The voice in the empty studio

An original fictional account of an invented visit to a community radio studio.

The studio looked smaller than it had in the photographs. I had imagined a wall of switches and a serious red light above the door. There was one microphone, a desk with a nick in its surface and a clock that seemed too loud. I kept my hands in my coat pockets while Mara showed me where to sit.

She asked me to read the opening line of the programme. I said I had come to watch, not to speak. Mara did not argue. She placed a sheet beside the microphone and went to check the sound in the next room. The line on the page was about a lost umbrella. It seemed a poor subject for a broadcast.

I read it once, quietly. My voice sounded thin in the headphones, as if someone else had borrowed it. I stopped before the last word. Mara came back and asked whether I wanted to try it with the microphone turned slightly towards me. I said the angle could not make the sentence more interesting.

Then she played the recording. The first version began with a scrape and ended too soon. I heard my own breath before the word “umbrella”, and the pause made the line sound less like an announcement than a question. I asked if I could hear it again. Mara pressed the button without comment.

For the next take, I moved the sheet closer and read more slowly. I changed one word, then put it back. The clock still ticked beyond the door, but I stopped listening for it. When the recording ended, I asked Mara to keep that version. I left the studio without having seen the red light I had expected. On the stairs, I found myself repeating the line under my breath, testing where the pause belonged.