Log 0039: Left On

TRANSMISSION LOG 0039
ORIGIN: Tamsin Ridge Deep Archive / Bell Array
TARGET: LANTERN (adjacent fold, designation L-1)
LOCAL DATE: 2193.01.11 / 22:30
SIGNAL INTEGRITY: 94.6%
ENCODING: DEAD TEXT v4 (archival flat)

The plates were dark all evening. Nothing has come in, so Marek is at the long table behind me while I write this. He asked to be. They're amber now only because I'm keying.

After supper I wrote him a card. I wrote it in capitals, without a question mark, because it was his question before it was mine. He asked it of me through the gate slot in December, and I gave him an answer I've been turning over ever since.

HAVE YOU EVER TOLD ANYONE THE WHOLE OF IT.

He read it and set it face down on the oak. Then he took out his own cards and wrote for an hour. I sat at the console with my back to him and didn't turn around. I could hear the pen. He presses so hard you can hear every stroke from across the room.

At a little past ten he got up and put a card on the desk beside my hand, with one more on top of it.

PUT IT IN. THE WHOLE OF IT.

So I am. This is his, exactly as he wrote it, line for line, except for one thing, which I'll come to.

THE FOURTH OF OCTOBER. THE FIRST NIGHT.

I CAME HOME AFTER DARK. I HAD HEARD IT ON THE WAY. FROM OPEN WINDOWS. ALL THE WAY UP OUR STREET.

THE HOUSE WAS QUIET EXCEPT FOR THEIR ROOM.

THE RADIO WAS ON IN THEIR ROOM. THE SMALL ONE. IT WAS ON THE SHELF BETWEEN THE BEDS.

I STOOD IN THE DOOR. THEY WERE SITTING UP IN BED. BOTH OF THEM. THEY WERE SINGING WITH IT. IN TIME. THEY DID NOT LOOK AT ME.

THE SWITCH WAS ON THE TOP. I COULD SEE IT FROM THE DOOR. FOUR STEPS.

I SHOULD HAVE TURNED IT OFF.

I LEFT IT ON.

I SHUT THE DOOR.

I SAT IN THE KITCHEN WITH MY HANDS OVER MY EARS UNTIL IT WAS LIGHT.

IN THE MORNING THEIR DOOR WAS OPEN. THE BEDS WERE MADE. THEY HAD NEVER MADE THEIR BEDS.

THE RADIO WAS STILL ON. I TURNED IT OFF THEN.

LATER I WROTE IT FOR THE BULLETIN. A RADIO IN THE CHILDREN'S ROOM. SOMEBODY LEFT IT ON.

I WROTE SOMEBODY IN THE BULLETIN BECAUSE I COULD NOT WRITE I.

THAT IS THE WHOLE OF IT.

That's the card.

The one thing is their names. I've read them, here at the console, and I'm not putting them in. They're his. He wrote them for me.

left it on left it on

That came up through the boards from the hairpin a minute ago, as I finished the last line of his. It was faint and it was brief. His ears are plugged. He didn't lift his head. I'm not going to tell him.

In October I wrote to you that from where Marek Sol stands, I'm the radio left on. I meant it as a kind of fairness to him. I was standing in my own place and trying to see his.

I didn't know he'd been standing where I stand.

When I'd copied the last line, I turned in the chair and showed him the page. Not the words. He won't read them, and I didn't ask him to. I held it up so he could see it was full, and he looked at it from across the table the way you look at a door you've just come through. Then he wrote one more card and slid it over.

I SAID YOU WERE DOING IT AGAIN. I KNEW THE SHAPE OF IT.

He did say it. I didn't argue with him that night. I argued with him to you, and gave you all my reasons. I'm leaving them where they are. I only want it on the record that he said it to me as a man who knew.

He asked me to put it in, Listener. So it's yours too. Be careful with it.

That's the word I wrote. It stays.

He's still at the table. His hands are flat on the oak, one on each side of the cards, the way you'd hold a page down in wind. For a long time he's been looking past me, at the end of the desk, where the small radio sits with its back to the room, the way I turned it. Its dial faces the wall. It's on. It's always on now.

He wrote a card, and stood, and brought it over.

MAY I TURN IT OFF.

I wrote my answer under his, not in capitals. I didn't want it to look like a rule.

No.

He read it and nodded once and went back to his chair. He didn't ask why.

I'm the one who keeps it on.

END LOG 0039 // DO NOT REPLY