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The constant hum of the radio was my only company. In Lagrange, a planet suspended among eternal shadows, light and darkness became empty words; the sky is a gradient of pale neons, without a sun, without stars. There is only that nebulous and distant horizon, where every sound seems a threat.

Inside the stifling interior of this remote outpost, the shortwave radio crackles in irregular intervals — a metallic sound, like the blade of a knife scraping against the silence. I have grown used to this sound, yet I cannot escape the feeling that someone — or something — could appear at any moment. Not that I expect company; but in the metallic cold of this place, solitude and paranoia are treacherous allies. In every click of the radio, I imagine footsteps echoing, as if some invisible spy were here, hidden, waiting only for me to lower my guard.

The encrypted messages are my only contact with the “world” — and even so, I doubt there is anything out there that still matters to me. The routine is to wait, clinging to the radio, like one who holds on to a thread of sanity.

On Earth, at НЖТИ, the transmissions happened at a calculated and alienating cadence, with bits of Morse code one would decipher mechanically, but whose importance always seemed to slip through my fingers, like turbid water. There was something almost seductive about my mission, which consisted of waiting for the next transmission, without knowing whether it would bring more comfort or merely a little more fear.

Here, in Lagrange, I look towards the line of the horizon, but there is no dawn. There is not even a night worthy of the name. Only the eternal twilight, the pale glow seeping through the armoured windows of the radio post. Only solitude, and the hope of, who knows, a transmission, a voice, a signal — even a single one.

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