The Radio Station

I looked at the dial, the needle was flat against the left side, at the low end of the FM spectrum, right after the FM/AM switch. I cranked it, passed stations before 88 came into focus, Radio Odessa. <br><br>The thunderstorm outside drowned out most of the static, but I still heard a voice, a faint Russian voice, crackling in from who knows where. “Welcome, comrade, Radio Odessa, broadcasting from the shores of the Black Sea.” It sounded like they were warming up for an older crowd, or something from a past decade, it certainly wasn’t current. I moved on with the dial, moving clockwise. <br><br><br><br>I already knew the schedule from listening to it for the past two hours. I was in such a haze, I don’t remember when I started listening to it in the first place, I just thought of it and cranked it like I remembered how to. It was a beautiful old box radio, with a green, rounded dial - probably from the sixties. I pulled the tuning dial left and right, the needle moved across the dial, going through all of the stations. <br><br><br><br>99.5, the country station, 91.7, the classic rock. This was a new one, I didn’t know it was still in business. I had been moving clockwise, so I went counterclockwise this time, back to 91.1, the legends station. <br><br>I thought of the road I was on, how it was unlikely I would make it to where I was going. I had no idea where I was supposed to go in the first place, nor the route I had taken to get here. I only knew I had to keep driving. <br><br><br><br>I had to keep driving. <br><br><br><br>I passed 91.3 while continuing counterclockwise, it was nothing, a blank station in between the crackle of static. Like nothing was there. I moved a little further and noise came into focus, I heard a faint voice, “Welcome, comrade, Radio Odessa, broadcasting from the shores of the Black Sea.” I moved further left, the needle moving past the FM/AM switch. 1070 was a news station, always was. <br><br><br><br>I didn’t like these stations much, the music wasn’t bad, it was the voices, always talking. I thought of the lady with the static voice on the radio in my old car, she was bad too. I don’t remember listening to that car radio much, but I had a deep dislike for the voice on there. She sounded so panicked, so panicked she had to warn me about thunderstorms in the middle of winter. <br><br><br><br>I was in one now, the rain pounded at the black steel walls around me. The car shook and rattled, like it would fall apart at any moment. <br><br><br><br>I cranked the dial back to 88, I was comfortable there. The Odessa voice had changed, it sounded Russian, like I had heard before, from the Red Alert video game. This wasn’t the radio voice of a video game, but it sounded like it. <br><br><br><br>I only remember the sentence fragments, as it was crackling, and it was in Russian.