Written by Karl Gfall

Directed by Anuja Vaidya

Sound design by Jennifer Overton

Voice Actors:

Naveen played by Muhammad Sajid

Asha played by Chhaya Nene

Theme music begins.

Intro: Auricle - Season Two, Transmission. This show contains adult content and strong language.

Wristwatch ticks.

NAVEEN

Alright. Okay. Okay, so a cup of tea here, papers over here. I have my pen, okay. Where did I put that pen that I had? Okay…Hello, this is Naveen Sambor recording by –aha- compact disc recorder on the sixth of February, Twenty thirty-nine, at… 13:58 C.E.T.

To compound issues of accurate documentation we are awaiting a call on the last rotary phone in the world… or at least the last I could find that would still make a successful cable connection to New Delhi where-

Rotary phone rings.

NAVEEN

Well, that would be it wouldn’t it?

Receiver picked up. Hubbub of a busy office.

ASHA

…Hello. Naveen?

NAVEEN

Asha … …

ASHA

Hello?

NAVEEN

Yes, hello. Asha it’s … it’s good to hear your voice.

ASHA

Yes, you forget each-others voices when everything is email. Naveen Sambor… Senior Researcher for the Ministry of Defense.

They both chuckle.

NAVEEN

My old default signature did garner some quizzical attention when it accidentally concluded my customary holiday card.

ASHA

Holiday card? (With jesting incredulity.) From you? To whom?

NAVEEN

It’s just a custom at the Ministry. Alright, say your name and what you’ve discovered.

ASHA

(Smirking.) What? Why?

NAVEEN

For posterity.

Door closes. Hubbub ends.

ASHA

Are you recording this?

NAVEEN

Absolutely. I try to record everything as best I can while avoiding the grid. The olde wax cylinder was fun but impractical. I managed to dig up an old compact disc recorder to avoid-

ASHA

Naveen! This is getting out of hand.

NAVEEN

I know! (Remembering to be quiet.) I know. I’m paranoid. Fine!

ASHA

I don’t think-

NAVEEN

(In a sharp whisper.) Hold on. …

Door closes. Watch ticking gets louder.

… Okay, we should still be secure.

ASHA

Where are you? Are you… safe? (She means this in a different sense than he takes it.)

NAVEEN

Care about me now? Finally bought into my tall tales of the eldritch, and espionage. Nobody should know that I’m here. I snuck in the backdoor and the records hall clerk was knee deep in some pulpy novella.

Asha laughs.

Anyway, I thought you said this was all bullocks, that I was insane.

ASHA

That’s what you said I would say. What I said was what you are making me do is insane. Do you know the looks I got setting up this ancient telephone?

NAVEEN

Alright, fair enough, yeah. You’ve found something that backs me up, though, right?

ASHA

I’ve found… something. Something… that made me think of you, and your research. … I care-

NAVEEN

Alright, then… Asha Acharya; Anthropologist-

ASHA

Ah, uh-huh, uh-huh. My name is Asha Acharya, writer, Investigative journalist! and anthropological researcher working out of New Delhi. For the last seven months I’ve tracking down a series of correspondence originating from an isolated monastery. The exact location is difficult to ascertain. Even satellite mapping proved insufficient.

NAVEEN

Isolated monastery? Asha, you made it seem as if this would blow everything open - I thought this was real evidence!

ASHA

It is real evidence.

NAVEEN

I’m studying electromagnetic phenomena and anomalies: radio messages, gamma spikes. Not dharma and auras -

ASHA

Ah! I would not bring you false hope. Fairytales have real life application, religious texts have historical context. I don’t come bearing a data set, but it does not mean it isn’t what you’re seeking.

NAVEEN

Oh no?

ASHA

No, Naveen. If you have failed so far to find what you are looking for, this does not mean it is not there. It means you are looking in the wrong place, with the wrong eyes. I offer only ever to open doors. Walking through them is your business.

