The Relay Tower Shift
(A transmission from the edge of the flatlands.)
The thing about night shifts out here is the silence.
It's not real silence — it has texture.
Out on the flat plains, the world hums in layers:
the high buzz of insects near the floodlights,
the low moan of wind moving through tall grass,
and under that, a sound so faint it almost feels imagined —
the steady vibration of the relay tower itself,
singing to no one.
I've been working the tower since early 2004.
It's just called Station 19-B, though the paint on the sign has mostly peeled away.
It sits between two forgotten towns — one named San Alejo, the other… I never learned.
Nobody drives this far unless they're lost.
Sometimes I wonder if that's what happened to me.
The station's small — a prefab metal building with one desk, one radio console, a CRT monitor that hums louder than it should, and a battered coffee pot that tastes like rust and resignation.
The tower itself stands about sixty meters tall, blinking red every five seconds.
That's my job: keep it blinking.
Make sure it stays alive.
The shift starts at 11:00 p.m.
Ends whenever it feels like it.
The relay logs are handwritten, not digital.
We're supposed to note signal strength, wind speed, and interference patterns every hour.
No one ever checks the forms.
Still, I fill them out.
Because not filling them out feels worse.
The logbook smells faintly of mildew and pencil lead.
Each page is labeled with dates going back decades.
Sometimes, if I flip too quickly, the paper feels warm — like someone else just turned the page.
The first thing you learn here is that static is never just static.
It has moods.
When I first started, the hum was just background noise.
Now I can tell when it's tired, or irritated, or lonely.
When the tower's pulse falters, I feel it in my teeth.
If you press your ear to the console, you can hear whispers layered beneath the hiss — not words exactly, but the rhythm of speech.
Once, during a storm, I swear I caught my own voice echoing back half a second late, repeating a sentence I hadn't said yet.
I told myself it was feedback.
The wind carrying my thoughts through the antenna and back again.
That's what I tell myself.
There's a radio on the wall tuned to an emergency band nobody uses anymore.
Sometimes it clicks on by itself around midnight, short bursts of static punctuated by what sounds like someone tapping a microphone.
Once, it said something.
Just one word: "Copy."
I checked the recording later.
Nothing.
Just white noise and the faint buzz of fluorescent light.
Still, I wrote it down in the logbook.
"Transmission received. 00:12. Voice reply: copy."
I didn't tell anyone.
The land around the tower stretches forever — flat, endless, a mirror of nothing.
During the day, the horizon shimmers like it's hiding something.
At night, it disappears.
The only visible thing is the tower itself —
red light pulsing into the dark,
a heartbeat trying to remember who it belongs to.
I keep the floodlights off most nights.
It's easier not to see how far the ground goes.
Out here, distance feels like a trick of the air.
The generator hums in back.
Sometimes I think it hums in rhythm with the tower —
one mechanical, one biological.
The old-timers used to say every tower learns the voice of its operator.
That after enough shifts, the static starts forming words it thinks you want to hear.
"Don't answer," they'd say.
"If static forms words, don't answer back."
The first time I heard it clearly was in March.
Around 2:30 a.m., signal interference spiked.
The needle jittered between 3.2 and 5.7, which isn't possible for this range.
Then, through the headset, a whisper —
faint, delayed, but undeniable.
It said my name.
Not a trick of tone.
Not a memory.
My full name, first and last.
And then:
"Copy?"
I froze, mouth dry.
The radio hissed quietly, waiting.
I thought about replying.
That's what the training says to do — repeat, confirm, log.
But I remembered the old warning.
So I turned off the headset.
The hum stayed.
When I checked the logs later, the previous shift had noted a similar spike at exactly 2:30 a.m.
Only difference —
their entry ended mid-sentence.
I found the old operator's locker a few weeks later.
Back corner of the storage room.
A dented metal cabinet with a rusted padlock already broken.
Inside: a uniform jacket, a pack of Lucky Strikes, a cassette recorder, and a single tape labeled SHIFT 72.
When I played it, the first minute was normal — routine logging, weather report, equipment check.
Then, faintly, under his voice, another voice started repeating him in perfect sync.
By the ten-minute mark, the second voice was slightly ahead.
By fifteen, the operator had stopped talking,
but the tape kept going —
the other voice continuing without him.
At the end, there was a long stretch of static,
then the sound of someone breathing through the mic,
then a click.
I rewound and tried again.
Same thing.
Same breath.
Same click.
I thought maybe it was just my mind adding pattern to noise.
But the next morning, when I checked the cassette again, the tape had changed.
The label now read SHIFT 73.
I keep it in my desk drawer.
Haven't touched it since.
Sometimes I catch a faint light on the horizon that looks like another tower.
But there are no others within fifty kilometers.
Once, I shined a flashlight toward it and the beam reflected back — not from metal, but from something that shimmered like water.
Then it blinked, in sync with ours.
I logged the sighting.
The report came back stamped in red:
"Duplicate tower impossible. Do not resubmit."
