The silver orb gleamed in the light. Resting on a long metal tube extending from a circular base, nothing had ever terrified Jonathan more. He glanced at the clock. Three minutes left. He rolled his chair closer to the desk, grasped the tube in his right hand, and pulled the orb closer. A wave of heat flashed through him and he dabbed his forehead with a towel in his left hand. The roaring in his ears grew louder as he double checked the status on the monitors. A quick high-pitched but not unpleasant beep, beep, beep broke through the noise in his head.
"Two minutes to go Jonny. Ads are rolling now, I'll start your introduction when they end. You'll go live immediately after, just like we rehearsed yesterday," Steven's calm voice came through the headphones Jonathan wore.
He nodded, eyes wide.
"Jonny? You there bud?"
"Yes."
"We must have an audio issue. I can barely hear you. Damn! I knew we should have run a few more tests. Ok, give me a sec-"
"It's ok," Jonathan said louder, and swallowing hard. "I-I just lost my voice there a bit." He dabbed his face and released his death grip on the microphone. It's shiny surface reflected a distorted version of himself stretched around the sphere, broken in spots by the mesh that let his voice travel through.
"Yeah, that's better. Look, I know it's your first live show and your nerves are probably on edge."
You have no idea, Jonathan thought as his heartbeat began pounding in his ears.
"Everyone's nervous their first time. But you're here for a reason, remember that," Steven paused, "Time check, thirty seconds. Take a couple of deep breaths, shake out the nervousness and be ready to go at the end of your intro. We've already got ten calls on hold for you. They warned me you'd be popular! No catching up on my reading during your show. Time check, fifteen seconds. You got this bud, right?"
"Yes. Yes I do," he said sitting up taller in his chair, dabbing his forehead again. "No problem at all..."
"Awesome! Remember I'm here for you behind the scenes, keep an eye on the system chat in the bottom left corner of the screen. Time check, intro rolling..."
The bumper music played in his ear and a man with an unbelievably deep voice told the audience how lucky they were to be listening to the internet radio station KFLY and their newest host. The introduction ended and Jonathan miraculously became Jonny.
"Hey everyone. This is Jonny James on KFLY radio and I'm so glad you could join us for the premier of Everything and Anything. I'd like to jump right in and take some calls rather than bore you with the overly pedantic babbling I tend to do. Sooooo, Caller one. Tell us your name, where you're from, and whatever it is you want to share tonight."
My continuation…
"Hi, Johnny!" Am I on the air? I am calling you from the desert; the connection is somewhat lousy...”
"Hi!" Yeah, you're on the air! Tell me, what's your name and what are you doing in the desert?”
"My name’s Nick. Originally, I am from Vancouver, but now I'm traveling in a jeep around the USA. I'm in Texas now. Moved to the side of the road and I'm calling your radio station.”
“How unusual! I haven't had these types of callers yet. Tell me how long have you been traveling?”
"Oh... about three months, or so. Although sometimes it seems to me that time stretches to infinity, and sometimes it collapses into a point.”
“Excuse me?”
“No, I’m not abusing any substances, hahaha! Life is a much more potent aphrodisiac than any chemicals. Life is… Oh, God!.. It’s everything... While driving, I understood many things that I didn't understand, sitting on my ass in one spot.”
“Interesting!” Johnny got slightly nervous. He wondered if somehow a junkie got through the screening and was put on the air... Or worse - a member of some weird cult.
"Tell me how it is in Texas, Nick?" Johnny asked.
“Hot! Ouch!” Nick responded. “But who cares? Not everyone happened to see things that I was lucky to have seen here... First, let me tell you how I went on this trip. You see, there's this girl - Alicia. She and I have known each other for a long time. Then when we started to live together, she realized that something was wrong with me. And, you know, she was right. Indeed, I was rather screwed up. I was so... so very boring. Every day it was the same: work and home, home and work. The same people around. A closed loop. Oh…don't take me wrong - it wasn’t a bad loop. I had friends. I enjoyed my research at the university. It just so happened that I got stuck in that loop and completely forgot that the world is so wide.
“And so the girl reminded you about it? - Johnny clarified.
"Not exactly," Nick pondered. "She just told me that I was sitting in one spot too much, and I had to be shaken up a bit. Last year, she lived three months in Montreal, completely breaking away from her usual life and plunging into new experiences: new city, new people, new places. She ended up looking at herself, her past, and her surroundings from the outside. So, she realized I needed something like that. A trip, not necessarily to Montreal, but somewhere. I didn't know where to go, so I just got in a jeep and went.”
“Just like this, huh,” Johnny, sounded surprised.
"Yeah," Nick replied. "Now I 'm in Texas, but on the way here I experienced an interesting adventure in a ghost town in Nevada, visited a fellow scientist in New Mexico, gotten into long spirited talks with many girls - waitresses, cashiers in supermarkets, and in fast food joints.
“…held spirited conversations… About what?”
"About life," Nick replied. "Everybody is different. The life of many people is much fuller and richer than mine. Yet, traveling to all these places and meeting all these people, made my life brighter and particolored like a scrappy blanket.”
"Nick, you have to write a book about it!"
"A book? Maybe. I didn't think about it. It's like when you live, you don't write anything, you just live. You don't record it. Except of course when I called you. Maybe someday, after many years - and I will write my memoirs. But that’s not why I called you, Johnny! I’m calling you because right now UFO is circling above me!”
Nick started to say more enthusiastic nonsense about UFOs but while he was saying it the line started to have lots of static - whether it was a fault of the sound engineer, or the powerful aliens flying over Nick’s head in Texas, or... it simply was fate.
"Nick, you are breaking out, breaking out!” Excited Johnny almost shouted into the microphone. Finally, the connection died.
“Well… This was Nick from Texas live on KFLY radio. An incredible story, isn’t it?” Johnny giggled nervously. “The girl sent his boyfriend to drive around the country. He went obediently and had an incredible experience... A spiritual experience, I would say! Now we will listen to music for a couple of minutes - and a new guest is on the air! Perhaps it will be you! Call now!”
While the music was on, Jonathan leaned back on the chair, took his headphones off and exhaled noisily. This UFO weirdo from the Taxes desert made a strong impression on him. His fears and concerns about the broadcast have been completely forgotten. There was a new feeling - that here, in this closed room with a microphone, he has the opportunity to accomplish the same thing as what Nick drove a thousand miles for; to meet people whose lives were filled stories, with bright impressions ... and weave these stories into his own life, making it brighter and more colorful like a scrappy blanket of incredible beauty.
P.S. Thank you 
