Whispers Through the Static

On the edge of town, after the streetlights have blinked out, I learned to listen for what the night wants to say through the old radio in the attic. The set creaks like a ship in a storm, and the static turns soft, then deliberate, as if someone is clearing their throat just beyond the glass.

At 2:49 a.m. the dial settles on a frequency that should not exist, and the voices begin—not radio voices, but something else, as if the air itself had decided to speak. The hum swells, and a thread of memory unravels: a message crosses the border between signal and sleep, slipping into the room as if mist learned how to speak.

• A grandmother pins a shawl to the radio, murmuring recipes for a dinner that never happened.
• A young man names the town's streets in the order that no longer leads anywhere.
• A child coughs once, twice, then asks for a lamp to be lit so the night may see again.

We are listening where you cannot hear us, listen when you think you are alone, and you will understand why the night remains patient with your fear.

The voices speak as if they know you better than your own reflection—calling you by borrowed memories, tracing your footsteps on the rug, measuring the weight of your breaths. I grip the chair until my knuckles pale, pretending to ignore them, but the room grows smaller around me, the clock ticking in a stubborn rhythm that seems to sync with a distant heartbeat on the other side of the dial.

Then the scent of rain arrives through the speaker, and the radio crackles into a doorway. The static thickens until the room feels colder than the window frame, and the voices begin to speak in a chorus that sounds like your own name recited by a hundred strangers. A hand—my hand—rises of its own accord and rests on the dial, turning it toward silence, toward a memory we cannot regain. Yet silence is never final here; it merely hides the next note until it slips through again, louder, closer.

When dawn finally thins the night, the radio falls silent. The attic holds its breath, and I, at last, find the courage to sweep the dust from the dial. The set glows warm with a final spark, a warning etched into the faint light: if you hear it again, don’t answer. The whispers become a memory that refuses to stay buried, a pact between night and voice, forever waiting for a signal.