{ AFTERNOON COCKTAIL }
“LISTENING” BY AMANDA ASHLEY I AARON WINTERS
With a little over an hour to kill, I reloaded my car with my music gear and headed to a neighborhood establishment up the road from my home to meet my partner for a late night appetizer and nightcap. Into the bar I walked, without a mask, and with a looming guilt as if I was doing something wrong. This had been the first evening I had spent out since all NYS Covid restrictions had been lifted. Plastic partitions, X’s on the tables, masks, were suddenly a thing of yesterday, as if everything before was like some weird, screwed up dream.
I remembered that I actually had what he was looking for in my purse, but was short on time as we were just about prepared to settle out and head back home to arrive on time for our babysitter. Out of the abyss, I retrieved my charging block from
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He then picked up the paper and pointed to the original cost of the hearing aid. He said “Just this ONE hearing aid costs THIS much.” I don’t recall the exact number, but it was just shy of $1300. He then flipped to the last page of his medical visit summary to reveal a far smaller number, closer to $300. Fortunately his medical insurance covered nearly a $1000 dollars of the original cost. He was both relieved and in disbelief.
It’s almost a surreal experience just for things to feel normal again. As odd as it feels, it feels really incredible to regain such simple, social liberties. At the bar we nestled, and put an order in with our bartender. As we were eating, an older gentleman slipped in the seat next to me. I overheard him asking the bartender for a charge for his phone. He stared down at his smartphone with a USB dangling from it’s port in disappointment. The charging block from the night before was missing, and he only had ten percent battery.
over his visit summary from U of R Medicine. He pointed to it and said “You wouldn’t believe this thing right here…”
I noticed his name at the top of the page, which read WALLACE, so I asked him “Do the people in your life ever refer to you as Wally?”
my purse and offered it to the older gentleman. He graciously accepted and we began conversing. In the middle of our conversation, he pulled out a brand new hearing aid and placed it before us. He slid
He told me everyone calls him Duke, and I introduced myself, and the two of us briefly continued to converse till our bill was paid and we parted ways. My encounter with Duke made me really think about hearing and the power of listening. Hearing and listening are often associated with
