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217 - Two Hundred Seventeen

217 - Two Hundred Seventeen

FromBreaker Whiskey


217 - Two Hundred Seventeen

FromBreaker Whiskey

ratings:
Length:
6 minutes
Released:
May 21, 2024
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 Alpha Romeo calling out for anyone else who might be out there.  [click, static] Maybe my mistake this whole time was not staying in the Northeast—everything is so close here, and now that I know why—or at least, I have an idea why certain people are here and others aren’t—it stands to reason that most of the people who’d be in this place would be in the Northeast. That’s where most of my life was centered and… Well, I guess there’s no point in using any callsign or code name. If I have other enemies out there beside Junior…well, I’m not sure who they’d be and I’m not sure how it gets worse, so…  [click, static] Breaker, breaker, Channel 19, this is Abi Rogers driving through New England, looking for other survivors.  [click, static] Maybe it’s strange to use that word. What did we survive? The last seven years living on our own I guess. Survivors of my mistake.  In any case, I’m zig-zagging as I move up north, just to be safe, and I’m going to be on this channel all day on the off chance I come into someone’s radius. A long shot, I know, but I’ve been feeling more optimistic lately.  It’s odd, isn’t it? Not too long ago, I came face to face with a man who wanted to kill me and then one of my mysterious fair weather friends tried to repeat that particularly unpleasant encounter. By all accounts, I should be feeling the most downtrodden and scared that I’ve felt since I got arrested.  But finding an old friend, someone I truly never thought I would see again…it’s like air in my lungs. Despite being alone, Donnie really is so much the same person he was when we first met. It’s like a warm cup of coffee, talking to him, hearing his ridiculous stories, being teased by him. It’s easy to fall back into the regular patterns. The other day I said he thought I was softer than I was, but what he actually said was “you seem sadder than you were, Abi”. Which I guess I can’t fault him for noticing. Even with how happy I was to see him, there’s still this cloud… I don’t know if I realized how much it had sunk into who I am. Loneliness isn’t new for me, hardship, fear—while there have been new kinds of challenges these last seven years, the fundamentals of who I am haven’t encountered anything they can’t bear.  I have been missing people more than I thought I would. As in—if you’d told me a decade ago that I’d be stuck in a place without strangers, a place where I just had to focus on living, and I could technically do whatever I want, I’m not sure I would’ve seen that as a bad deal. But the reality…well, being with Don has just put into stark focus just how much I miss talking to people. Being in New York reminded me just how much I loved getting lost in a crowd.  So there was bound to be some change in demeanor, I think that’s pretty normal. I have no idea how Donnie was able to stay sane by himself all these years, how he was able to stay so much the same.  I think being around Harry has been making me sad for a really long time. It’s a funny thing, that. When I first told Donnie that that’s where I’ve been—that Harry and I have been hiding out—he made a joke that I’d won the top prize in this shitty world. That he often felt like locking the two of us in a room until we could work things out.  I had no idea—that our…dynamic was so apparent to other people. But according to him, it was a point of discussion amongst the other three. Which is absolutely mortifying and also, strangely validating. So he was plenty happy for me that I’d finally been given the time and space to knock down whatever wall was holding us back. He couldn’t compre
Released:
May 21, 2024
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.