bliumchik | Original Fiction: Radio Diaries

Title: Radio diaries
Wordcount: 520
Notes: I wrote this for the application portfolio to QUT back when I was seriously considering moving to Brisbane. The prompt was in fact "Radio Diaries." It was evidently good enough to get in but I don't think it's good enough to try a paying market so I'm posting it here instead. PS Necrotic Tissue is publishing another of mine under my real name next issue, a drabble ^^

Radio Diaries

Evan would’ve said I had better things to do than fiddle with this old machine, but what does he know, what does a dead guy know, anyway? It’s been. Maybe three weeks, maybe four, god I don’t know. It’s dark. Is anybody listening to this? He used to spend the days making game plans, hundreds of them, all over the walls in permanent marker till he ran out of ink, then with his jack knife till he ran out of wall, then just talking, pacing and talking all day long – this is how we break out of the bunker, this is what we do if the Geiger readings are low enough, this is how we get back to the city, this route has the best odds of finding more supplies. This is what we do if there are people there, Danny. This is what we do if they aren’t, anymore. This is what we do if they’re violent. This is what we do if there are kids to protect.

He never said, this is what you do if you can’t take it anymore. This is what you do if you run out of food. This is what you do if I’m caught in a rockslide and I break my spine in three different places, Danny, this is how you do it without me. I guess I could dig out the drill he was using, but I’d only bring the roof down again, it can’t possibly be stable. Sometimes I think it would be worth it to see daylight, bleeding there in the fresh air above Evan’s body.

The first few days while he made endless inventory lists I sat here and listened, turning the frequency knob first at a steady pace, then haphazardly, like I was going to catch someone out, furtively transmitting good news. Sometimes I heard voices in the static, got all excited, but they never lasted long. This one guy, he came in at oh six oh five every morning, military sort, probably his scheduled rendezvous. Delta eagle to base, code blue, code blue, delta eagle to base, do you read me? Do you read me? Over and over and over until one day he started coughing and coughing and I don’t think the place he was had any water, you know? That was the last day we heard him.

I guess I’m kind of him now – there could be a hundred Danny-and-Evans out there with broken radios and I’d never know. It used to drive me crazy, the broken transmitter, I used to spend hours trying to fix it. Evan got so mad. There’s no use talking to someone when you can’t get to them, he shouted, when you can’t join forces it’s just talk and there’s no time for talk, Danny, nobody’s coming for us, Danny! It’s just us. Just… us.

It’s just me. God, that’s the worst thing, here in the dark it’s like I’m the only person left in the whole world and maybe… maybe I am, you know? Maybe I am.

Is anyone listening to this?