The Receiver

She sat barefoot on the sagging couch, hands folded neat as bones, antennas trembling in the stale air. Beside her, the radio hummed like something alive.

I thought of leaving. The voice inside the radio told me I couldn’t.

“You will listen,” it said.

And I did. I heard the air itself remembering. I heard prayers and screams, laughter and lies, all pressed into the silence like teeth into wood.

The woman never blinked. The radio never stopped.

And the road outside no longer felt like a way out.