Trembling With Fear 2-23-25

Dead Air, by Erik Keevan

I love the way music sounds through a radio.

Most people listen to music on Spotify, or Apple music, or one of the other innumerable streaming services. Hell, there’s a chance you’re on one of them right now. But for my money, the radio is the only way. There’s a freedom to sliding through the channels, honing in on a signal sent out by another human, a companionship across air waves.

Last night was no different, my legs curled beneath me in the corner of the couch, listening intently to the short bursts of fuzzy music between the dead channels as I slid the knob left and right. I passed the big local channels- 101.1, 104.3, 100.8… corporate stations that didn’t give me what I needed. I was looking for something smaller, more intimate. Something in which I could find myself. 

I stayed my search when I hit 95.3, startled into stillness by a strange tone droning from the speaker. Continuous, unbroken in a way no instrument could be. Periodically, the pitch would change- sometimes up, sometimes back down. But no matter the pitch, the sound continued unbroken. 

I sat wrapped in the mystery of what that tone could be. It wasn’t music, there was no sense of melody or pattern and it went on longer than even the most devoted drone musician would dare. Was it some form of communication? Maybe a test signal? Or maybe someone just unplugged the wrong cable and this was all that was coming through?

The questions were enough to entrance me, and I listened for hours, expecting something to change, some small clue to indicate what this alien tone was. But as the hours drew on, it became evident that the channel wasn’t going to give away its secrets.

So I googled it. I didn’t see any other way to solve this mystery, and I was too invested to just let it go. I figured with all the chat rooms and forums out there dedicated to radio, someone else must have stumbled upon this phantom channel. 

But a search for 95.3 only brought up a single post from an audiophile forum called ThroughTheAir—someone who, like me, had asked if anyone knew where the cryptic tone originated. But beneath the question there was just vacant white space instead of the answers I sought.

I checked the time stamp on the question—May 17th, 2017. Years had gone by without a single response, years without a solution to this riddle. Radio silence. I chuckled at the irony. 

The droning continued, white noise filling my living room while I clicked on the user hyperlink on the question- ODOPhil. I was greeted with years of content, the questions and discussion threads of an active participant on the forum. 

I read a few of the discussion threads- ODOPhil was a fan of the smaller stations, those indie and pirate radio stations that I, too, frequented. He loved catching the signals bleeding in from Mexico and Canada on clear nights, loved those early morning college radio hours. I found a kindred soul reflected, another searching for connection on the static frequencies.

But that all ended May 17th, 2017. The cryptic question about 95.3 was his last unanswered scream into the void, his last contribution to the lost art of radio. What had happened to ODOPhil? Had he moved on to other hobbies, other forums? Seemed unlikely, given how active he had been in the years leading up to it. Had he gotten sick, died? Did he ever find his answer to what lay at the other end of the signal?

“Erik….”

I almost shed my skin as the sweetly static voice whispered my name. Gooseflesh ran up my spine as I slowly turned toward the radio, no longer white noise, now pulling my full attention. But there was no voice, not even a static crackle. Just the continuous drone throbbing around me.

Maybe I had imagined it. Part of me wanted to believe that- well, all of me WANTED to believe that. But another part knew I hadn’t, knew for the first time that night there had been a change in the contents of the broadcast. Someone, somewhere, had spoken, had addressed me directly. Or some other Erik, a cosmic coincidence. It’s a common enough name. 

Somehow I knew that wasn’t it.

My heart thrummed in my ears, weaving the drone into a hymn of panic. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The room listened. 

I stood and walked to the dingy kitchen beyond my living room. A beer was what I needed. Something to hold, something to help me calm my now frayed nerves. 

The can cracked with a hiss as I pulled the tab, and I relished the sound. Something besides that monotonous hum that now felt like a weight around my neck, no longer the quirky mystery it was earlier. 

I replayed that static word in my mind. Had it been addressing me? How could someone know I was listening from the other side of the broadcast? They couldn’t, that was one of the joys of radio, the anonymity. Was I just blowing it out of proportion and it was some strange fluke? Like ODOPhil, my questions went unanswered.

I returned to the couch, apprehension dripping down my neck. My heart rate returned to normal now that I had anchored myself with the chill of the can. I contemplated it as I collapsed onto the couch. The radio continued to drone.

I should have turned it off. I know that. But for every part of me that wanted to never hear that repetitive tone again, another part was invested in finding out what was on the other end. I was an explorer on the edge of discovery, and discovery walked hand in hand with fear.

I sipped my beer slowly. It gave me something to keep my mind from catastrophizing. Another search for phantom droning stations came back with more results- the usual theories about number stations and signal hijackings. All things I’ve read before. But nothing about Channel 95.3. 

I decided the only way to answer my question would be to reach out directly to the FCC. They’d have to know who was operating this channel. Maybe they’d respond if I asked nicely.

It was something, at least.

As I began to draft the email, though, the tone changed. It was no longer the long, drawn out note- now a quick staccato of rapid beeps and clicks, sudden pitch changes against harsh static. I set my beer down and looked at the radio, as if my eyes could help me hear it better. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped, dropping to dead air. 

The silence was deafening. Worse than the unbroken sound had ever been. My ears rang in the wake of the invasive barrage, a shrill phantom in my ear. 

Then a soft whisper, dripping with static, snaked through the speaker, little more than auditory scratching. I couldn’t make out what it was saying, or even what language it was speaking. It followed patterns of speech- hesitations, pauses, repetition…but I couldn’t even begin to place it. 

I dropped to my knees and put my ear against the speaker and cranked the volume. Louder, the voice was no more audible, rather the idea of words than actual language. Radio fuzz clung to the voice like wet cement. Whatever the person on the other side was trying to tell me, or tell someone, was lost to the abyss of the signal.

After a few moments of this the tone began again, beneath the crackling speech. It was almost melodic, mixing with the ebb and flow of the feedback. It was soothing, a static lullaby, and it pulled me in. Little by little I lost myself to the sound. Kneeling on the floor, rocking slightly back and forth, my eyes glassed over as I slowly became one with the signal.

And then suddenly I wasn’t. Not just not sitting on the floor, I just entirely ceased to be. I no longer felt the air on my skin, or the weight of my body. I opened my mouth to scream but only popping radio fuzz spilled out. 

All I could do was exist and feel the droning around me. It was my body, my air, my earth… my everything.

I hope that you can hear me. Please, hear me, and help me. I am here. I am still here. And whatever is in my body isn’t me. It’s just wearing my skin while I exist here in this non-space. And I can’t escape on my own. Please, please help me.

But even as I say the words, I know they come out only as a whisper, and too thick with static for you to make out. 

But what else is there to do but scream into this endless abyss?