Radio Underground

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THE CUTS IN my hand opened wide. The blood dispersed in thin, chaotic lines across my palm. I held my breath as the pain peaked and relented in nauseating pulses. Plucking all the tiny flecks of glass from my hand would take hours, and I didn’t have hours. Burying the broken wine glass in the trash, I tried to hide the evidence of my recklessness. I ran my hand beneath the faucet, hoping that would dislodge the stubborn shards.

I leaned closer to the radio as Radio Free Europe began its midnight broadcast. It always came on at the right time, when I could barely endure living without myself anymore. I had been who the government, who my family, wanted me to be all day. Now, I could finally reconvene with my real self.

According to reports, thousands of students had compiled a list of demands, mandating Soviet troops leave the country and that we elect a new leader in free elections. The reporter, a Hungarian émigré, commended the students for their courage. But I knew better. These kids, too young to know failure, didn’t understand their passion was no match for a government trained in killing hope. And those harboring it. The part of me that knew what I had to do to protect these students felt numb and ready to click into autopilot. The other part of me—the part that clung to the same hope they did—was just as terrified as they probably were in the brief moments they caught their mothers looking at them with concern. They too would break, like the wine glass hidden in my kitchen garbage.

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