tension, but it began to turn, warbling to life. She smiled and turned up the volume, almost to distortion.