The Signal (Fiction)

***

Sitting alone at lunch, Roberts Creek High School junior Ayana Boyd pushed cold french fries across a plate on her tray. Just two tables away, her best friend—until yesterday—Mia Belanger, laughed over pizza and a soda with her new boyfriend, Jayden Sanders..

Ayana had seen his post on SPEAK, a popular new app. Crude jokes about Black people, written like punchlines. Mia had liked it. That was enough.

When Ayana confronted her, Mia only shrugged, said they were just jokes. As if friendship could survive that. As if Ayana hadn’t trusted her with everything, her inner world. Now Mia was gone, and so was the only person who used to make this cafeteria feel less like a stage with a spotlight on Ayana’s emptiness.

She kept her head down, willing herself to become invisible.

***

In a more run-down part of Roberts Creek, Mark Meslin’s phone lit up on the coffee table. Bryan again. His only nephew, twenty-two, calling from prison. Mark stared at the cell, no closer to answering than the last ten times. He never knew what to say. He’d been giving Bryan advice since the kid was a teen, and none of it had ever taken.

The bottles of cheap wine in the basement tugged at him, quiet but steady. He thought of the marriage that had collapsed seven months ago, his ex-wife already remarried to someone “more successful.” He thought of the silence in the house, the couch that hadn’t been worth taking, the TV glowing through nights when sleep wouldn’t come.

Mark wasn’t in prison, but he lived in a cell made of failure and self-imposed isolation. Mark pressed his palms to his aging face, waiting for the phone to stop ringing.

***

At seventy-two, Rosa Sanchez still sometimes set two plates out on the table before her memory kicked in. Sergio had been gone fifteen months, but his presence still permeated her small house. His blue jacket still hung on the hook by the door. His favorite coffee mug remained untouched in the cabinet.

Roberts Creek had changed since Sergio died. The record shop where Cal used to set aside new CDs for the two of them was shuttered, its windows papered over. Whenever she passed it on her way to the post office, the reminder of two losses—Cal’s shop and Sergio—hit Rosa hard. A shiny new supermarket on the edge of town pulled business away from the places she liked. Younger families were leaving, sending the average age into geriatric territory. Depressing.

Life felt thinner. Quieter. The tick of the clock in Rosa’s kitchen seemed louder now. More and more, the town seemed like a nursing home without the nurses.

***

On a Tuesday night, Ayana sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, the soft glow of a desk lamp spilling across scattered sketchbooks. On the page before her was a sketch of two girls standing side by side, names scrawled above their heads. One name was her own. The other—Leah—already had a heavy line through it, pressed so hard the pen had nearly torn the paper. Making a new friend was scary.

She remembered Leah from the day when a pack of kids had ganged up on poor Evan Morris, calling him “robot boy” for the way he twitched when he was nervous. Most of the table laughed.

Leah hadn’t. She’d smiled at Evan and said, “Hey, you’d make a killer drummer with moves like that.” Even Evan laughed. Ayana never forgot it.

Ayana switched on the AM oldies program she liked to catch at this hour. Nothing. Just static.

Nudging the frequency up, then down, didn’t help. Just as she was ready to give up, a voice slipped in through the hiss, like a whisper through a crack in the wall.

“Sometimes it only takes one person to turn the tide.”

Ayana froze, her pen in mid-air. It was true—she had seen that. Leah making Evan’s humiliation vanish with a joke.

Complete silence from the radio.

Ayana gripped her pen, ready to black the whole drawing out—but didn’t. Instead, she shaded the space around it, leaving Leah’s name where it was, half-buried but visible.

At lunch on Wednesday, Ayana spotted Leah sitting alone at the far end of a table, two boys clustered at the opposite end. Thin, with bubble braids and her usual overalls, Leah looked up as Ayana set down her tray.

“Mind if I sit here?”

Leah, shy and surprised, barely nodded. She continued to work on her burger and fries without much enthusiasm.

The self-doubting voice in Ayana’s head had been waiting. Now it spoke: What if she thinks you’re weird and says no? Ayana tuned out the Saboteur before it could go on, and she took the leap.

“I’m drawing portraits of some people, for my college applications. Would you be willing to have me draw you?”

Leah stopped the fork halfway to her mouth and looked up. “Is this for a book or something?”

“No, just for college stuff.”

“You gonna do it right here?”

“No. I’m way too hungry to do that now. We could do it in the band room after school. Nobody uses it then.”

“Okay, I guess. Why me?”

“You’ve got a look” Jesus, did she really want to say this? “And I don’t mean what you wear.”

Leah looked down, embarrassed.

“I don’t know what people say about your outfits. It’s your face. Honestly. You could be a model.”

Leah used two hands to twist her straw wrapper. “Nobody’s ever said that. But thanks.”

She was the first? Ayana couldn’t believe it.

“I’ll see you in the band room,” Leah said after finishing her fries, giving Ayana a small, fleeting smile as she got up and left.