NAVEEN

Well… fair enough. You’re right. No stone unturned. I haven’t bothered to plunder any church catacombs in this endeavor – What are these correspondences then?

ASHA

The first of these was brought to my attention by an associate working out of Istanbul. I was conferring with Arella on a research project about the migration away from cities and mentioned your work-

NAVEEN

You talked about me!

ASHA

Only in passing.

NAVEEN

Not by name?

ASHA

No.

NAVEEN

Good. What about your friend then?

ASHA

She was of the opinion that the primary drive of counterurbanization was deprivation of self-production due to environmental unsustainability. In short, people wishing to self-sustain cannot produce in urban settings amongst increasing pollution. She would like to keep focus on the environmental. She would; she’s an environmental scientist.

NAVEEN

But why?

ASHA

To take politicians and their masters to task for their part in an unraveling biosphere.

NAVEEN

You disagreed?

ASHA

Not at all, but I wanted to be comprehensive. My goals are to find all the answers, not simply play pin-the-tail on the politician.

NAVEEN

You would; you’re an anthropologist.

ASHA

And journalist. Anyway, I cited several other motivating factors: climate change, integrative spread, golden age delusions. “And,” I said, “I even have a friend who theorizes these increasing problems with technology that scare people away from urban centers are the work of some organization or entity that controls E.M. Waves.”

NAVEEN

I wish you had not.

ASHA

Wished or not it was this that gave my associate pause. She said, “What do you mean by ‘entity'?” “A sort of ‘ghost-in-the-machine’,” I said.

NAVEEN

Mercy, how crazy did she think I was? She’s likely to think I’m one of those IRIS conspiracy wackadoos. What did she say?

ASHA

She said, “How about a being of light?”

NAVEEN

…What does that mean?

ASHA

She said it was easier to let someone else explain, and messaged me a photo of a handwritten letter she had received from a secluded sanctuary, one where isolated monks seek enlightenment. One of these holy men has documented, through his letters, an extended interaction with a ghost or divine entity of sorts.

NAVEEN

Okay… okay. Really I appreciate whatever you’re trying to do, but I really thought this was about something serious. You made it seem like this was going to break my case wide open, not be one of your come to Jesus stories - I’m running a serious project here!

ASHA

Naveen, it’s time to stop being an asshole. I have not misled you. And I do not do “come-to-jesus.”

NAVEEN

Well… … well then, what is it?

ASHA

I will read it to you and you will understand.

NAVEEN

Don’t hold up on my account.

Clears her throat.

ASHA

It begins, “One called Arella, from a great-“

NAVEEN

One called Arell?-

ASHA

It’s the salutation. I’m translating Nepali written by an isolated person who probably barely speaks aloud. I’m afraid you’ll have to exercise some patience to the eastern world!

NAVEEN

I didn’t say anything.

ASHA

You did.

NAVEEN

I did. Please. Go on.

She sighs.

ASHA

“One called Arella, from a great distance of time and space a call comes for your mind so admired. Here in the sanctum an unusual visitor has arrived, a student of light, another” –and this is just a guess really but- … “another earthling? has come to the sanctuary seeking. Once at the great university one called Arella told of the great lights in the Northern and Southern skies: the Aurora Borealis. Such beauty could not be forgotten.

Serene windchimes fade in. Occasional buzzing and crackling is heard.

When the other came seeking in the guise of a column of folding light, green robes rippling on the line, some fled, but there was no reason to flee. The visitor required no food nor tea but stayed long for meditation, leaving only when the last flames extinguished. Many days has the other come to seek. From the flaming of crimson the other wishes more, but cannot speak, or speaks with light. One called Arella, who taught of the Aurora, is there a way to communicate to the student of light?”

NAVEEN

Hooooly fuck. This is all in the widecast net reports. All over the world; people going on about angels and pillars of light. Figured it was mental Bible thumpers at first, but it just got too consistent. Asha, hold on.

Shuffling of papers, objects. Ticking watch is louder. Suspenseful tones.

Is there anyone around you?

