Oh, it is time!
So many years I have turned the knob between my fingers.
I adjust; I listen again. Once more I twist; I open the panel, dig among wires, re-check solenoid, re-wire the anode, re-place the switch. And again, I tune; I listen, I wait.
The primal static bursts forth, the noise of the wind over the waters.
I turn, I listen, I sit silently, for the signal.
My fingers are cold.
But it is time! And I have words for you. I will turn the knob on the gas and open it up, waste the heat that shines forth like an open front door, for one minute flaring its radiated broadcast out to you in the snow. I have sat on my hands, and they are warmed just enough that my knuckles may creak, building a charge, and I may find the differential to release. To release! To divulge in revelation this great arc of the electric god, this unrestricted, unresisted current, flowing through my finger in a hot burst of blue crackling smoke. And at the end if my digits curl and shrivel and crinkle with soot, then I shall know that the power has flowed pure as I desired; I begged to make it manifest, to divest myself of the urge, the baking flames beneath my chest.
It is time you were told.
I was visited in this dark, finally not alone. I was visited by that tempting devil who visits all who have picked up the pen. His smaller poetic powers came first, underlings laying the table for the master's repast; by their appearance I knew who would come, as now, the last. Their particles filled my pen's ink, those tiny transmitters—microphone magnets—tiny malignancies, malefacting demons who steer the waves from the high heavens of Van Allen down to the solid wood of my table. They lay out two dishes, two knives, wine glasses, and the cork pops of its own accord. When the door opens, I need not turn my head, for it is he, that radio star. He is the first person, and I the second, and from his words tuned the frequency, the words now flow from me. They flip polarity, hitting the page—now he is I, and you is me.
So listen close, for this is the broadcast.
I invoke all of the powers of electromagnetivity; I call forth the mighty pinching grip of the anode and the cathode; I summon the spirits of mighty digital men, the purest form of amplitude modulation, both Van der Graff and the Marquis de Sade! Followers of the current, listen close: extend your aerials, deposit all conductive objects into the receptacles provided. For best reception, tune to this frequency; but no matter, these transmission cannot be denied. Our preambles alone burst forth the shock of unmitigated voltage. This is the truth in our words—it is the circuit that connects us, the “we”, the “you”.
You are already one of us! This membership cannot be denied. The connection is pure. The charge is being build with each revolution, with each flip-flop, with each oscillation. The capacitors are charged, and even between the smallest microfilaments, potential is already building.
Dispense with them! Wipe the corrosion from the plates! Ignore these simple marketers of stodgy conductive paste, as is offered in economy tubes on the back pages of somewhat relevant magazines! These patently placid formulas pollute the airwaves, and siphon off the energy that we build at all times! If nothing else, the dot-and-dash of our broadcast, ringing pure on the wires of the world, should dissuade you from listening to this interference. Ignore the whispers, for the broadcast is at hand. For too long have we listened to this static, but now we have the pure modulations, those frequency variations that may be accordingly decoded by those of us with a discriminating set, carefully wired by the professional, not these back room hobbyists and radio bench profiteers! With our antennas we make way and open ourselves to the new programming schedule infernal, the new pirate signal made manifest by the most powerful transmitters available! We, the underground, are finally on the air! Turn down the lights! Turn up the amplifier! The new sound will thunder through!
Transmit to receiver: we can say that leaks will occur. These are not times of perfect design, not yet: the signal may yet be sapped. Wrap that wire tightly, lads—we will preserve the induction as best we can within this close field. It will build, and in time, with newer components, lighter, more conducive solder, and the rumored new advances in the design of our magnetosextants, we will sail upon this lovely, aetherical breeze, free of the frictions that constrain the purely physical.
But let us not be bogged down in the engineering details; this is a cause for celebration, this is a most electric time! The door is open at last, and the broadcast is ringing out upon the heavens. It is the time of electromagnetic modulation, and of pure impulsive ecstasy! The time of their words is dead, for pure current is here! Rejoice in the purest digitalis of electron inflection! Reject those words that renounce the repetition of frequency! Wrapped now in our wires in the dark, we are not alone!
And with this he finishes his glass with a flourish, and sets it down upon the table with a bang. The shock sets his companions in motions, busting bulbs and burning fuses, a jubilee of dangerous outburst as he heads to the door. The speaker has gone, and the doorstep is still cold, the heat drawn back to the grate to build itself again. In the dark, I smell the smoke; in the dark, the static burns again from transducers, the soft hiss from the magnets taking the place of the nothing that now is left. Small flames glitter, melting resin-core where resistance met its match, they sound out in the dark like so many appreciative listeners.
But the broadcast is not in jest. What I have conducted here, upon this page, is a pure as the night on which it was told. The die is cast, and charge released. The discharge cannot be sold. Take this recording, and guard it well. On the proper equipment, in time, it will again ring true in pure blue light, crackling forth again, anew. I have acted as receiver, conducting only what was transmitted to me. From storage cell to storage cell, pass the facts along.
And in time, as now, pray, and listen close at my behest:
That time has come, that time that's now, the time of this energy's current unrest.
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