Chapter 2 — Late Night Radio

After the opening greeting, Vy let the first song of the night play - a song without lyrics, piano sounds falling softly like rain falling on a corrugated iron roof - then pulled her headphones to the side, looking through the soundproof glass towards Hai Duong. He was bent over the mixer, his fingers hovering over the volume knobs with almost unconscious proficiency, occasionally glancing up at the sound wave screen dancing with each note.

Thirty seconds before the song ended, he held up three fingers. Vy nodded and pulled the microphone closer.

"You've just heard the opening tune for tonight's program. Before going into the letters, I want to repeat, like every night — Sleepless Waves is always here, at 92.5 MHz, and the program's mailbox is always open, whether it's midnight or early morning. There are letters that reach me at three in the morning, written by people who have just finished work, whose hands have not yet had time to wash off the smell of motor oil or fresh fish. I read every line, and I believe that every night is the same, from the side. Behind every letter is a person who needs to be heard."

She opened the file on her laptop, where Thao Nhi - a young editor who had just joined the station a few months ago - had compiled the letters sent during the week, arranging them in order of priority with a small star next to each name. Vy scrolled through, stopping at a familiar name.

"The first letter tonight comes from an old friend of the program - Mr. Phan Dac Ngo, in Dong Hai neighborhood." Vy smiled softly to herself in the darkness of the room, even though she knew no one could see that smile except Hai Duong through the glass. "He wrote, his words were still shaky as always, asking his grandchild to copy them down for him: 'Miss Vy, today the sea is rough, I'm sitting on the front porch listening to the waves. I remember when I was at sea, every night I had to watch the weather forecast on your father's radio. Now I'm old, my legs are weak, I can't go to the beach anymore, but every night I turn on the radio, hearing your voice makes me feel like I'm still at sea, I can still hear the sound of waves crashing against the side of the boat.'"

Vy paused for a moment, letting those words have a place to settle in the broadcast space. Mr. Ngo is over seventy and was a fisherman for nearly forty years before retiring because his legs weakened after a storm that nearly took his life at sea. She is one of the few most loyal listeners of the program, having listened since Vy's father was still hosting the broadcast, and continues to listen every night since she took over.

"Thank you, Mr. Ngo, for always accompanying the program. I would like to send you the song you often request, which is also the song my father once said was 'the song of the sea' — hope you sleep well, and see you listening to the radio tomorrow night."

She signaled to Hai Duong, he nodded, pulled up the fader, a familiar melody about the sea and sailings sounded smoothly. In that silence, when the microphone was turned off and only the music flowed through the headphones, Vy leaned back in her chair, looked up at the gray foam-covered studio ceiling, and let a long breath escape without anyone hearing.

This was the moment she often silently called "the space between two sentences" — when the song was playing, the microphone was turned off, and she suddenly realized she was sitting alone in a sealed soundproof room, surrounded by hundreds, maybe thousands of people listening, but none of them saw her, knew what she was wearing, what she was thinking, whether there was a worried wrinkle between her eyebrows or not. She is a formless voice, speaking from darkness to darkness, connecting with thousands of other lonely people but she herself, right now, is equally lonely.

Vy once asked Hai Duong, in the middle of an uneventful night, "Have you ever seen the paradox? I work in a job where I talk to thousands of people every night, but after work, I find myself not talking to anyone."

Hai Duong just smiled and tapped his fingers on the mixer table. "Your father asked me the same question a long time ago, the first year he did this program. I told him the same thing I'm about to tell you now: that's not a paradox, that's the price of the profession. People need a voice that doesn't demand anything from them, doesn't judge, doesn't need to know their faces. We have to accept being on the invisible side, so they can be themselves on the other side."

Vy still remembers those words, sometimes thinking about them on nights when she feels the emptiest in her heart.

