Radio Waves

 I had just driven through one of the biggest snowstorms in the history of all Ohio. I remember it like it was yesterday, me, little old Wesley West slipping and sliding in my navy-blue Charger. To this day I have no clue how I made it into the Cleveland Radio station. I drove all the way from Youngstown Ohio. While walking into the station I noticed that the building that housed the station was in the middle of nowhere and there were some strange things going on in the studio. Signals were going in and out and headed into Black History month I knew racial tensions were pretty high, but on air you could talk about anything if that is where the topic lead you. I then heard screams coming from the elevator on my way to the restroom, it was a strange day. Realizing that I had no on-air routine before the show, I figured I'd better do something quick and that's when my phone rang. Ironically, I'd left Youngstown early in the storm and still managed to reach the station ahead of time. While hearing the voice on the other line it was my friend's ex-husband from when I used to live in a county called Columbiana. He laid it into me about some business that I'd done with his daughter and until this day I have no clue what I did wrong, but I had to end the conversation quickly because my time to go on air was running short. There I stood in the station; I had just got a divorce and my grandfather had just died, that's when I heard a blast of static and one of the engineers cursing. He quickly rushed from one hidden room to another to fix a jammed signal. It appears that he was pissed off because the show host before mine randomly didn't show up and they had to find a program to replace the dead air. I also noticed a chair literally sitting in the middle of a broken studio glass window. In the midst of the madness, I heard the program director had just fired one of the studio hands for masturbating allegations while in the studio. I also heard that the chair got thrown through the window because someone violated FCC rules and uploaded porn and foul language that played on the airwaves in an attempt to bring the station down. Apparently, the host who threw the chair got upset because he owed the station eighteen thousand dollars and they threatened to sue him if he didn't pay his bill. Headed into my studio booth, I had five minutes left before I went on the air, and I had no clue why there was a noose hanging from the ceiling of the studio across the hall. I thought it was some kind of subliminal message, but I was wrong, one of the engineers told me that they had a live taping of a rodeo exhibit earlier that day and it was actually a rope that was left behind for the host as a souvenir. I couldn't help but noticing them laughing due to the look on my face. Spooked or not, I still had to do a show. The engineer then kindly entered my booth and thanked me for coming in. I guess the radio business had been taking a huge hit and was literally fighting for its life to stay afloat and my show counted. After the conversation, in the midst of an influx of side drama that I'd been dealing with, it almost felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. That night I had to talk about literally everything that had been going on in the world through the radio waves. The lines were lighting up like crazy, and I wasn't getting paid a dime, I was feeding it all to the station. After the show, I gave my board operators some extra cash and soon realized that I too had to file for bankruptcy just to keep the radio tower up and the digital computer signals percolating. While in the food lines, dreaming of my next gig, I couldn't help but notice that even though I left that station, I didn't lose my audience. Some of them even found me and gave me a place to stay. I even got an offer from another station. I had no clue who was listening, but I guess when I thought my story didn't matter, I was wrong. In the end, we all thought the radio tower was falling, but we all picked it up together and kept the radio waves flowing. We talked about everything, and when there was nothing else to talk about, we made some stuff up. Our radio signal was so strong that aliens came down just to conversate on air with us. Spirits were literally in the studio, some from heaven and some from hell.  

Radio Waves.