East of the Highway

The solder runs and sets, bright, sloped like a tent. You switch it on and wait out the minute the tubes take. Between two stations it is quiet. Nineteen does not come.

You carry it east past the rail yards and over the highway to a gate whose hinges shine with oil, and a door that stands open. The front room is empty. A lens stands in it eight feet tall, brass and prism, with the last of the window caught inside. On a shelf an old radio is on, and between two stations a man counts to nineteen and stops. On the table a pencil lies beside a clean rectangle in the dust, the size of a book.

You set the mended radio beside the old one. An hour before dusk both carry the same voice, reading a list: pole beans wanted, a brown dog on Rosewood, the time of tomorrow's water truck. Then the voice says: If anyone is listening east of the highway, we'd like to know you're there.

You turn the work order over and take up the pencil. East of the highway, you write down the time.