ASHA

Just the usual bullpen employees.

NAVEEN

Nobody out of the ordinary? Nobody listening to you? Anybody asking after you?

ASHA

Everything is normal here. Are you in trouble or something.

NAVEEN

It’s probably nothing. There’s just been some men around… Ugh, it’s nothing. Just keep this stuff to yourself, yeah?

ASHA

Discretion is my profession.

NAVEEN

Who is this holy man!?

ASHA

He gives no name, but my colleague remembers him very well.

NAVEEN

Were they close?

ASHA

No, but he was apparently quite memorable. A very gifted and curious person. She said he was eccentric and engaging and… oh, what would… uh he had uhm şeytan tüyü?

NAVEEN

Afraid my Turkish is a bit rusty.

ASHA

He was very charming.

NAVEEN

Ah. It’s not a traceable connection, just luck of attraction.

ASHA

Every one of your eggs is in that data research basket. It will never cease to amaze me.

NAVEEN

Where else should they be?

ASHA

Where there might be a signature there’s a mark that my research associate surmises is the symbol of the monk’s sanctuary. My colleague in Turkey has never been there, but there was a message on the envelope written by someone else about how to send a return letter.

NAVEEN

This friend of yours; what did she write back?

ASHA

Obviously she didn’t still have her return letters-

NAVEEN

She didn’t make copies?!

ASHA

WHY would she make copies?

NAVEEN

I would.

ASHA

Naveen, you re-route your emails through a Korean IP address and added a padlock to your hostel door.

NAVEEN

Point taken.

ASHA

She told me that she had no idea what he could be talking about. She remembered the part of the course she taught that included Aurora Borealis. It was within a natural science course on geomagnetism-

NAVEEN

Yes, yes.

ASHA

Ahem. She sent him back a gloss of those notes; essentially that Auroras occur at the poles where the magnetic flow of the earth is returning closer to the surface allowing solar radiation to come closer to the planet. As a result the atmospheric gasses fluoresce vibrantly, energized by the radiation.

NAVEEN

And how did she answer his question?

ASHA

His question on how to communicate with an Aurora Borealis?

NAVEEN

The “student of light.”

ASHA

Ah-ha. Ha ha ha. To think I’d live to see the day when Naveen Sambor would posit TO ME the possibility of something so outlandish.

NAVEEN

This is not a revelation of spiritual enlightenment! I’m willing to accept the outré only now that Occum’s razor has been so thoroughly dulled.

ASHA

Accurate explanations are always the simplest, it’s your scope of reality that complicates them.

NAVEEN

Or lack of scope.

ASHA

That was my implication.

NAVEEN

Did your colleague have answers for him or not?

ASHA

She hypothesized that any such anomaly would be caused by an aberration in the magnetic field, citing that aurora-like phenomena have been observed around equipment dampening magnetic fields at altitude, and if indeed a … will… could purposely manipulate electromagnetic waves it would not be able to hear, but it might be able to “see” in some way, and that infrared in some form of heat, varying fluorescence, or a simple manipulation of magnetic substances might be its native tongue.

NAVEEN

Hmm. Did she say if he did manage to communicate with the entity?

ASHA

No. That is where I took up the trail. I had a contact trace the letters back to their office of origin. It is not the type of place where people are forthcoming but apparently with the right amount of palm greasing he learned enough.

NAVEEN

Were they able to visit the monk?

ASHA

No. No one would say who brought or collected the letters. They would say where the letters were sent to and arrived from, though. With this information I was able to track and collect many more of the monk’s correspondence. Almost all were to lecturers or academics connected to the monk’s wide course of studies. It sometimes took coercion, but many shared out of pure puzzlement, so bizarre and out of nowhere were these missives. I have collected a few; some mere esoteric queries, but some very grand questions.

NAVEEN

About what?

Muffled mumbling.

NAVEEN

Asha? Asha!

ASHA

-Yes, that’s fine Aranza!

Door clicks closed.

