Can You Hear Me Now?
Inspired by a reading of Terry Gibson’s brilliant short story, “They’re Made Out of Meat,” which was performed by multiple voice actors and aired on the Imaginary Worlds podcast, I challenged myself to write my own audio drama between two characters. No descriptions, no action lines, no introspections. Simply a dialogue-only deep dive into the notion that no matter where we go, there we are.
“That tiny flicker. That’s Earth!”
“Still no signal.”
“Or is it...Wait. I think it’s that one! Right there!”
“I specifically asked for interplanetary roaming.”
“All our friends in a tiny flicker. Millions of miles away. Looking up at one moon. And we’ve got three! Just think. We could be the first ones on this planet. Taking the first pictures—”
“—that nobody’s gonna see if we don’t get some goddamned signal.”
“You know, I was only hoping you’d splurge for a Sector 4 getaway after your promotion, but this place is so much more...exotic! This has gotta be a Sector 5 planet, maybe even—”
“It’s a 3.”
“Oh…”
“It’ll be a sub-3 after my review.”
“Well. I think it looks like a 6! We can caption it as a 6. And just look at this sand! Is it purple? Is it red? Is it sand? Like, what even is that? Total Sector 6 phenomenon. What do you think? Know what I think? I think I’ve never seen anything like this in my feed before.”
“I think that damn asteroid belt’s blocking the signal. Probably it’s a 3.”
“Take that cactus, for example. Near the floating rock. It’s moving. It’s blue, and it’s moving.”
“Ask it for the Wi-Fi password.”
“Can we pose with it?”
“I’m hungry. Let’s eat it.”
“It can hear you!”
“At least someone does. It’s like I’m Tweeting into a void right now.”
“Didn’t we fly out to get away from the distractions? To you know, talk to each other?”
“You were talking. I was listening.”
“So what’d I say?”
“One of the stars in the sky is Earth. This planet is a 3 but we’ll call it a 6 in the captions. There’s a blue cactus. It’s blue and it did a dance or something.”
“A dancing cactus? That’s stupid. Show me what you were posting.”
“I wasn’t. No signal.”
“Show me what you were posting.”
“Oh, don’t act like you weren’t just posing for selfies with the cactus. Probably doing that weird thing with your lips too, hashtagging IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS!”
“Shhh, you’re scaring the cactus!”
“Hashtag WishYouWereHere, hastag WishYouWereMe, hashtag WishIHadSignalSoICouldPostAFuckingHashtag.”
“You know, I stopped doing duck lips months ago. And maybe I was taking pictures. But I was NOT posting them. I know it can wait ‘til we’re back on the shuttle. It’s called restraint.”
“All I did was update my status.”
“What’d you write?”
“I forgot. Check your feed—Oh, wait.”
“No signal, no signal, no signal. I GET IT! You’re just the worst sometimes.”
“Wait. Hold on. Hold. On.”
“No, I won’t hold on. I’m tired of—Uh, what is that? Do you see that?”
“Holy shit. Come on, baby.”
“Will you look up for one second? There’s a herd of...Not herd. I didn’t mean that. What’s the proper name for the cactus people?”
“BOOM! Got it! Three bars of signal.”
“So there’s like a hundred cactus people walking toward us.”
“Oh, yea. Huh. Look at those little bastards.“
“They’re walking kinda slow.”
“They’re plants.”
“Do you think they’re okay?”
“Tell them to stand still so they all fit in the frame.”
“Do they even speak English?”
“Seriously, get them to huddle together. And to hurry up. I think I can get them all in one shot, with all three moons. There’s nothing even close to that on my feed.”
“Oohhh, what are they wearing? It looks like...fabric. Is that embroidery? Is it stitched around their spikes? That’s so quaint. Love, love, love it.”
“Says here they’re native to this planet, travel in groups, social by nature—they’re psychologically sophisticated, live with their families, yada-yada-yada, oh shit, they can build machines and—Here we go. Yea. They speak cactus.”
“I mean, I know we’re far out into the more exotic sectors—”
“Not really.”
“—but you’d figure they’d at least know some English by now.”
“Seriously. Zero English. Huh. Oh, wow.”
“What?”
“Amy just posted a ton of pictures of her wedding.”
“Amy got married?!?! I haven’t seen her since our wedding.”
“That wasn’t our wedding. That was Larry’s. And it was a funeral.”
“LARRY’S DEAD!?!?!”
“What. No. His Dad died. Jesus. Larry’s posting right now. My feed’s mostly Amy, though. The ceremony’s happening. Looks exotic. Cayman Islands, maybe.”
“Shut up.”
“Ok, yea, back to the cactus people. So it says the cactus people eat humans. Yea. Like, exclusively humans. Their spikes have sensors that detect phone signals.”
“Shut up.”
“I know, right? It was those assholes blocking the signal the whole time.”
“No, I mean, SHUT UP. I’m trying to find Amy’s post. She got married without telling me?”
“I think they’re chanting now. It’s a bunch of cactus people chanting in cactus.”
“I can’t believe Amy. No invite, no DM? And who even goes to the Cayman Islands anymore? What, she can’t afford to get off Earth? All that trust-fund money’s not enough for Sector 6?”
“Sector 3, but holy shit, the cactus people just made a tower out of themselves.”
“Her dress does look cute. I’ll give her a Like.”
“There’s a little cactus climbing up the backs of the others. It’s yelling at them. Now he’s standing on top of the cactus tower. Napoleon Cactus!”
“I won’t give her a reaction but a regular Like.”
“Holy shit, is the cactus on top dancing? It’s totally dancing. Must be hungry as shit!”
“Aww, but she does look happy. Beautiful location, too.”
“Is that one cactus wearing a fedora?”
“What a bitch.”
“Shhh, I’m filming here.”
“I’m ready to go home.”
“The cactus is pop-locking. We’re gonna go viral.”
“I had to unfriend Amy.”
“What.”
“Yes.”
“Unfriend unfriend.”
“Had no choice. And besides, the cactus tower is coming down. They probably saw that other shuttle land. They’ll try and eat those people now. It’s not even our planet anymore.”
“Home?”
“Home. Which way’s our shuttle?”
“Don’t know. I lost signal again.”