Stephen Mejias

He hates being this close to so many people. "I hate being this close to so many people." He prefers loudspeakers. "I prefer loudspeakers." He thinks to himself as he suffers the hot and crowded PATH train morning, clinging to a large box marked "Arro." Arro. He reads over the short man's shoulder:

'"I want... to feel... PAIN,' said Harry."

Long before my apartment became home to high-end audio components — even before the wonderful Arcam Solo, even before the blog — I promised myself and the universe that I would never let my apartment become cluttered by boxes and cables and tubes and dust. I'd gone down into the belly of some audio dungeons, heard terrible tales of others — sixth-floor walk-ups on the wrong side of town, where roaches did the cockroach dance and floorboards bounced and sagged with doldrums and kickdrums — and, in short, I was afraid. The hobby could strangle a life, I knew, and I would not allow mine to be so suffocated. It doesn't have to be that way. The daily commute is bad enough.

And so, now, months later — more than a year, even — with boxes taking up space in the kitchen, living room, and bedroom, with cables peeking out from under the orange couch, with tubes rolling from bookshelves, with dust everywhere, and with the year coming to an end, he thinks it's time. "I think it's time."