From Red (Listener Message)

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.

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If you'd like to send Whiskey a message, click here.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

Hello Whiskey. Ohh, that feels weird. Like… sending a message to your best friend but… also to a celebrity that has no idea you exist. I must sound a little crazy. And maybe I am. You’d probably go a little crazy down here, too. 

Anyway, I don’t think I’ve actually gone crazy, pretty sure I read somewhere that if you’re still able to think about whether or not you are, then you aren’t. I think therefore I am not crazy? I don’t know. I don’t think any of my transmissions are getting through, anyway. Or maybe they are and you’re just… ignoring them. That… that hurts more, I think. Knowing that someone else is out there and they don’t want to talk to you. Or maybe they’re getting trapped somewhere between here and the surface. I don’t think it’s because they sound crazy or anything – I listened back to them to be sure. That was weird, hearing my own voice. The sound was… foreign. A stranger. 

I know your voice better than my own, now. I could pick it out of thousands of radio signals. Couldn’t even recognize my own played back to me. But then it’s not like I’ve had much to say these past… seven years? I think it’s been seven. I stopped counting the days a while ago. Just got… depressing. All those… plain white concrete walls covered in tally marks.

(Cheering) But now my walls look beautiful. I’ve been transcribing everything you’ve said – I have tapes of every broadcast, and I’ve written down every word. Pasted them up on my walls. And I haven’t used my paints in years – even… even before all of this, but… they needed a little colour. 

I started by making my own notes in red, and then your locations in green, for the landscape, and Birdie’s messages in blue. Like a bluebird. And all the people you talked about - Don’s rust, Richie’s yellow, Pete’s green – not like the landscape, but like… money. Like the colour that I remember money being, at least. And Harry was… well. I had decided her colour back when I thought she had hurt you – and she had, of course, but I mean… back when I thought she did it for the sake of it. 

So I gave her this… yellow-orange colour. And knowing what I know now, I feel… a little bad about that. I wish I’d given her a prettier one. But maybe she would like it. It’s not terrible. Sort of a… sunny orange. Like the colour that I remember the sun being, at least. Anyway, every… every rainbow needs some sun, right? And their names… they make a rainbow.

(Tearing up) You brought that rainbow back into my life, Whiskey. Seven years of white walls, and now there’s colour. Seven years of silence, and you bring back sound. Seven years of isolation and desolation and hopelessness… and you bring back… me.

You mentioned liking Rothko, back on… (checks) transmission 179. I mean, I’m no Rothko, obviously, but… I suppose he won’t mind if I take a little inspiration from him

So Whiskey… you can call me ‘Red’.