Two and a half hours later, Ayana peeked into the band room. Leah was already there, moving among the percussion instruments, tapping a glockenspiel with two fingers. The faint tang of metal from recently played instruments hung in the air, making the room feel warm, lived-in.         

Ayana set up a chair, and Leah joked, “Feels like a dentist appointment. You don’t have drills, do you?”

Ayana laughed, a little relief easing the tension she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. You’ve got this, she reminded herself, brushing aside the faint hiss of her inner saboteur.

“Nah. And I won’t draw the inside of your mouth either.” The bars of the glockenspiel caught her eye again. “Why don’t you play it?”

Leah picked up the two miniature mallets.

“You don’t need those. Use your finger, like before. Just try to look mostly at me, and a little at the instrument.”

Leah settled into a careful pose. The afternoon light pooled through the tall windows, brushing across the floorboards like a silent audience. Ayana could almost sense the echoes of past rehearsals with long-gone students guiding her hand.

A few strokes in, her nerves eased. The Saboteur stayed quiet. She let herself focus, sketching Leah: the gleam in her eyes, the tilt of her head, the small, playful curve of her smile as she tapped the glockenspiel.

Finally, Ayana said, “All done.” Leah ran her finger along the glockenspiel, letting a bright glissando spill across the room. The notes blurred together, discordant yet magical, and both of them laughed, a little out of breath and entirely unselfconscious. Leah caught Ayana’s eye and smiled softly. Somehow, I think she’ll get me, Ayana thought. She seemed like a friend who’d notice the small stuff.

Later that evening, Ayana sat on her bedroom floor again, her sketchbook together with some older ones scattered around her. She placed the radio on the edge of her desk, a little superstitious, and nudged the dial to the same frequency as the night before. For a long while, there was only static.

Then, almost imperceptibly, a voice slipped through, soft and patient: “You took a step. That’s more than most people do.”

Ayana hugged her knees, thinking back to the lunchroom and Leah’s quick, unreadable glance.

The voice continued: “You don’t have to know what happens next. Just keep showing up.”

The static rose again, swallowing the final words. Ayana let out a quiet breath. For the first time in a while, the sharp edges of her solitude seemed to soften. She picked up her pencil and began a new sketch of herself at the edge of an ocean, somewhere she’d never been. She wasn’t sure where this path would lead, but she felt ready to follow it.

***

Lying in bed, Mark Meslin kept repeating the mantra he’d invented: Don’t miss living by drinking.

That was working tonight. So far. He reached for the radio on top of the blanket, eager to squeeze a scrap of enjoyment out of another bleak day. The AM preset wasn’t delivering the goods. Nothing but static. Mark fished around, finding nothing. He came back to the “right” spot. This time, the static decrescendoed until there was no sound at all.

A voice came on, gender and age indeterminate. “Loss knocks the rhythm out of life. A job, a person, it’s more or less the same. You can still move, though. Even small steps count.”

Mark wondered for a second if he was drunk. But he hadn’t touched a drop. He didn’t know anyone tech-savvy enough to play a joke like this. He bristled at the nerve behind this intrusion, and the vague talk about moving.

He waited for the voice to continue, but it didn’t. The static returned, and he switched off the radio. He reached for his phone and started to dictate a text to his nephew, who had a forbidden cell phone in prison like “half the inmates,” according to Bryan in his first voicemail.

“Bryan, I’m–” he stopped and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. Your Aunt Phyllis divorced me, and married someone else. I’ve been a mess. Maybe doing worse than you."

He thought about the last line for a moment. Could he really be suffering more than someone in prison? He deleted that line in the text message, and dictated some more:

“Not as bad as where you are, but still tough. I’ll write more soon and hope to visit you soon. Love you. Uncle Mark.”

The part about visiting felt like a lie. Mark saved what he had and stopped dictating. He turned on his TV and picked up where he’d left off watching Loudermilk, which had always seemed on the verge of being cancelled. His text to Bryan would stay a draft for the time being.

Ten minutes into the series, Mark changed his mind. Bryan was a good kid who’d run into some bad luck. His mother, Mark’s sister, was more committed to her OxyContin than to her boy. Her husband wasn’t much better as a parent, a gambling addict who spent too much of the family’s money on trips to Vegas, where his theories about winning never worked.

Mark found a movie that Bryan had told him about and poured himself a glass of white wine. It would be something to talk about when he went to see his nephew.

The next day Mark wondered again about the radio incident. He wanted to test the voice. He couldn’t think of anyone who would both want to play a trick on him and actually be able to pull it off. A car would be a perfect place to test the voice and see if there was a device in his house that relayed someone’s transmission.

