Fun With Numbers Stations

Fun With Numbers Stations

Part 1:

(*A True Event From 6/21/14...)

My (beloved best friend, boyfriend, & partner in all things creative, hilarious, absurd, cute, & spooky) Davy downloaded an Audible.com audio-book featuring, not a 'friendly neighbourhood rapper' (as is the seemingly most frequent & benevolent sort of "Featuring"), but freaking HOURS of *Number Stations* recordings.

I was intrigued, but when we both gave the recordings an initial listen (for a horror-filled 15-20 seconds), we decided they were far too disturbing to continue on with, never mind to even attempt to decipher (we {as in "Me"} were going to solve them, dammit!, despite our {...
Sigh... Ok. "My"...} utter lack of specific, single-use ciphers, as We {"I"} Had Chutzpah!).

A week after the initial 'listen-preview' of the recordings, was last night (6/21/14) - the night I'm currently writing about, albeit incredulously & in a disorienting, surrealistic mindset . Now my Brain, whilst quite often über capable of maintaining the "cease-fire truce" - specifically drafted in accordance with the planned preservation of my rapidly diminishing Dignity - WILL occasionally break said truce (cos my Brain is occasionally a Fucking. Duplicitous. Douchebag.) & so it was broken last night. My Icklie-Wicklie Brainy-Poo slipped into "Hey Everyone!! I'm a fricking 12-y.o. at a slumber party, outfitted with a bad-choice itch & a surplus of free-time", & it was under such a singularly peculiar set of circumstances that I was inspired & hence very keen to challenge my Davy to a game that I'd made up on the (silliness) fly.

The game? Nay - t'was not so much Pinochle, Patience, nor even Blind Man's Bluff, but rather... Well... I'm all like, "Hey? Da-a-vee-ee? Let's play something fun! Let's play  'How long can u stay in the dark bathroom whilst listening to that scary-arsed shit on Full volume'?". He rather graciously declined, & therefore I was quick to volunteer instead (Dearest Reader: O' Prithee, but remember this! My Brain had obviously gone 'rogue' at the onset of last night's festivities - My own Corpus Collossum, my Amygdala, & even my Primitive & mincing Brain Stem had essentially pulled off a Heist of my sensibilities, the likes of which hadn't been seen since my first viewing of the Usual Suspects. It first Declared & then boldly executed an all-out mutiny upon every last morsel of the sparsely bequeathed good sense I'd ever possessed).

The proposed 'game' (Fun With Numbers Stations?) felt a Bit like a twist on "Bloody Mary" to me in that I'd also fully intended, right then & there, to become fully over-scared - ultimately, to behave in a situationally-induced "Amber-Is-Quite-Awesomely-Hilarious-&-Therefore-Amazing-To-Davy". I'm Nothing if Not an Entertainer (En-teh-tay-nah, a là Gervais' David Brent? Yeah?). This was just one more phase in my mating ritual or something?

I entered the lavatory, shut the door behind myself, turned off the lights, & hit "play" on the iPad's Audible app. The recording began immediately, & though it wasnt super creepy - I knew what to expect this time! - I ran out giggling in 3 seconds. Most importantly, my 'audience', Davy (& OH what an excellent audience he so dependably was/is!), found it all just too funny and therefore Everything's going incredibly well!

I'd like to say, "Noooooooo" but alas, I cannot spare you, Dearest Reader, from nary a nanosecond of my queer experience. But I digress...

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Fun With Numbers Stations

Part 2:

*F$CK!!!!

I entered the washroom & hit play right where the recording had stopped. I was even thinking - sort of - that I maybe might want to be just a little scared - to just feel that something - that intense & titillating chill invoked over nothing truly consequential; something almost primal, nostalgic, forgotten, ethereal; something that's currently very much absent in the lives of Most Ordinary Adults - that sweet little thrill of excitement, & the Rush - the blissfully Climactic jolt - that accompanies a realised & goosebumped electric anticipation (a near-Magick present only in the daily lives of children with amazing imaginations).

But I couldn't drum up an intense emotion for shit. Not, at least, over THAT sort of nonsensical 'tomfoolery' (Yea!  I'm a grumpy oldfart teacher with that word!!).  I stayed about a 55-60 seconds in the washroom, making faces in the mirror in the iPad's dim glow.

Suddenly, I felt quite nauseous. I was not remotely feeling anything akin to fear (the Numbers Station recordings had gone from macabre-to-monotone very quickly), nor had I even been thinking that my nausea had anything at all to do with my audio of choice. I felt, ultimately, that I needed to end the silly game I'd begun so that I could guzzle ginger ale & bismuth. I concluded then that I'd DASH from the bathroom, giggling & screeching in "fear" for the amusement of my Davy, & then I'd beeline to the Pepto Bismal.

I went to open the visable & completely-NOT-locked door (I could plainly see this cos of the luminescent iPad, despite the "dark bathroom" ideal of that sort of spooky game), & I grasped the knob & began to turn it. 
The knob turned slightly in my grasp - and then stopped. Like when someone is playing a prank & holding the knob on the opposite side of the doort?

I was like, "Davy? Ok... Very funny, Davy, now let go cos I want out & I have a tummy ache" (I was still completely calm - just nauseous). Davy insisted he wasn't doing anything, & blah-blah-blah, & then I panicked, & was stuck in there for 30 crazily-long seconds, the door knob moving, door not opening, then the knob not moving, still visibly not locked.

I pressed stop on the iPad with my right hand, still working the knob frantically with my left, & the minute that the recording stopped its recitation? That's when the door just opened as easily as it ever had prior to last night. I emerged, frantic, energised, genuinely terrified, & I made David swear on the lives of those he loved that he hadn't done anything (he wouldn't have, anyhow, as he's NEVER been a prankster to me cos of the whole PTSD thingy, and he's definitely not known for lying to anyone.).

I calmed down a bit after 10 minutes of ranting, pacing, testing & re-testing the lavatory doorknob (which has never stuck before or since),  but I had to pee, & so I calmed down, steeled my nerves, & headed on back into the now well-lit washroom. As I began to enter the washroom - the door 80% ajar - the door itself slammed 'at' me halfway in & I deflected it with my arms.

True. Wtf?

*For the uninformed, Numbers Stations are bizarrely creepy ham (spelled correctly?) radio transmissions - with an approximately 110 year history! - that have no explanation. They emanate from100% unjammable signals, featuring someone reading strings of numbers (someone is often either a computerised or 'real' child's or woman's voice with a flat affect) followed by a snippet of sound or music (ie. discordant ice cream truck { servicing only those specifically doomed to walk eternally along Styx without a boat?}). Some think they're a spy thing? Russia is frequently blamed, lol...).