Three a.m.
She had a play list. She knew what she was supposed to play. But after a few weeks on the job she came to realize that no one was listening.
The station was in trouble. Any day now there'd be a format change and she'd probably be out of a job. Who cared?
So she brought in her CD of Nepalese nose chanters and her tape of her ex boy friend's grunge band from the eighties and a tape she made herself of her mother and step father having a fight on Thanksgiving. She played them all. There were no phone calls.
She tried playing two or three CDs together. Weaving the levels at random. Interesting. No one called. Beatles and Beethoven. Woody Guthrie and Maria Callas.
She turned to spoken word. An old Indian legend and Private Lives. Shakespeare and Kerouac. No one called.
One night she was combining FDR and Snoop Doggy Dog and the phone actually rang.
Slightly apprehensive she answered it. He said he was the Secretary of State.
``Sure!'' she said.
``I have a statement to make,'' the alleged Secretary said.
``Then come down to the station.''
She saw him on the video monitor. He did appear to be the Secretary of State, or someone very like him.
``I'd like to make a statement,'' he said.
``No one will hear it,'' she answered, ``no one is listening.''
``Nonsense,'' he said, ``people must be listening.''
She shrugged, ``I don't think so.''
She introduced him. He said a lot of things. That he was a spy, the President an extortionist, the Supreme Court morally bankrupt. He went on and on. Then he shook her hand and left. No one called.
When she pulled up the AP to do the early news she saw that the Secretary of State had shot himself.
It occurred to her that she had not recorded his final words.
And no one heard them.