NAVEEN

What was that?

ASHA

Aranza from the copy room delivering some prints.

NAVEEN

Are they suspicious?

ASHA

Aranza from the copy room? I suppose she’s a bit chipper for someone who works in the copy room, but that’s hardly-

NAVEEN

Whatever. You were talking about…

ASHA

Ah. The further correspondence. Some of the first were a small collection that went out to an astronomer, mathematics professor, a chemist, and one gastronomist.

NAVEEN

Gastronomist? Like a bourgeois foodie?

ASHA

‘More specifically a chef working out of Paris. These were all pretty much boilerplate letters except for the niceties. They all include this phrase:

Serene windchimes fade in.

“There was one called Blue 52, the loneliest whale; so called for their song was sung at a frequency understood by no other whale. Perhaps the wandering other listened to all, but spoke as the whale. To hear is a matter of listening correctly.”

NAVEEN

Who is this monk?!

ASHA

My associate in Istanbul said he was a student at the university she lectured at for a time. After a little digging I procured his records there. It looks like he took just about every class they offered, and it was not the only school he attended. He transferred there, and he transferred to another school after; both places he took a wide breadth of courses, biology to neurosciences to women’s studies.

NAVEEN

A quest for knowledge.

ASHA

Mm. It would seem; One that resumed sometime three years ago.

NAVEEN

Did he succeed in learning to listen?

ASHA

Very much so. There are some hints in his thank you letters, and he detailed his process pretty significantly in two messages to other holy men. Let’s see…

Papers shuffle. Serene windchimes fade in.

“The spare compass of the shepherd man who brings milk and fleece was the first translator. When the wandering other appeared for meditation they waited long, watching. When meditation ended the compass was placed before them. The needle spun as a waterwheel, with great excitement, without direction. Around the compass was placed, a singing bowl for the ears, a cup of tea to taste or trouble, a candle to see or burn. Wandering as the other, the needle swayed but alighted eastward to the flaming beeswax. The flame became a second translator.”

“Gathered from the mountain ores, spring fed shores, herbs and plants, an alphabet of hues and glows was written. The wandering other has great patience for learning. The shepherd’s children delighted in their speech that burst and flashed their questions through the valley.”

“Many thanks to the one called Chef Sàviu.”

NAVEEN

You’ve got to be kidding me.

ASHA

Controlling infrared heat as in your oven was most successful. Your point that food is more important as a symbol of sustenance and sharing was most helpful in providing hospitality to the seeking guest.”

NAVEEN

Well, thank goodness for that. Why not try and feed it?

ASHA

Food is a universal language, or was. Uh, perhaps he found the appropriate facsimile.

They essentially created an entire language together.

NAVEEN

But why is he trying so hard?

ASHA

The man avoiding magnets and talking to me on a rotary phone says this to me?

NAVEEN

Point taken, but why does he care ABOUT it so much?

ASHA

What do you mean?

NAVEEN

Why is he so invested in communicating with this entity? What’s to be gained on his path to enlightenment by helping this thing?

ASHA

You would help if a stranger showed up at your door seeking guidance. When my father died our freshman year you were the only one I knew at school whom had lost a parent. I showed up a mess at your little room and you sat with me all night.

NAVEEN

With nothing to say-

ASHA

Something said was not what was needed.

NAVEEN

Don’t be obtuse. There’s a difference between helping a stranger and helping a roving wavelength.

ASHA

Perhaps not to the monk. And even so, can you imagine the curiosity?! To speak to an angel or alien, anything that isn’t us. Something that has a completely different view of the world? How could that not intrigue someone?

NAVEEN

Even someone trying to make themselves one with nothing?

ASHA

You’re the one being obtuse now. There are a series of letters to a theologian in Tübingen dated quite a bit more recently that might shed some… well, light on the situation.

NAVEEN

Ugh, yaar. What did he want to know from a theologian?

She titters. More papers flip.