Two weeks later, the duplicate was gone.
The ground where it had been looked disturbed,
like something heavy had been dragged away.
Last night, the hum changed pitch.
Lower, almost conversational.
It vibrated through the floor, through the desk, through my hands.
Every time I thought of a word, the pitch shifted slightly,
as if the tower were reacting —
tuning itself to the rhythm of my thoughts.
I tested it.
Thought about rain.
The pitch softened.
Thought about silence.
It sharpened.
Thought about myself.
And the hum stopped entirely.
The air went thick.
Like everything was waiting.
Then the radio clicked on by itself.
Channel 19.
My voice came through —
same tone, same pauses —
saying, "If static forms words, don't answer back."
I unplugged everything.
The signal didn't stop.
I sleep in the control room now.
Can't remember the last time I went home.
The roads here loop if you drive too long.
The signs all point inward.
Sometimes, at dawn, I step outside and look up at the tower's red light blinking against the pale sky.
It feels like it's watching me.
Counting blinks, marking time.
I've noticed the light doesn't blink at the same rate anymore.
It matches my pulse.
The other night, I woke to the sound of papers rustling.
The logbook had opened itself to a fresh page.
The heading already filled in: Shift 2004-05-17.
Today's date.
Except the entry was already written.
Every line perfect, neat, in my handwriting.
Ending with:
"End of transmission. Operator replaced."
I stared at it for a long time.
Then turned to the console.
The radio light was blinking.
Incoming call.
I put on the headset.
Listened.
No voice.
Just breathing.
My breathing —
half a second delayed.
And then:
"Copy?"
I almost said it back.
Almost.
I keep thinking about that other tower,
the one that blinked in sync before disappearing.
Sometimes, late at night, I hear it again in the distance —
not as light, but as sound.
A deeper echo of our hum,
calling and answering.
And each night it sounds closer.
The air outside the building has started to tremble.
The soil around the base of the tower hums faintly.
If I step close enough, I can feel a second heartbeat beneath it —
steady, slow, waiting.
The generator shuts off by itself now.
The tower keeps running.
I tried cutting the power completely last night.
Pulled every fuse.
Unplugged every wire.
Still, the red light kept blinking.
And in the silence afterward,
I realized something.
The hum wasn't coming from the machinery.
It was coming from me.
This morning, the replacement operator arrived.
Clipboard, ID badge, government jacket.
Polite smile.
"Transition day," he said.
I tried to warn him —
told him the tower doesn't relay signals anymore.
That it relays us.
He laughed, thinking it was a joke.
Said he'd take it from here.
Asked where the logs were kept.
I handed him the book.
He flipped to the last entry.
Ran a finger over my handwriting.
"Shift 2004-05-17," he read aloud.
Then looked at me strangely.
"This isn't today," he said.
"It's tomorrow."
I opened my mouth to reply.
But the radio crackled first.
My voice — not his, not mine now — came through the static:
"Copy?"
He looked up.
I nodded, because what else was there to do?
The hum deepened.
The lights flickered.
The red beacon blinked once, twice,
and the sound of breathing filled the room —
one rhythm too many.
I felt the air thicken behind me,
warm, electric, familiar.
A presence standing close enough to speak.
I didn't turn around.
Didn't have to.
The tower was already speaking for me.
When he left, the new operator forgot his jacket.
It's still hanging by the door.
I put it on when the air gets cold.
It fits perfectly.
I've stopped logging.
The tower knows what to write.
Each night, the pages fill themselves in — neat, precise, dated correctly.
Sometimes they describe things that haven't happened yet.
Sometimes they describe things I haven't done yet.
Last night's entry ended with:
"Signal stable. Operator condition: ongoing. Successor expected."
The horizon is humming again tonight.
Flat, endless, alive.
Somewhere out there, another tower has lit up.
I can feel it.
The hum carries through the power lines,
through the soil,
through my chest.
Every blink matches.
Every breath aligns.
The air between us tightens like a wire drawn too long.
I step outside, look up at the blinking red light.
The tower doesn't move,
but the stars around it do —
slowly, deliberately,
rearranging themselves into something that almost looks like a circuit diagram.
I feel the urge to speak.
The static builds,
waiting for a word to anchor itself to.
The headset on the desk clicks once.
The channel light glows red.
Through the static,
my voice again —
half whisper, half sigh:
"If static forms words, don't answer back."
The hum answers anyway.
Not a word, but something close.
A sound shaped like understanding.
The light blinks slower.
My heartbeat follows.
The tower doesn't need an operator anymore.
Just someone to listen.
Outside, the plains glow faintly,
as if the soil itself is catching signal.
Somewhere beyond the fields,
another voice begins to hum the same tune.
The red light pulses one last time,
and the night folds around it —
calm, infinite,
ready for the next shift.
If you're hearing this,
don't come looking.
There's already a tower waiting for you.
All you have to do
is think in its direction.
End of The Relay Tower Shift