Within the Wires uses the form of guided relaxation tapes. The narrator immediately pulls the listener into the story by implementing the second person direct address. The calm voice of this woman tells the listener to complete exercises and visualizations, and the tapes give the listener time to perform the tasks. This mode of second person direct address forces the listener to become a character in the story and makes the story immediately personal. The format also lends itself to the listener truly immersing his, her, or themself into the piece, which adds to the driving emotion of the work. The nameless voice of the narrator comes to your character through tapes received from “the Institute’s security team.” The nameless woman almost immediately instructs the listener’s character to only trust her voice and your body. The tension in her voice and the just-gained knowledge of a security team implies a more dreadful context that the listener cannot see. The tapes and the nameless voice are all the listener gets in this story that cleverly works to center the listener. By implanting the listener as a character, the tapes become a confession. Through tone and visualizations from the narrator, the listener gathers parts of the character’s life that the listener plays. The listener knows little less than the actual character they play. This leads to the driving emotion of a sort of gutting guilt of the first season. The narrator knows more about the listener’s character than both you and your character does. She reveals facts about that character’s life that the character cannot even remember. She calls the entire system of the society of the podcast into question for this character. The emotions from the narrator hit so much harder, because the listener is the motive of the emotions. The narrator reveals so much in the cadence of her voice. As she comes closer to revealing her love for your character, her voice wavers without seeming scripted. She moves through this beautifully heartbreaking voice that bends toward crying. The passion of the piece comes from the meditation on remembering one’s self and life. The piece argues that in this memory, a person maintains freedom. This argument comes in fragments as the narrator tries to uphold the fictitious purpose of the tapes. The love of the listener’s character from the nameless voice on these relaxation tapes moves her to labor intensively for this character’s freedom. In this action, the podcast connects true love to a sense of wanting another to be free. In this case, freedom means having the capacity to remember one’s life and taking action from that point. |
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Keagan Wheat has been published by Z Publishing and worked on Volume 20 of Glass Mountain. He attended the Boldface Conference in 2018. He studies literature and creative writing at the University of Houston. |
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