YOUNG M. VOICE: uh. hi. um. my name’s henry bicknell, hb for short- it’s, um, well it was a sunny day today but now it’s night in the radio station. 1986. there’s some dogs outside, dunno if you can hear them. try to get a clear recording for ya if they don’t get too loud. 

 

yeah, uh, no way this is going in there, but will told me to record everything, so i’m going to record everything. but i got a theory that that’s because everything you don’t record kind of… disappears. i tried to ask will if i could transmit a photo of andrew mccarthy and then i’d look like him in there but he says it doesn’t work that way. bummer! 

 

if i don’t, i think i’ll just destroy it. or leave it near my car. i dunno, i like thinking about it existing somewhere. just in case. 

 

um, so, the reason we moved out of missoula- this year, in the spring, we moved and i remember… that it was still snowing when we pulled into the driveway of our place in chicago, and i thought we had bought the whole apartment building for a second. pretty disappointing, haha! but i really like it here. i think. i mean, i met will here, so it’s a nice place. 

 

but yeah the reason we moved out of missoula -- and i don’t mean to insult chicago by trying to leave it, and will says i can come back and listen to the radio here anytime i want. it’s lonely here but then again it’s lonely for me everywhere. i make a lot of friends but i can never get them to… stick. and they stay, i mean, people like me, but…

 

the reason we moved out of missoula is -– the thing is, even if i’ve got tons of friends, even if i’m surrounded by them, i always feel a little bit like i’m faking it. i’ll be laughing and talking and then i’ll be watching myself laughing and talking, and going, oh, boy, they liked that one, they’ll like me a little longer before i get found out. dunno what they’re gonna find out. i never stick around to see. 

 

because, like, we had to leave missoula, because, and i totally understand… okay, like, nothing was wrong, was the problem. it was, what, sophomore year? i didn’t have any college applications to worry about, i was doing really well on the track team, i had some friends. but every day it felt like something was hollow. like, i dunno, the colors in the world weren’t as bright as they were before. like when i heard music it was through a film. i love making tunes, i love making friends, i love finding new forgotten places in the city. like the radio station here! h3vn 33.3- boy, is that a spooky story!

 

but um. yeah, i really like those things. i know i like them. but i just… stopped doing them for a little while. like i’d lie on my bed and know i’d love to be up making a new tune. i’d hear it in my head. like this!

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MUSIC: [A short jingle]

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YOUNG M. VOICE: but i just couldn’t bring myself to move one muscle over to the theremin and write it. i’d watch the light on my ceiling come up and go out and come up again. i could go to school more or less, but it was like whenever i was alone i’d just stand there, like a doll someone had stopped playing with. it took all my energy just to smile at someone.

 

so i guess the reason we had to leave missoula is that i kind of fell off a bridge. into water! deep water, like i bet i knew i wasn’t going to really- you know, but you do something like that and then everybody’s got a fucking opinion. i couldn’t really go to school. people talked about me. it was bad. i don’t remember too much about the time around it, just my dad kind of asking me when i felt like i could go back again and me saying whenever but not being able to move at all. 

 

i guess eventually someone gave me a potted sunflower. i think it was my mom? i uh, stopped seeing faces for a while, just like, didn’t care enough to look. but i bet it was my mom. 

 

so i don’t know why i really did it. i was watching it get all shrively and start to die over there on the other side of the room. and i knew i was the last thing standing between it and dying early. and just -- suddenly, i could move. i could water it. and then a week later there was a new little green leaf on it and i just… well, now i was responsible for this stupid little plant. i had to go outside to put it in the sunshine. and then i planted more. and then more. i grew a whole garden there. started making music. started going outside. and my dad finally felt like maybe we should move, get a fresh start in a new place.

 

i’m ok now. mostly ok. i find things to do with my time. but i haven’t been able to bring myself to make friends here, really. or, like, i feel myself running away from them again. and it’s because… like… everything is kind of a little fucking sunflower, right? like a friend. a life. it’s all for someone else. i feel like everyone else has some kind of power that i don’t- some secret, authentic way to make their own happiness. and until then what happens when the sunflower isn’t enough- when just, i’m not a good enough person, not selfless enough to make its existence my reason for existing… what happens? what happens to it then?  

 

so you see how i gotta put this here. i gotta leave this kind of thing outside. i really like will. like, really like him. i want this to be perfect. but i still can’t tell if he’s another fucking sunflower. i don’t think so. this feels different from everything else i’ve felt before. like my chest is all warm just from thinking about him. like i want to live forever just to be with him. but i don’t want any of this memory getting in there and making things… less than perfect. 

 

maybe i’ll plant it in the ground. or put it somewhere nice. somewhere with sky. 

 

well, end of transmission. what’s the word again? oh, god, yeah, over.