A CRY FOR HELP

   Fear of the unknown is a potent terror. In the past, new technologies were often thought to be supernatural. There was a time, not so long ago, when a simple radio set filled listeners with awe and fascination. It was just like magic, hearing sounds plucked from the air, distant voices from strangers, the spirit of others far away, reaching out to make contact.

For Bruce Walker, even in this modern age, radio was still magical. Bruce had once been a trawler man. The last time ever that he had been at sea he had encountered a terrible storm that battered the boat for hours. Bruce jumped into the sea with a life raft just at the point when the vessel had been tossed on its side like a child’s toy before disappearing into the depths of the ocean with his two best friends still aboard.

The memory of the storm and his friends last moments haunted him. So, after nearly thirty years of trawling the open sea, Bruce now filled his time trawling the airwaves.At the back of his cottage, Bruce had a small wooden shed filled with radio receivers and transmitters of every kind. A tall wooden mast stood next to the shed, reaching out into the sky high above the house and bristling with an array of radio antennas.

The shed was a sanctuary in which he would spend hours talking with other amateur radio enthusiasts around the world, or simply listening to the chatter that drifted in and out of reception, from far and wide.

Late one October night, Bruce was sitting alone in the shed. His face was illuminated by the pale glow of dials as he scanned through frequencies, monitoring broadcasts. He wasn’t in the mood to talk, so he just sat and listened. The sound of the wind whistled past the mast outside and combined with the hiss and whine of the radio sets as he searched the darkness for signals.

It was going to be a foul night. The rattling window and the draft from beneath the door reminded him of the wooden cabin of his trawler. He remembered how in even the worst weather, he used to keep his spirits up by thinking of the harbour’s safety and the comfort of home. As he sat, his head swaying uneasily with the thought of rising waves and dark open seas, he turned the tuner on his marine radio, slowly searching for a signal.  

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