The music ended, the "ON AIR" light was still red, she pulled the microphone closer, her voice returned to its familiar rhythm. "Next, I had a few messages sent through the program's fanpage. An anonymous friend, working in an industrial park in the west of the city, wrote: 'Miss Vy, I just finished my shift, I'm riding my motorbike back to my room, the road is so deserted, only your voice in the headset makes me feel less scared.' Thank you for trusting in sending those words to the program. The road home tonight may be empty, but I believe you are not alone, at least during this time frame, there are many people walking on different streets of the city, hearing the same voice, on the same frequency."

The desk phone in the studio, the hotline calling directly, suddenly turned on. Hai Duong gestured through the glass, holding up two fingers: second call of the night. Vy pressed the reception button, her voice softened.

"Hello, this is Sleepless Wave, I'm listening to you."

On the other end of the line was a middle-aged woman's voice, slightly hesitant because it was the first time calling into the station. "Yes... Ms. Vy, I'm a worker at a garment factory near the port. My sisters and I often work late at night, turning on the radio to listen to sleep. I'd like to ask you to help me play a song, give it to the sisters in our third sewing group, and also... give it to the night security guards at the factory. They also often stand outside the gate and listen to our radio."

Vy laughed lightly, a real laugh, not a professional laugh. "Okay, can you give me the name of the song? I'll play it right away as a small gift to the number three sewing team and the security guards who are staying up with my sisters tonight."

The call ended, she processed the request, signaling Hai Duong to find the song in the database. While waiting, she looked out the small window, where the city lights had gradually faded, leaving only a few scattered dots of light where the factories still operated on night shifts, the late-night restaurants were still open, and the gas stations still had people on duty. Cam Duong is now like a sleeping body, with only a few tiny blood vessels still awake, still pumping blood throughout the city to keep it from completely shutting down.

The song number three requested came on, a youthful song with a faster tempo than usual for the program, but Vy still let it run completely without interruption. She always believes that the most difficult part of hosting a late night show is not speaking, but knowing when to be silent, knowing when to give space to the music, to the audience, instead of having to fill every space with your words.

Near midnight, Hai Duong tapped the internal microphone, his voice echoed through Vy's headphones, only the two of them could hear. "There are two more letters on Thao Nhi's priority list, and there is a somewhat strange message, let me send it to you on the screen before reading it."

Vy glanced at the screen, a short text message from an unfamiliar phone number, not through the fanpage as usual, but sent directly to the program's hotline number: "It's about to rain tonight. I will listen to the end of the program." No names, no greetings, no song requests. Vy re-read it twice, feeling something strange about the writing - short, firm, almost like a promise rather than a normal message from the listener.

"That's strange," she muttered into the internal microphone.

"Probably just another new fan," Hai Duong replied, his voice calm. "Our station has recently had a few more young listeners. They probably heard it through the livestream on the fanpage and then tuned in to the FM frequency."

Vy nodded, without thinking further, continuing to read the remaining two letters - one from a long-distance truck driver running the North-South route through Cam Duong at midnight, the other from a student studying for the final exam in his room. She handled each letter with the same care as her father used to do — not reading it through, not turning it into a formula, but really stopping, imagining where the writer was, what mood he was in, and then choosing words to respond that were just warm enough, not cheesy, not fake.

Near one o'clock in the morning, when the last song of the night began to play, Vy looked back at the entire past three hours, the familiar feeling of gentle emptiness rushed back - the feeling she experienced every night after turning off the microphone, as if she had just poured out a part of her energy and emotions into an invisible funnel, sending it throughout the city, not knowing for sure if it would really reach anyone, other than these few response letters.

She took off her headphones, rubbed her temples, and looked through the glass at Hai Duong who was packing up her equipment. He gave a thumbs up once more, as a closing ritual of each broadcast night. Vy responded with a tired but sincere smile, then turned to the screen and read again the strange message from before: "It's about to rain tonight. I will listen to the end of the program."

She didn't know why, but there was something about those words that made her linger for a few more seconds, her fingers hovering over the keyboard, before turning off the screen and walking out of the studio, leaving behind a silent room, her father's microphone still hanging there, waiting for tomorrow night.