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086 - Eighty-Six

086 - Eighty-Six

FromBreaker Whiskey


086 - Eighty-Six

FromBreaker Whiskey

ratings:
Length:
4 minutes
Released:
Nov 20, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

Please visit breakerwhiskey.com for more information or to send a message to Whiskey's radio. Breaker Whiskey is an Atypical Artists production created by Lauren Shippen. If you'd like to support the show, please visit patreon.com/breakerwhiskey. As a patron, you will also receive each week's episodes as one longer episode every Monday. ------ [TRANSCRIPT] [click, static] Breaker, Breaker, this is Whiskey heading west from Albuquerque. [click, static] “It still matters”. That’s what you said: it still matters I’m not sure what you were referring to with that…I don’t even know what I was talking about.  My…friends? Or—my crew, that is. I was telling you about Harry and I being nice to each other…is that what still matters? I’m not sure what matters anymore when it comes to Harry. I’m not sure what ever mattered with her. With…us.  All those years together and what kind of impact did it have, really? None. Our existence left the barest footprint these past six years. We might as well have not existed. Why does any of it matter? I guess you could say we mattered to each other? In the sense that the only thing we touched since the world emptied out was each other.  Each other’s lives, that is. We didn’t—not that— [click, static] I do…there are things that feel like weird echoes of the lives we lived in proximity to each other. I’ve finally cut my own hair, but it’s… I’m not sure I would’ve taken that painting if it weren’t for Harry. I’m not sure I would’ve bothered to go to that museum at all. I don’t like paintings that much.  
But it felt like I had to. Like I’m—like I’m doing it for her because she can’t. Which might make sense in a sad sort of way if she were dead but she could’ve— (sigh) I’m so fucking mad at her.  [click, static] I…I haven’t told you this, Birdie. I don’t know why, I’ve told you everything else. But I’ve picked up something to the tune of seven postcards since I last told you about keeping an eye out for them. And I’ve written to Harry on each and every one of them.  
I don’t know why. I don’t know why I keep putting cinnamon in my coffee even though that’s how she likes and I never did it before I met her. I don’t know why the few times I’ve passed a sign for a town or road or anything with the name Franklin, I’ve circled it on my atlas, thinking about how Harry grew up in a town called Franklin and always complained about being from a place that shares a name with a dozen other places in the country.  I’ve even—my perfectly organized trunk? All the tools just where I want them, the food in one place, the cookware in another—that perfect system that I’ve had in every car I’ve ever owned and the few places I lived long enough to implement any kind of system—the system that Harry destroyed within two weeks of us settling into a permanent spot? That system is useless to me now. I put the coffee can in the food section because I’m not an insane person, but I keep looking for it next to my toiletry bag because Harry liked to keep the coffee and tea next her toothbrush on the kitchen sink so that she could brush her teeth while she brewed her morning cup. That’s nuts! Just walk the extra two steps to the cabinet!  (sigh) Everything that used to work just…doesn’t anymore. I guess, in that sense, it does still matter, the way we treated each other. Maybe if we’d been kinder to each other the whole while, more accommodating, I wouldn’t be looking for tea bags in my toothpaste.  [click, static] [beeps] - .... / ----. .- -- Th 9AM
Released:
Nov 20, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

BREAKER WHISKEY is an ongoing, daily microfiction podcast exploring one woman’s journey to find additional survivors in an America made empty by an unknown event in the late 1960s. In 1968, two women find themselves in rural Pennsylvania during what turns out to be some kind of apocalyptic event. By the time they discover that everyone else is gone, it’s too late to figure out what happened. Despite not liking each other at all, the women work together to survive, until six years later one of them sets out on her own, driving around the country to find other survivors. This is her, calling out to anyone who might listen. BREAKER WHISKEY is made by Lauren Shippen and recorded on a 1976 Midland CB Radio. It releases daily, Monday through Friday. If you would like the entire week's episodes as one single download, released on Monday, you can support the show at patreon.com/breakerwhiskey or by becoming an Atypical Plus supporter at atypicalartists.co/support. Please visit breakerwhiskey.com for more information or to send a message to Whiskey.