Numbers stations are high powered low frequency radio stations that broadcast repetitive messages consisting of strings of digits and letters. They are thought to be tools of the spy agencies of world powers, and some countries have obliquely acknowledged this fact. Listening to them is illegal in the UK. Some of them have been located by enthusiasts, and found to lie inside military garrisons. At least two of them are unofficially named after popular folk songs, because bars of the corresponding melody proceed the transmissions. The transmissions occur at regular intervals, and hobbyists have produced schedules.
Low frequency radio reflects off the upper layers of the atmosphere, and consequently a signal produced by a single ground based station can theoretically traverse the globe.
The whine of my kitchen light is a thin straight chain, cold and hanging heavily downwards. It vibrates unsettlingly, but with a very short range, like a cricket chirp prolonged for minutes on end. My right ear is suffering, is pained by the sound, and my right side is turned toward the kitchen.
I am munching rice dry, which I understand is sometimes used as a training technique by sumo wrestlers. The toughening of my intestines is an exciting possibility. On the other end of the equation: appendicitis.
Why is it that lately, I can't get out of my mind the cliffs along the Tennessee river, and the waterskiing trips my friend's father would take us on, so agonizingly early in the morning? We tried always to arrive while the water was still smooth. It was almost like red eye gravy in the mornings, thick and fragrant, hot from the hot august nights, and still as flat glass. The flatness would carry sounds far sometimes, and when the engine was still you could hear the lapping of the small waves on the red clay shores, or the guffaws of distant fishermen. There were other sounds unaccountable, caused by the unobservable actions of the timid water, which was surreptitiously occupied on all sides of the boat, into the far distance.
The worst part ( I am forgetting about the cliffs ) were those moments when you were in the water alone, waiting to be pulled up. Then you were helpless, and you had all the anxiety of your vulnerability summed with the impending roar of the boat engine, and the eyes of those in the boat, watching you rise or fall. The rope would go tight, and the power of the river would be felt all around you, inhumanly strong. The only escape was to slide upward, to stand aright on the sliver of wood beneath you, to somehow slide through the resistance, and gain balance above it. Then the water became progressively harder beneath you as the boat sped up. If the driver were inexperienced he would accelerate for too long, and the churning spume beneath you would solidify into limestone, and shake you mercilessly down, back into the foam, striking you as you came, as if in punishment for your arrogance.
The cliffs were slices out of the mountains, as if pieces of them had been removed like pieces of cake. The deep verdancy of the outside of the mountain would seem as skin, alarmingly different from the stone interior of the suddenly real geology beneath it. It looked like a grievous wound. The strangeness of it seemed absolutely alien when put together with the tableau of water on which we insecurely rested. The cliffs came down into the water, and conspired in weirdness with it, two occult forces in parlance in the always just-away distance, inaudible and suspicious.
Low frequency radio reflects off the upper layers of the atmosphere, and consequently a signal produced by a single ground based station can theoretically traverse the globe.
The whine of my kitchen light is a thin straight chain, cold and hanging heavily downwards. It vibrates unsettlingly, but with a very short range, like a cricket chirp prolonged for minutes on end. My right ear is suffering, is pained by the sound, and my right side is turned toward the kitchen.
I am munching rice dry, which I understand is sometimes used as a training technique by sumo wrestlers. The toughening of my intestines is an exciting possibility. On the other end of the equation: appendicitis.
Why is it that lately, I can't get out of my mind the cliffs along the Tennessee river, and the waterskiing trips my friend's father would take us on, so agonizingly early in the morning? We tried always to arrive while the water was still smooth. It was almost like red eye gravy in the mornings, thick and fragrant, hot from the hot august nights, and still as flat glass. The flatness would carry sounds far sometimes, and when the engine was still you could hear the lapping of the small waves on the red clay shores, or the guffaws of distant fishermen. There were other sounds unaccountable, caused by the unobservable actions of the timid water, which was surreptitiously occupied on all sides of the boat, into the far distance.
The worst part ( I am forgetting about the cliffs ) were those moments when you were in the water alone, waiting to be pulled up. Then you were helpless, and you had all the anxiety of your vulnerability summed with the impending roar of the boat engine, and the eyes of those in the boat, watching you rise or fall. The rope would go tight, and the power of the river would be felt all around you, inhumanly strong. The only escape was to slide upward, to stand aright on the sliver of wood beneath you, to somehow slide through the resistance, and gain balance above it. Then the water became progressively harder beneath you as the boat sped up. If the driver were inexperienced he would accelerate for too long, and the churning spume beneath you would solidify into limestone, and shake you mercilessly down, back into the foam, striking you as you came, as if in punishment for your arrogance.
The cliffs were slices out of the mountains, as if pieces of them had been removed like pieces of cake. The deep verdancy of the outside of the mountain would seem as skin, alarmingly different from the stone interior of the suddenly real geology beneath it. It looked like a grievous wound. The strangeness of it seemed absolutely alien when put together with the tableau of water on which we insecurely rested. The cliffs came down into the water, and conspired in weirdness with it, two occult forces in parlance in the always just-away distance, inaudible and suspicious.
posted by sevenfactorial at 7:34 PM
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