Seek, and ye may not find

An unfinished dialogue

"Doc, they just won't let me forget her!"

"Who won't?"

"They. All those radio stations!"

"Why would they be after you?"

"I don't know, Doc. I just don't know. But they keep playing that song over and over and
over again!"

"What song?"

"That James Blunt song. You know, the one I told you about. It's driving me completely crazy!"

"You're beautiful etc? And so and so forth?"

"Yeah. That's it. That's the one! Wherever I go, whenever I switch on the radio. It's playing. It's playing everywhere, all the time!"

"So ignore it."

"How can I, Doc. I'm going about minding my own business, they play it. I'm at a coffee shop quietly examining my coffee, they'll play it. I'm bothering no one at a park and there they go playing it. I'm in my room doing whatever I'm doing and they ambush me with it. I tell you, I just can't get away from it!"

"So what d'you intend to do then?"

"Well, that's why I'm here! Right? Because it kept reminding me of that Charlotte Church song."

"What, yet another song!"

"The one where she says something like, you're driving me to insanity…I need professional help. So I'd to come to you."

"OK, now that you're here, I say you get it out of your system."

"Easier said than done, Doc, as you must be knowing. In fact, like in Church's song, I'm like a whacked-out kid now."

"Have you ever analyzed the lyrics?"

"Of Church's song?"

"No. Of Blunt's song. Aside from some of the lines most of it is pretty trite. If you dissected it maybe it wouldn't bother you so."

"Doc, d'you dissect a flower? D'you analyze a thing of beauty? Are you nuts. You just enjoy it. You appreciate it—or her, as the case maybe. Sometimes maybe you even worship it. Like I do her. Well, almost."

"If you don't try to ignore the song, if you won't forget it or her, what do you want to do then?"

"That's why I'm here. Need I remind you?"

"So what should be the next step. You tell me."

"You know, Doc, I'd once thought Dido had me in her grips. But now I see, no, now I know, Dido was nothing compared to her. When I'm with her, like Satchmo, I think to myself what a wonderful world this is."

"Wake up and smell the coffee. How about recalling what's at the end of Blunt's song, a song that seems to have driven you crazy."

"What's that Doc? I was in another, in a wonderful, as you may well understand."

"Blunt ends by saying it's time to face the truth that he and the woman he saw on the Subway will never be together. That's the reality you're better off facing."

"Maybe you're right after all. That's why I'm now thinking of the REM song. Remember the one that declares, 'Everybody cries sometime.'"

"Not another song!"

"Yes, Doc, another song, certainly another song. Because the yearning goes on and on and on…and the heart aches."

(The author is executive director, news & public affairs, of bdnews24.com)