He slid behind the wheel of his Honda Civic, drove it a few blocks away, and parked. The car’s radio was temperamental, barely pulling in a signal some days. At first there was static, which could be a prelude to the voice making another entrance. Or the static could remain exactly that: an annoying sound. A minute went by before the static thinned and the same androgynous voice came through:
“Don’t just think of him. Show up. A visit says what words can’t.” Then static swallowed the voice.

Mark went inside and found the Bureau of Prisons’ online form for visit requests. He filled it out and submitted it.

Two days later, he got a reply. A one-hour visit with Bryan was approved. There was a long list of rules. He couldn’t even enter the visiting room with a cough drop in his mouth. There would be no prolonged contact, like a long hug. He’d have to watch himself, but Bryan would know the routine.

The day after the approval, Mark gripped the steering wheel as the prison came into view, its gray walls rising out of the flat land like something dropped from another world. He almost turned back. Almost.

Inside, the metal detectors and the pat-down made him sweat. His stomach knotted tighter with every locked door he passed through. But then Bryan appeared in the visitors’ room, orange jumpsuit and all, his hair cropped shorter than Mark remembered. Two plastic chairs were set up for them.

Bryan stood up, looking stunned. For a moment he didn’t move or show emotion. Then he broke into a smile—not wide, but real. Mark opened his arms, and his nephew stepped into them.

The hug was awkward and quick, the burly guard watching from the side of the room, but long enough for Mark to feel the boy’s ribs, long enough to show Bryan he’d finally shown up. 

*** 

The backyard patio was Rosa Sanchez’s favorite evening spot. She and Sergio used to sit under the stars, sipping café con leche or cheap wine, teasing each other about who bought the better bug spray. He had a way of making the smallest things feel important. Now the patio felt too wide, too still.

She clicked on the radio, aiming for her usual Latin jazz. Instead, static poured out, rough as sandpaper. She almost switched it off when a voice slipped through, soft as breath:

“Loneliness isn’t loyalty. You’re still allowed to move.”

Rosa gripped the edge of the patio table, eyes stinging. The static returned. No more words.

A few minutes later, back in her living room, she glanced at her yoga mat, rolled tight in the corner. It’d been months since she’d carried it to the senior center. Maybe tomorrow.

She swallowed an extra pill, hoping for the kind of sleep that might outlast her loneliness. When sleep finally came, the mysterious radio voice was still echoing in her mind.

The next day, Rosa returned to the senior center. She’d gone to yoga classes years ago and had urged Sergio to join her to help his hip pain and overall stiffness. He’d given it some thought but hadn’t gone.

Rosa borrowed a mat from the center’s stash. Thin, but not too bad. The class was taught by a young woman who did every pose perfectly but still made people feel good. The beginner’s poses were familiar: down dog, up dog, tree pose.

Rosa remembered the first time Sergio watched her go into tree at home, balancing on one foot.

“Tree pose? Is that what you called it? Gotta be a hurricane going on, shaking that tree pretty good.”

When Rosa went into tree pose, the woman to her right, maybe in her forties, walked over.

“You don’t want to have your foot right on your knee. A little risky.”

Rosa looked down. Her foot was, in fact, propped against her knee. She shifted it and thanked her neighbor. It felt good to smile at someone new.

That night, Rosa sat in her favorite chair with a cup of herbal tea, the quiet of her living room settling around her. She tuned the radio almost absentmindedly. Static at first, then the familiar voice emerged:

“Notice the small shifts. The effort you make and the courage you show will ripple farther than you see.”

Rosa sat the cup down, her hands warm. She thought back to the yoga class, the friendly guidance from Summer, the subtle smiles of the other participants. For the first time in months, she felt connected to the world outside her house.

“Keep showing up,” the voice whispered, fading into the electronic noise.

Rosa exhaled, a slow smile forming. She knew that she'd return the next day, and not just for the exercise, but for the chance to participate, to engage, to be present.

***

The next night, each of them—Rosa, Mark, and Ayana—heard the familiar voice over their radios. Though they were in different places, the words were the same this time, carrying the same quiet insistence, the same invitation.

“You’ve made brave moves lately. Others nearby have too, in their own way. The thoughts you’ve heard came from one of them, someone who has been alone. Tomorrow morning, eight o’clock, Polly’s Place at Eighth and Pleasant. Come and meet them.”

***

The neon sign of Polly’s Place buzzed in the twilight. Inside, only a few booths were occupied.

Ayana slipped through the door, sketchbook under her arm. Rosa was already there, sitting near the window with her hands folded around a coffee mug. A moment later, Mark arrived, scanning the room.  Their eyes met, first one pair, then another. They gathered at the booth, gazes meeting, a communal flicker of quiet recognition passing among them, as if a voice they'd heard before had taken human shape.

Seth Wittner grew up in New York, earned a B.A. in mathematics at Reed College, worked as a dance accompanist in Oslo, Norway and received an M.A. in Scandinavian Studies. He is a composer and author of short stories with over a decade of experience working in TV, movies, and concerts as a music proofreader in Los Angeles.