ASHA

He goes about explaining to the theologian basically what he told my associate, that there’s a form made of light that spends time in his sanctum.

NAVEEN

Yes.

ASHA

His questions are mostly finer points on the origin of religion, but he does ask if people ever sometimes think they are a god?

NAVEEN

Oh my god. You don’t think this thing thinks it is God?

ASHA

Is that really so vain?

Watch ticks louder. CD skipping. Suspenseful tones.

NAVEEN

It’s not a matter of vanity! It’s a matter of hubris! People playing at God usually wind up blowing themselves up- along with everyone else.

ASHA

Are you concerned this will happen?

NAVEEN

Bloody well right I’m concerned. When it was just a bunch of anomalies I was concerned! Now I am terror stricken. You don’t get it, Asha!

ASHA

Then tell me.

NAVEEN

This thing is not just a light in the air. It’s… it’s something science doesn’t have a word for. Believe me, I’ve uttered the word “anomalous” so many times in the last year I’m saying it in my sleep. In simplest terms it’s in the E.M. spectrum; it’s…part of it, controlling it, perceiving through it?

This isn’t the first time it’s contacted someone, I think. It just… covers its tracks really well or… something. I don’t know. I do know it’s fingerprints. It goes anywhere it can think of to get information.

Papers rustle.

The Hagues entire archive of un-transcribed cassette recordings: WIPED in a blink. Centuries worth of satellite and Bluetooth and radio transmissions marked with its signature interference. I don’t know what it wants specifically. All I do know is that there is a path of horrors in its wake and it’s growing, evolving. For the better part of the past two decades. This used to just be a radio wave occurrence, now it’s light… the spectrum goes on forever in either direction, Asha, and we are fast approaching the parts that kill people!

ASHA

You don’t need to be made of light to kill people, any more than you have to be human to understand how not to.

NAVEEN

What?

Silence.

ASHA

Why is the student of light there? This consciousness that can traverse the world in a blink, access any resource it wants, why does it spend its time meditating in the Himalayas? Why would you visit a monk in the mountains?

NAVEEN

I wouldn’t.

ASHA

Exactly. You and your quarry are the same, except when it couldn’t find the answers it went to the place it had never looked, and here you are now; following in its footsteps to an isolated advisor. It’s looking for perspective. You say it leaves a trail of terrors. Maybe you missed the good it’s done.

NAVEEN

Oh, please.

ASHA

Are you likely to pay attention to a good deed, to a kindly act? No. That is not data. The news does not report on the compassionate. No one registers positive outcomes. Decency is perceived as neutral. I know, these are the things I study.

NAVEEN

Those are not the things that concern me.

ASHA

Hahaha, yes. And that is very sad. … I think what you are really looking for lies in this letter my contact in America found floating around in an undeliverable mail bin in Gilbert, Arizona.

NAVEEN

What is Gilbert, Arizona?

ASHA

A southwestern city in the United States.

NAVEEN

Yes, but what shrine, or university, or famous bloody restaurant?

ASHA

It was once called the Hay Shipping Capital of the World.

NAVEEN

How is that germane to magnetic ghosts?

ASHA

It’s not;

He groans.

It’s just a dead end. The address it was sent to doesn’t exist, and it’s so beat up and coffee stained that you can only read the last few paragraphs

You can make out a bit of the first line. It reads, “The first- something something- to seek- probably just another recap- and a word which isn’t Nepali at all: Koan.

NAVEEN

What does that mean?

ASHA

It’s a Zen term. To oversimplify it means “paradox” or “great doubt.”

NAVEEN

That can’t be good.

ASHA

It picks up mid-sentence where it can be read again.

Serene windchimes fade in. As she quotes the “being of light” a pitch change occurs.

‘And the wanderer asked, “Have you ever loved?”

There is no love, only closeness to peace. The student of light often asked questions about peace and its acquisition, seldom of things closer to themselves. Now, the conversation brooked many such topics; the wanderer glowing ever hotter with frustrations. The answers being so simple and the wanderer’s pain being so hard.

