brettworks

We were watching a short-form video on the phone.
A handsome pilot sits in the cockpit of a commercial jet,
explaining all the technologies that make flying safe.
The tone of his voice is confident and calm,
his ideas make reassuring sense.

But something’s off.
The pilot’s in a cockpit, but his voice is somewhere else–
in a hallway maybe, or a small gymnasium.
How does the voice have a long reverb tail in a cramped area
that would deaden sound, not add resonance to it?

I lean in for a closer listen.
Even through the phone’s tiny speaker,
sounds betray our actual dimensions:
the pilot’s voice is in an acoustically impossible space.

“The sound’s wrong” I said.
“He’s not real.”