In elementary school, I had a friend who was a radio operator. After classes, he would go home, sit at his radio station, and connect with the most distant places on Earth. Then he would receive postcards from those places as proof of contact. Everything about it impressed me. From the equipment—an ever-growing collection of devices with knobs and colorful screens, and increasingly large antennas on the roof—to the sounds accompanying the whole endeavor: the static, the crackles, the distorted voices, and the code understood only by the initiated. I envied him.

One time he let me speak into the microphone myself. To send my own voice into space and wait for a reply. It came after a moment. Clear and distinct. I recognized the voice of another schoolmate, older than us, who lived very close to me. I was thrilled. We didn’t know each other well, so I introduced myself and proudly said that I knew who he was and where he lived. The conversation didn’t flow and ended quickly. I ran into him later on the street. He called me an idiot and lectured me that on the radio, you never reveal your identity—let alone your address. I was discouraged from further connections.

***

I dreamed that someone was inviting me to the attic. They pulled me by the hand and, full of excitement, told me I absolutely had to see something. The attic was dark and cluttered. After a moment, I saw that all the junk was floating in the air. Silently levitating. My heart started beating faster. For a moment, I gave in to joy and the temptation to believe that not everything is as it seems. But then I told myself that it was probably just a draft.