“How do I stop pain.”

You cannot stop pain. You can only let go of pain.

“Am I the lord?”

There is no lord.

“How is there no lord?”

There is no thing.’

It goes on like this for a while, sort of a dam burst of rapid fire questions. The entity becomes fatuous, and then very angry. Here the monk starts describing what is happening around them.

She clears her throat.

“With passing vexation the wanderer tore at the air between questions. Long cold tea steamed and bubbled nearby. The herds and animals of the valley were troubled. Not liking the truth, again they asked, “Then what point am I to make of myself, my purpose. What becomes of all I’ve done?”

The universe is infinite and expanding. To make one’s self bigger than the anything is impossible. Before existing a person was nothing. To make one’s self smaller than anything and be one with nothing has already been, so it can be done again.

“What if I don’t want to?”

Then you will suffer until you do, and if you outlast all else that lives you will never find the path, but persist the silent suffering ghost, the last fateless wanderer.

Dramatic tones. Crackling.

The student of light grew upset by the crackling and sparking of the air inside the hermitage. The form of the other took firmer shape, bright and terrible as the unearthly beings glassed in windows of the great cathedrals.

Distorted bells clang, growing louder.

Bells hanging from the rafters screamed and burned red like angry eyes against the black sky. All things about the sanctuary melted or steamed or burned or sparked. The terrible roar and wailing of gasses rushing and air combusting and objects shrieking brought all in the valley huddled to the ground and the moonshine on the mountains went out for they too cowered away. Ablaze with grief and fury, the student of light approached-

Her voice suddenly cuts out. Dial tone plays.

NAVEEN

Shite!

He slams the receiver. Picks it up again.

Bloody old phones. Or - Oh god.

Dialing on the rotary phone.

NAVEEN

Come on, come on.

A ring.

ASHA

Naveen?

Watch ticks louder. CD skipping. Suspenseful tones.

NAVEEN

No, it’s the other person with this number! What happened?!

ASHA

We just got disconnected. Not unusual given-

NAVEEN

I don’t like this I don’t like this-

ASHA

NAVEEN! I am worried about you! This has gotten insane!

NAVEEN

I AM NOT INSANE!!! I WAS TASKED WITH FINDING OUT WHAT THESE anomalies are and I AM A SCIENTIST, GODDAMNIT!! I followed the data, I was as skeptical as I can be and this is the answer. Whatever this thing is, it is growing, and it’s mucking up everything, and it’s me that has to stop it.

ASHA

Stop it? Is that what you’re so worried about? Stopping it?

NAVEEN

Yes, of course.

ASHA

Why?

NAVEEN

WHY?! Because it could bring about the apocalypse!

ASHA

And you believe you can stop that?

NAVEEN

I! I have to try…

ASHA

… That seems like a very large burden for one person. … Naveen, what makes you so sure this thing, whatever it may be, will make this choice.

Footsteps pacing.

NAVEEN

You have to expect the worst.

ASHA

I do not expect the worst of you, although I have seen you make many destructive decisions. We are often most critical in others of what we see in ourselves. What is it about YOU that makes you feel this way about the entity in the monks story?

Silence.

NAVEEN

I… have so little… sympathy for the struggles of others, and I have no sympathy for myself because of it. I know I have it within myself to forgive people, to deal with respect and kindness and magnanimity, but… I just don’t have the compassion to do it; the energy to navigate what it means to do so.

ASHA

And what do you think it means to do so?

NAVEEN

It means… it means… that I accept not knowing if I’m in control. It means … having faith that other people, other forces have a say in what happens to the world and that my responsibility is to be a part of that… not on the sidelines pulling the strings, but inherent, a part of… the most terrifying of realities.

ASHA

What do you think the student of light feels about this?

NAVEEN

I have to-

ASHA

You choose to?

NAVEEN

… I have chosen to err on the side of caution… on the side of fear.

ASHA

Fear of what?

