Episode 3: Week 7

Opening Static noise

Gabe: 

Alright, Gabe.

3rd time's a charm.

We got this.

We're gonna reach out to somebody today.

Come on.

Yeah.

Okay.

My name is Gabriel Blythe.

I'm in the Greater Salt Lake area.

I'm calling out to any survivors, broadcasting to anyone and-and everyone who might be able to-to reach out in return.

Pause

Well, it was worth a shot.

Figured you would reach out by now if you could.

I realize that not everyone has access to a CB radio or anything else to broadcast with.

And even if you do, it's not the easiest thing to figure out how to work.

I had to read all of these boring books.

I mean, just book after book on how it all works, I gotta tell ya, my least favorite thing is reading the foundations of how radio waves work.

I guess-I guess any book starts from the beginning and that makes sense.

Right?

How else do you learn?

Also, how does the book know what I may or may not already know?

So they-they gotta write like that.

Groans

I don't know.

It's it's just so boring because none of these books are, like, directly correlated.

Right?

 So I wanna skip to where it picks up in the gap of my knowledge.

But then I'm afraid to skip ahead in a few chapters and I'm gonna miss that one piece of crucial information, that that that thing that will make it all just click.

You know?

 Like-like this one time in grade school, I I pretended to be sick.

Oh, man.

Chuckling

 I I did that a lot.

I was sick a lot.

And I don't know if it was just the people or just because I could.

You know?

Anyways, I was out the day that my class covered fractions.

Simple enough.

I mean they covered everything.

And I mean they covered everything.

And I mean they covered fractions, everything to do with fractions because I remember when I went back to class the next day, the very next day mind you, they never talked about the basics ever again.

And to this day, what, 20 some odd years later, still haven't the foggiest.

I mean, I know the basics.

Right?

One eighth is less than 1 half.

But it asked me how to make 30% of, I don't know, 16

Whooshing

right over my head.

Might as well ask me how to write a sonnet or compose the works of Beethoven.

Not possible.

Well, not possible for me.

Everyone else in my class seemed to grasp the concept of fractions just fine.

Maybe one of them could write a sonnet, guess I'm gonna have to find out where they all went after this is all over.

Did Kate ever meet that boy band that they were always going on about?

Was Higgs

Chuckling

was Higgs ever able to jump so high he flew to the moon?

Laughs

Man, we had such interesting stories and lies to tell when we were young.

Okay.

Enough rambling.

If you wanna hear more of my riveting stories, you can find me tomorrow, Wednesday, every Wednesday from midday to sundown.

Figure I'd drop the time specifics for the midday and noons and whatnot because who knows if everyone can tell what time it is.

No power and whatnot makes life rather difficult.

Although after that fun snippet, you may avoid avoid me entirely, and that might be fair.

Anyways, I will be at the stadium, uhh right in the center.

You can't miss me

Tomorrow.

The

Sighs

the people,

I wanna think I do wanna think of a easier, better title than the zed word.

That word, it just doesn't feel appropriate.

I just I can't see us giving them a word that connects with a thing we created.

Right?

To distract ourselves and and demean others, to to belittle people, to belittle everyone else. Because what if they-what if they come back?

I know. It's been what?

 7…

7 weeks?

 It doesn't feel like they'll just wake up, but if they do and they find out we have been calling them these degrading things when they were just fighting for their lives.

And and to diminish what others are working hard to achieve and and and this invisible fight that they've had to live with for the past few weeks?

No.

It it just it just doesn't feel good to call them anything less than than fighters.

It's always just too easy to punch down, especially to other people, because we don't understand them.

 Or we refuse to.

Fighters isn't bad.

Survivors?

The afflicted.

Infected?

Ugh…

Woah.

Got really sidetracked there.

Sorry.

What I was trying to say is that at the stadium, the people who aren't talking…

 This is so hard.

The people who aren't responding there you go, Gabe.

Gold medal.

They don't they don't they don't follow you and and they don't tend to be in the stadium.

So so it's it's safe.

It's a big giant open space.

If you do decide to come, bring what rations you have?

I may have eaten through my rations.

Yeah Yeah.

I know.

I know!

I said I had food that would last us a while.

But I found out that I have a very low impulse control.

And when I am bored, I just eat.

Had I known before all of this that 7 weeks ago there was going to be this blinding light while everything was shaking and I would need to work on my eating habits that would help me survive, I would have made a few changes to how I live my life.

That's that's all!

Sighs

I have been reading and and listening to just nothing but static, and I have just eaten so much food in that time.

7 weeks.

 Everything.

I've been trying to venture out a little bit more.

 And and again, I I just I have this this hope.

This hope that everything will go back to normal.

And I and I don't want to have to pay for some crime I committed trying to survive.

And I and some copper comes up to me and says, I owe Mori and Sons for several weeks of food.

Besides, it's not like I had a high salary job before all this started, and I doubt I'll get any form of back pay.

 Maybe maybe I'll I'll make a few stops at a big box store.

You know?

Like, they won't miss anything.

But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

And by King and Country, I don't want this following me around for just trying to survive, for just surviving everyone.

That's my defense.

What a rap sheet I'd have.

Stealing food, cables, batteries, solar panels

off of other people's homes, mind you.

Wiring supplies, squatting.

All because the world shook for what felt like ages and everyone stopped acting like themselves.

 Maybe, we will all be excused.

 I is is surviving really punishable?

Sighs

Even if we're not doing the best things for ourselves and everyone else, sometimes we have to work really hard to survive.

And pulling ourselves up, sometimes we push other people down.

I don't know.

 I'll think about it some more.

Maybe you can convince me otherwise.

 What what have you been doing?

By now, you know the drill.

Stadium, midday to sundown.

Sighs

 I'm looking for something that's a little bit more in the open.

 I I I get that that the stadium is you have to go through a lot.

You know?

But I like the stadium.

It makes me think of before…

Pause

 you can't tell that I'm gesturing to everything, but I am gesturing to everything.

I'll put this message on repeat every day.

Monitor most frequencies from 9 AM to to 11 AM.

I I hope I see you there.

 Gabe, you gotta get better at this.

Short and to the point next time, please.

Thank you.

Sighs and turns off signal with a click