260 - Two Hundred Sixty

Breaker Whiskey

Please visit breakerwhiskey.com for more information or to send a message to Whiskey's radio. Breaker Whiskey is an Atypical Artists production created by Lauren Shippen. If you'd like to support the show, please visit patreon.com/breakerwhiskey. As a patron, you will also receive each week's episodes as one longer episode every Monday.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

It took me the better part of a day but I think I’ve done it. I think I’ve written out your whole message. It…I honestly have no idea what it says. I was so focused on the individual letters, barely any words formed from it as I went.

I…I should go get Harry. But she’s sleeping and…I think she needs the rest. After—we’re still working through things and I think—no, I know—we will be for a very long time. As we waited for your message to finish transmitting, we talked a lot. We maybe got a little…distracted from time to time, but she put it all out on the table, everything she’d been thinking and feeling that she didn’t tell me. Things she didn’t even write in her notebook. And I told her things…we aired grievances and shared the times when we thought we might get close to something, back in New York. She talked about how she felt about Pete and listened to me when I talked about him and…and she was really kind when I couldn’t parse the good from the bad, when I didn’t want to just write him off as a violent criminal. I mean, I don’t…well, there are a lot of things I need to work through and it doesn’t all have to do with Harry.

Well. I could fill you in on all of it, on every detail, but…these broadcasts have been mine, separate from Harry, as much as anything in my life can be separate from Harry, and there are some things with her that are separate from the world. At least for now.

I know I said I might stop transmitting now that we’re safe and I think…I think I am going to take a break. Disappear for a little while like you’re so fond of doing. I’m—well, I think I’m happy and I’m not totally sure what to do with that feeling. Especially since it’s laced with…well, Junior is still out there, we’re still trapped here and even though I know what it’s like to kiss her, to— I don’t think I’ve forgiven Harry yet, not fully. She knows that, she…she’s understanding of it. Genuinely. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try to get there. Especially since I know I haven’t been the paragon of healthy communication and perfect relationship behavior so there are things that I need to…that I need her forgiveness on and, well, I think she wants to try to get there too.

All that said—well, I don’t know what I’m going to find in your message and I hope it’s not goodbye forever, but maybe this is a goodbye for now. I want only good things for you Birdie. I hope you get a little peace of mind. A little closure. I’m discovering eve the tiniest glimpse of it really does wonders.

Okay. Here we go.

“Dear Whiskey,

I am sorry that we couldn’t meet. You find yourself in a watch tower of my own creation. I wasn’t positive it would still be functioning in this timeline—you never do know when an earthquake or a storm is going to cause something to come toppling down—but I’m relieved to find that it is. I do wish I could have been there myself, but we can only enter timelines through great pains and effort and I have already interfered far more than we are meant to. Though I suppose my hand was forced when I ceased to be the only one communicating with you.

The person you know as Fox is, as you guessed, a purist. They want all people in all places to be instead in one place, following one path. They do not believe that anyone should be free to make their own choices and live with the consequences. They would prefer to guide your hand into another choice you cannot take back, all in service of what they deem to be correct. They know what they are; they even told you directly. Though they are not the figment of an author’s imagination, they are as close to Eternity as one can get. Though in this case, they are not the norm, but a rebel.

And I cannot claim there is nothing to re—rebel against. It is not a perfect system. It is hard, to watch people suffer in the worlds of their own creation, with no obvious recourse. Sometimes these timelines correct themselves, merging with each other or disappearing entirely. But even we, the keepers and observers of these strands, cannot fully comprehend the intricacies of why certain shifts are created.

As you know, you are not the first person for whom I have tried to bring comfort in a lonely universe. Not all alternate worlds are as empty as yours, but some are even emptier. And yours, was of course, becoming more empty all the time, though that may not be a bad thing for every person involved.

Fox told you you’re too late because the timeline has shifted once again. I’ll explain that in a moment but first I need to talk about the shift that preceded it, that caused an angry man to seek vengeance. A few months ago, Fred Billings’ mother—“

Fred. That’s his name. Fred. Wow, I, uh—anyway—

“Fred Billings’ mother, who was her—who was here, vanished from this place and merged with her correct timeline. Both Fred and his father perished in a car accident on New Year’s Eve 1974, and the widow Billings’ life was forever changed. Fred woke up here one day to find that his mother—who he had lived with in some degree of contentment for the last six years—had vanished. Meanwhile, she was waking up in the place she was from, with no memory of this world.

That’s what would have happened if you had killed Junior. Or, at least, that is what Fox and I both suspected. That it would have aligned enough with the timeline of your origin and you would’ve been sent back. But you should know, if that were to happen, all of this would seem like a strange dream. Your memories of the last seven years would be filled with the experience of that other you. The events you’ve experienced here would not inform your life. I have not brought you here to keep you from making that decision for yourself, but because I thought you deserved to have all the information relevant to what Fox was asking you to do. They forced my hand when they told you to kill Fred—I could not let you do that without knowing the full consequences.

However, it is a moot point. As I said, something in the timeline has shifted again. You have merged—you have merged with another offshoot, your circumstances have once again changed. I wish I could give you the information that would help you navigate this new world—I wish I knew if this meant more potential allies or if this meant that you were closer to getting back home than you were before. But we cannot see all. Fox has their ways of seeing more than most, but I suspect even they are uncertain of what this shift has brought.

I do know that yours and Harry’s fates are irreversibly intertwined. I cannot think of a decision on any timeline that would separate you as you are now. In that sense, I take comfort in knowing you will never be truly alone.

On that subject, I have a final gift for you. I know you are going to cease transmitting soon. And I understand that, I do. But before you go silent, look at the radio system in front of you—“

…okay…

“Turn it on and tune to the very last frequency. Then switch on the delta tune to the positive and access the off-frequency just beyond that final channel.

Through some error that I know my superiors would like to correct, your transmissions have been reaching out—have been reaching outside of your world. In the same way that visions of the world you came from have bled into where you are now—” The polaroids I’m guessing— “your words have reached beyond their usual bounds. It is why they were able to reach your friends from across the country and after a year of listening to you, I have yet to figure out why this is happening at all.

Perhaps now that you are no longer alone, you don’t need this particular comfort. But you have spent all this time calling into the dark, hoping someone was listening, hoping someone would call back. Hoping that someone out there would find you.

You were found a long time ago. You were never really lost or alone. Many of them were alone, before they heard your voice. But the moment you called out, there were voices calling back, even if you couldn’t hear them.

Your friend, Birdie”

What…I don’t…I don’t understand—

Okay, tune to the last frequency…let’s see

[turning to the frequency]

“You were found a long time ago”…Who found—

[gets to the last frequency and then—

a cacophony of different voices, all the messages that Whiskey has not been receiving, from infinite timelines]

(an intake of breath)

Oh my god.

[static]

[click]