I first wrote this story in 1990 to explore the way real life and the radio broadcasts sometimes sync up. It deals with two of my favorite topics, technology and synchronicity. My short story professor in grad school said no one would ever publish this story because it was too abstract and the characters had no names. I was trying for a psychological everyman story, but he didn't get it. Later the story was published by an English Language Magazine in Japan called Printed Matter. So it just goes to show how much your professors know.... I even got some fan mail from Japan. One guy said it was amazing how well I knew the Japanese male Psyche. I have never been to Japan. Any way, hope you enjoy it.
Radio Personality
He flipped the sterile page of another day and was pleased to notice an inscription in thin red ink on today's calendar page. A rush of suppressed memory came flooding in, to infuse what he had expected to be another ordinary day with exquisite anticipation. Today he would sample the new radio station. The red ink told him so.
The station was not strictly speaking new; it had begun broadcasting exactly one year ago today. But knowing the true importance of the magic called radio he had made a conscious decision not to tune-in this new station during its first year. Virgin stations were not to be trusted. During the first year things would be wound too tight; programming would be designed only to convert masses of new, unaware listeners. The broadcasting personnel and the machines they served would be new at their jobs, unused to working together. The red notation on his calendar, recorded by his own hand one year ago, proclaimed that it was now safe to sample the waters of this untried station.
With false calmness, he flicked the familiar power switch on the stereo receiver. As the power hummed through the cold circuits, he was twisting the dial, sending the glowing green band-indicator gliding across the face of the radio like a canoe skimming the surface of an unexplored lake.
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Credits: Words and Images by Jay Larsen
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