Evening spring light was slanting into Spice’s workshop.
On the workbench, rusted coils and old capacitors were piled like a small mountain, with a single dull silver antenna jutting up at an angle from its center. Spice quietly set down his soldering iron and pressed a set of headphones to his ears.
“Shhhh… shhhh…”
Beyond the static , there was something faint . Something like a voice, or perhaps like the wind.
“Whatcha making?”
Kopo kicked the door open and walked in, three popsicles cradled in one arm.
“Amateur radio. It can pick up radio waves from far away.”
“Wait, can it pick up girls’ voices from far away too?”
Without answering, Spice handed the headphones to Kopo. Half-doubtful , Kopo pressed them to his ears.
“…Shhhh… shhhh…”
Nothing was audible.
But somewhere deep within that static, there was a smell — strangely nostalgic . The scent of wet earth after rain, and smoke drifting from somewhere far off. The trace of someone’s dinner, from beyond the railroad tracks, someone Kopo didn’t know.
“Is anyone actually out there?”
“No idea if anyone is. But the wave’s getting through. And ours is getting through to them, too.”
Kopo gently took the headphones off. One of the popsicles had already melted halfway.
“…Is it okay, even if we can’t talk?”
Spice said nothing, and put the headphones back on.
Margin note: That night, Kopo gazed up at the night sky from his window and murmured to no one, “I wonder if my voice reaches somewhere far away too.”
【Today’s Drop】
- World Amateur Radio Day: Commemorating the founding of the IARU (International Amateur Radio Union) at the Sorbonne in Paris on April 18, 1925. An international day celebrating connection by radio wave with people whose faces you’ve never seen.
This is an English translation of “届かない声の先へ”, part of Tales of Amencho Town (蛙鳴町奇譚).
