Author chiming in now, if that's not too much of a
faux pas.
Thanks very much for the comments, both positive and otherwise. This tale appeared at SFReader.com in 2009, and I appreciate the opportunity to place it before a fresh audience. The story stands or falls on its own, of course, but might I spend a few minutes addressing some of the issues that have been raised?
A lot of people have been commenting on the narration. I think I can say, without causing offense to the gentleman, that his was not the voice I had in my head as I was writing, but that's certainly no crime. As for the delivery; well, I was thinking along the lines of a faster, more belligerent tone, instead of the more measured pace that we got, but that's just me, and you wouldn't want it sped up to the point of unintelligibility. What he lacked in belligerence, he made up in sarcasm; the sneers that came though on some of those lines were deliciously obnoxious. The telephone effects were brilliant; I assumed there would be a single peformer, and had honestly wondered how they were going to pull off all those conversations without being confusing. Kudos.
Except for one thing:
there is no /t/ sound in my last name. I made a point of telling (to my recollection) two different people at
Escape Pod that there's no /t/ sound, and sure enough, there it was. Ms. Lafferty got it right; even the synthesizer voice got it right. I made a point of mentioning it because people always put it there spontaneously; I'm not sure why. Perhaps my name contains a /t/ sound in the original German. I am not German. Some of my ancestors were German; that's their affair, not mine.
It's a petty point, but it's my only complaint, so there.
This really did sound like a radio show, although -- and maybe this is a Cleveland thing -- issues and sports don't usually coexist regularly on the same show. I would expect this Colavito guy to maybe be a morning host on a sports station, rather than an afternoon guy on a "straight talk" station. Also, and this is a REAL nitpick, there are very few local non-sports personalities on during middays -- it's all Boortz, Rush, Clark, Hannity.
You're very likely right; Cleveland is the only major city I've ever lived in, and I used it as my model. In Cleveland, the number one show in the afternoon is a local AM show that touches on all topics indiscriminately, including sports and politics. In fact, I was wondering if anyone from NE Ohio would weigh in and call me on it, but not so far. Clevelanders: an Escape Artists, Inc.
"No-Prize" to the first person to tell me whose radio style I
ripped off emulated for the character of Mike Colavito.
The ending, however, creates a bit of a problem. Yes the "sound" may erase memory but what about electronic memory? In this modern age of computers and terabyte hard drives, most radio shows are taped in case the station has to defend themselves from the FCC; for their fans as well so that they can listen on their MP3 players. All it'll take is someone plugging in to their RSS feed one morning and suddenly the secret's out.
Some others already anticipated my answer to this, which is: any recording would also have the memory-erasing sound. I honestly believe that anyone listening to this for the first time couldn't resist listening to the entire thing and thereby hearing the sound; and, thanks to that sound,
every time one listens to it is the first time...
Also, what about people who witnessed the jet trails but were not wiped? Not everyone listens to the radio or is on their mobile all the time. It's going to seem funny to them that this large group of people has no idea that there was ever anything flying over the lake.
Well, people who weren't listening to the radio don't need to be wiped; they didn't hear anything. As for the phenomenon itself, it needs no explanation; it looks like a bunch of jet trails, and such trails do occasionally converge in large groups by chance--an entirely mundane, if infrequent, circumstance. When it happens, absent some other explanation, most people would eventually chalk it up to that and forget about it, while a few
nuts outliers rant about UFOs and are roundly ignored, and all in all it's
somebody else's problem.
I also don't think airforce people would be stupid enough to call on-air; they must know that doing so would make panic worse rather than better.
Assuming that
was the Air Force...
Sure, there were plot holes (namely, why are these superpowerful aliens bothering to call into radio shows.)
Rule of Funny, mostly.
That's about all the time we have for today. Those of you who liked it: thanks, and I'm glad I could amuse you for a few minutes. Those of you who did not: also, thanks, and I'm sorry it wasn't what you wanted.
Cheers,
Desmond Warzel