Episode One: “Saturday Night Frequency Drift”
Table of Contents
Up in the Signal Tower It was one of those evenings where the air felt heavy enough to slow time. The fog had rolled in before supper and settled around the cabin like it had paid rent. You could still hear the occasional frog down by the edge of the lake, trying out his best baritone like he was warming up for a solo nobody asked for.
Inside, everything was quiet except for the low hum of the old shortwave set I keep up in the signal tower. It’s not really a tower—just the top floor of the lodge with a view of the ridge—but we’ve called it that for years, mostly because it makes us feel important.
The bulbs over my desk flickered once or twice, unsure if they wanted to keep doing their job. They stayed on, bless them, even if they looked tired. I took it as a sign to stop fussing with the bookshelf and sit down with a mug of something warm and questionable.
That’s when the radio crackled.
Now, most nights it just picks up stray weather reports or some lonely trucker reading poetry from a gas station parking lot. But tonight, it came through clear.
A voice. Tired. Friendly. A little unsure of itself.
“Hey… sorry to bother, but… I’ve been working on something for a while now and I thought I had it figured out, but—well, it’s not turning out how I hoped. Looks kind of lopsided. I don’t know if I should keep going or scrap the whole thing.”
The kind of message that isn’t really about the thing at all. You learn to listen for that, living up here.
So I leaned in a little, adjusted the dial, and answered like I’ve done a hundred times.
“Sounds like you’re further along than you think. Lopsided just means it’s leaning toward something. You’ll figure out what that is if you give it a little time. Don’t tear it down just because it looks strange in the middle.”
There was a pause. The kind where you know the other person heard what they needed to, even if they weren’t expecting it.
“Yeah. Alright. I’ll keep at it. Thanks.”
And just like that, the signal faded. Back into the hush of the woods and the soft rattle of the old windows.
I sat there for a minute, watching my breath in the air, thinking about how often we confuse unfinished with wrong. How easy it is to doubt something just because it hasn’t landed yet. Like a story with no ending, or a path with no signpost.
But up here at Echo Glen, we’ve learned not to rush things. The fog always lifts, eventually. The signal always drifts back. You just have to be here when it does.
And if no one’s told you today: it’s okay to not have it all figured out.
It doesn’t mean you’re lost. It just means you’re still tuning in.
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