Echoes of Tomorrow

The first time that Mia heard it, it was like being touched by the wind in the voice, gentle but impossible to ignore. Sitting on her balcony, she had been captivated by the beauty of the City lights, the little flashes of light that moved across the night sky as they danced street by street, up and down, and across everything, until the whine of the unwanted static that emanated from the base of the old radio that sat on the coffee table hit her in the middle of the act.

“Can you hear me? a voice asked, deep and resonant.

Startled, she leaned forward, staring at the radio. It wasn’t connected to any station, just a relic she kept for its vintage charm. “Who is this?” she asked hesitantly.

The voice hesitated, then responded, “My name is Aiden. I've been randomly calling anyone on this band for weeks," etc.

Mia frowned. “What frequency? This radio doesn’t even work.”

“It works,” Aiden said softly. “Just not in your time.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Not in my time? What are you talking about?”

He verbalized the solution in disconnected utterances, as if making up a jigsaw puzzle as he went along. Aiden, a time frame, a year of 2137, was a normal twenty to thirty septuagenarian regardless of the appearance on what Mia could only conceptualize and not access social constructs that the society had fractured. His world was coming apart and to try to fix it, scientists found a way in which information could be sent back in time. But only faint echoes could pass through.

“I didn’t expect anyone to answer,” he admitted. “I’m glad it’s you.”

The aroma, coffee in the mouth, the sun on the cheek.

Riding on the vibratory static shimmer of time they could converse on a common ground among the utterances of one another.

But their connection wasn’t without consequence. Aiden warned her that the temporal rift was unstable. Each time they began to talk, the wall separating their realms grew translucent. If it goes down, it could be the end of the world—your time and my time.

Mia’s heart ached at the thought of losing him. “What if we stop? What if we never speak again?”

Silence" on the other side ad heavy, unbearable silence. At last, he said, "I would live as a ghost on the echo of your voice, Mia. That’s more than I ever had before.”

The last time she heard him, the static had grown louder, almost drowning his voice. Mia, he said, his voice intense, "for better or worse you've altered my life. You gave me hope in a hopeless world.”

As surely as it was built it was destroyed.

Mia stood on the balcony watching the jammed radio for hours. In her thoughts, she anticipated she would never hear again the sound of his voice. &Every time the wind blew in though, she conjured his saying, all over the days that lay afterward.