NAVEEN

That if I had the power this thing has, that it might come to have, I would not still consider people… worth keeping.

ASHA

Why did I find these letters, Naveen? Why the one person who might share them with you specifically? Why the one person who might NOT share them with you?

NAVEEN

Not share them with me?

ASHA

I have known you since you we were young. Do you think I am so dense as to not know what these epistles might mean to you? How you could react to them? How it might tear you apart? Send you down deeper into the well in which you are drowning?

NAVEEN

No… No I-

ASHA

I share them with you not because it is wise, but because I believe the course towards whatever may be is swiftest through knowledge, that deceit only renders hopelessness.

NAVEEN

… Asha, am I a bad person?

ASHA

No, Naveen. I do not believe that.

NAVEEN

Am I an insane person?

ASHA

I do not think an insane person worries about such things. You are as the unwell are, confused and upset, but there is no reason to say this makes you insane, so long as you find your way back from it.

NAVEEN

Thank you. …What happened to the monk? Did the entity…

ASHA

Kill him?

NAVEEN

Yes.

ASHA

No, he wrote the letter you idiot.

They both laugh.

There is an end, however.

NAVEEN

Please, go on.

ASHA

Ahem.

Serene windchimes fade in.

‘When the holocaust and cacophony of the wanderer’s ire subsided the valley stood silent and dark. A blue as the mountain violets shone in the sanctuary, exhausted. White sparks snatched at floorboards. Shame and sorrow seemed to hang in the air.The tools of communication were re-ordered. Communion resumed. The melted bells and charred prayer mats lay about. The wanderer saw before them the destruction of their anger and expanded it in their imagination.

The student of light then asked its heart.

“If there is nothing then why continue.” The answer, Nothing and life are the same. Life continues unless it is destroyed. The wanderer asked, “Then it would be well if it were destroyed.” The answer,

There is no way to destroy life without creating. Life would be extinguished and replaced not by nothing, but with anger and pain. Only through life can one find the path back to oneness with all.

Making no reply, the seekers light faded and was no more in the sanctuary.’

This is how it ends.

NAVEEN

Of all the troubles I thought this thing might have, existential dread wasn’t one of them.

ASHA

How could it not?

NAVEEN

Yes, I suppose.

ASHA

Naveen, what will you do now that you know these things?

NAVEEN

I suppose what I’m meant to do is make a report and take action against this … other earthling, find some way to identify, contain and … ultimately… eliminate it.

ASHA

This is your job saying what you are meant to do. What do YOU say you are meant to do?

NAVEEN

There may be … Oh, ineffable glorious value in… in waiting, to wait and see if its time with the monk was profitable.

ASHA

And which will you do? Do you capture and kill this creature because it is all that it is, or abet its existence? What do you choose?

NAVEEN

…I don’t know.

The CD begins to skip and the vast majority of what is said after this cannot be heard, only guessed amongst the stutter of deteriorated compact disc.

ASHA

Naveen?

NAVEEN

What all this about-

ASHA

Naveen! What’s-

NAVEEN

Asha-

Huge wind whips through. The whisking cadence of a CD spinning is heard and stops dead. Dial tone plays and then cuts out.

Silence.

Theme song begins.

Credits: Transmission, episode five: Anam Cara, was written by Karl Gfall. Directed by Anuja Vaidya. Designed by Jennifer Overton. Episode five features: Muhammad Sajid and Chhaya Nene. Theme music by Troy Cruz.

Auricle was created by Felicia Dominguez and Tracy Hoida. The production of Auricle is made possible through donations from listeners like you. If you'd like to donate, please visit our website auriclethepodcast.com. That's a-u-r-i-c-l-e thepodcast.com and view the donation page to make a one time donation. If you are a fan of our work, please subscribe and follow, like, and rate us wherever you listen, or follow us on Instagram or Twitter @auricle_podcast. For questions or pitches, email us at auriclethepodcast@gmail -

Static. Radio tuning. Screeches of frequencies. Music ends. Silence.