Let it never be said radio is dead.

I was between jobs at the time. On one end of the timeline was my apprenticeship; on the other, the deep uncertainty of the future. I always was good at taking this in stride. Anxiety never did run in my family, despite my father’s best efforts.

The tattoo parlor smelled of cheap whiskey and fluorescent lights, but in a fine way–a tasteful way. The right wall was brick painted black. Strings of fluorescent lights and cables criss-crossed the length of the shop like a galleon’s rigging. I wasn’t much of one to judge–I was still sweating booze.

An apprentice–twenty-something woman with a bleached streak in her pitch black hair–pulled the stencil off my skin. The outline was spotty and thin, but unmistakably a small hyacinth bush, snaking up my brachial artery and blossoming at my wrist.

I’m still not sure if it was the scent of the ink or her perfume, but there was lavender. Very strong lavender.

She clicked on the little wood radio on the cart next to her, gripped the needle, apologized, and set it to my skin. 

Her hand was heavy and uncertain, but this came as no surprise. Her senior, a mullet-sporting man with more scowl than face, watched her with piercing, cataracted eyes, following the jagged tip of the needle, scrutinizing every movement of her hand. Sweat beaded at her hairline, vanishing in her cracked foundation.

I’d been tattooed by apprentices before. It’s key to keep a level face–much like a toddler who fell off a coffee table, if you panic, they panic.

“When hell is up there,

And Heaven’s on fire.”

The radio looped again.

“When hell is up there,

And Hea–”

The apprentice thumped the top of the radio with a closed fist and it went dead. A jolt of pain stabbed my arm and I bit the inside of my cheeks as the needle shot deep and off-course.

“Thing’s always been a piece of shit,” the senior said, his voice with the quality of ash.

I pointed out it wasn't broken, just between channels, the dial wedged between two points. What I didn’t point out was the stray line–a thin stream of black shooting off a hyacinth petal. I think she noticed at some level, eyes lingering on that spot for a fraction of a second longer, pupils dilating.

The tattoo was halfway complete when I asked to step outside for a smoke. The flowers had begun to bloom into shape, etched into the soil of my skin but still monotone. She had a fledgling style, the solipsism of the flower offset by the whimsical flow of her lines, a cartoonish flow that provoked life. That made the flowers seem more than they are. The lines were deep and my forearm throbbed, like my dermis was replaced with fire. 

She led me to a red door on the other end of the shop which swung open into the rain-soaked, lantern-lit Karnsten alley. She lit my cigarette beneath the tin awning and apologized again before shuffling back inside. I held the cigarette in my hands for a moment, picturing the moment our breath shared the chilly night fog. I yearned for it, to some capacity. Connection. Closeness. Even against my better instincts. I looked at her and for a fleeting instant imagined a future together in a one-bedroom apartment.

I caught a glimpse of the moth tattooed on her sternum. Couldn’t help it. As cliche as it sounds, it really was staring at me, eyespots following me as she turned away.

Then it was all gone, like a loose cigarette ember in the rain. 

Maybe it was the product of an overactive adrenal gland, taxed by repeatedly being stabbed, but I really did feel on edge. 

Maybe it was the radio. Maybe it was the black line. The cigarette didn’t help

In the pitter-patter of the rain, I heard… static. Like something was fighting to be heard in the menagerie of sound. I flicked out my cigarette and listened. 

“When hell is up there,

And Heaven’s on fire.”

The single, dingy lantern flickered–not like an oil lamp should. It jittered, like an electrical signal was interfered with.

“When hell is up there,

And Heaven’s on fire.”

It was closer this time. The same chords looped behind it, crushed in the radio compression. I felt the song in my teeth, like it was singing into my marrow.

I was cold. I ached like an exposed nerve. My teeth throbbed, the song grew louder. A molar cracked and I screamed in pain.

Then, I saw it. Between the flickers of the lamp, a long shadow cast down the alley, skinny and crooked. I followed the umbra of its arm, stretched down the flagstones, under the far awning.

Up my leg.

Under my jacket.

Into my mouth.

I ran, then. I turned about-face and sprinted as fast as my legs could take me, through the shop, past the baffled apprentice, into the street beyond. I ran the whole way home through the city streets, past the railstation, into my apartment block. 

I turned on every light and stayed, back to my bedroom wall, shotgun in hand. It was hours before I moved, and my toothache still hadn’t left.

Later, when I worked up the nerve, I checked the bathroom mirror. My upper-right molar had a horrible crack slitting it down the middle, as though it had been gripped hard with pliers. I ripped it out with actual pliers later that week. 

Look at that. “I, I, I.” All about me.

I never did go back to that tattoo parlor. I slipped a check under their door when I finally got the nerve to come back to that street, even though I jumped at every shadow. 

But what of the song? It lived with me a while, in dreams and hallucinated tones in the thrum of the radiator. The way these things tend to stay with you. Never heard it in the waking world again. Couldn’t find it in any radio station, library, or music store, even after humming the melody to the old collector down the street who knew every piece of music put to soundwaves.

Although, that part’s a lie. I never told anyone this part; consider it a Horlav Press Exclusive.

I see it every now and again. Stretched out on my apartment floor like a medieval prisoner on a rack. 

It was a muggy Karnsten night. Every night, at about 3AM, the fog creeps in, rolling low against the concrete, shrouding the streets in the funeral veil of the working hours. As for me, I had just clocked in, sitting in that threadbare chair at my radio setup at Bent Skies Radio.

I adjusted my script, cleared my throat, and the door to my booth swung open.

“I’m sorry, Johnny.”

“Why?”

He handed me the letter. Not an internal notice, not anything personalized. The public release. You’ve all seen it by now. I could read between the lines.

“So, that’s it?”

He shrugged. “Guess so.” A silence settled between us like tar. “I’ll give you a moment. We gotta be out by morning. Don’t worry about helping–I got a guy. Say your goodbyes, Johnny.” He paused a while, taking in the booth from the angle of the door, knowing this would be his last time barging in. Soaking in the angle of the mic, my bizarre soundboard layout. “Was good working with you.”

Then he closed the door. Just me and that flickering lightbulb we never did fix.

I can’t put to paper what ran through my head, then. Sadness. Indignation. Nostalgia.

Four years for what? A little yellow letter without a hint of severance. Hell. Not even that.

The radio clicked. The ON AIR sign hummed to life, the tape wheels spun. I was told later we actually went live. The last gasp of Bent Skies Radio.

“When hell is up there,

And Heaven’s on fire.”

It laughed at me.