Chapter 3 — Late Night Radio

The rain came around nine o'clock in the evening, without warning from the usual gusts of wind, but suddenly crashed down on Cam Duong city like someone had just turned a giant barrel upside down in the sky. Vy arrived at the station earlier than usual, her hair was soaked even though she only ran from the parking lot to the lobby in less than thirty steps, her water-soaked shoes squeaking on the tiled floor.

Hai Duong had already brewed a pot of hot ginger tea in the control room. When he saw her entering, he pushed the tea cup through the small door between the two rooms. "Drink to keep warm. This type of rain will probably last until morning, the forecast station says low pressure near the shore."

Vy took a sip, the warmth spreading down her throat, looking out the window where raindrops whipped across the glass, creating sparkling streaks of light under the yellow streetlights. She always had a strange feeling on nights of heavy rain - both seeing the city as lonely and feeling closer, as if the rain had washed away all the distance between the awake people, forcing them to stay close to each other through the radio waves, through the only light left on in the cramped motel room.

The show started on time like every night. Vy read a few letters, played a few songs, and reminded listeners to be careful when going out because the streets were flooded in some low-lying sections near the port. Near midnight, when the sound of the rain outside had subsided to a steady, almost lulling sound, the call light on the desk suddenly lit up.

Not the familiar number that usually appears on the switchboard screen, but a simple text: "Anonymous number."

Hai Duong glanced through the glass, frowned slightly, then gestured to ask if Vy accepted what he meant. She nodded, partly out of curiosity, partly because of an unwritten rule of the program — Sleepless Wave never refuses a call, no matter how much the caller wants to hide himself, because sometimes the people who hide themselves the best are the ones who need to be heard the most.

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

There was a short silence, long enough for Vy to think the transmission was faulty, then a deep male voice, slowly, rang through the headset - not in a hurry, each word was released as if it had been considered for a long time before saying it out loud.

"Hello. I... am not used to calling into programs like this. But it's raining heavily tonight, I'm sitting alone, and I thought maybe I should try it once."

There was something about that voice that made Vy sit up straight, an attention she didn't fully understand why she was giving it. Not that it's particularly melodic or expressive — on the contrary, it's quite flat, a little hoarse at the end, like that of someone who hasn't talked much during the day. But there is a weight in the way he punctuates his sentences, as if each silence between sentences has its own meaning.

"Thank you for calling in," Vy replied, keeping her familiar warm voice. "Can I call you something for convenience?"

"I don't want to use my real name," the man said, without hesitation, as if he had thought about this answer long ago. "Can you just call me White Night? Because my nights, almost every night, are white, I can't sleep."

"Okay, White Night," Vy repeated that name, finding it both strange and familiar, as if there was a vacancy waiting for it to fill. "What do you want to share with tonight's show?"

"I don't have any song requests," the man said, his voice still monotonous. "I just wanted to... talk for a moment, if you don't mind. I'm on shift, and tonight is one of the longest nights of my week."

"I don't mind at all. What kind of work do you do that requires you to stay up all night?"

Another silence, longer than the last. Vy could almost hear the steady sound of rain falling on the other end of the line, or maybe it was just the background noise of some machine running, she wasn't sure.

"I can't say it clearly," the man replied, his voice not evasive but surprisingly frank. "But I can tell you this — I work in a profession where if I fall asleep, even for just half an hour, many other people won't be able to sleep peacefully. It may sound exaggerated, but it's true. My job has no name, no one knows my face when I do it, but if someone like me is missing for just one night, the whole area will be in trouble by morning."

Vy was silent for a second, feeling something strange in her chest - not exactly professional curiosity, but like she had just touched a piece of mirror that reflected herself from a different angle. “Sounds like my job,” she said, her voice slowing. "I also work in a profession where if I'm absent for a night, maybe no one will die, but someone will lie in the dark a little longer, a little lonelier."

“Yes,” the man said, and for the first time there was something close to a smile in his voice, however faint. "There are professions where people never applaud, never make it to the newspaper, no one waits at the gate to take pictures. There's only work, and darkness, and aloneness. I think I called in here, partly because it's raining so much tonight, I miss having someone to talk to, but partly, I think I want to find a voice like mine — a voice that's also alone in the middle of the night, because of work, not because of being abandoned."

Vy felt her throat tighten a little, a feeling she didn't expect to happen during a normal listener call. She glanced through the glass and saw Hai Duong attentively watching the sound wave screen, but perhaps also listening, because his hand remained on the mixer, not moving.

"Do you have a story to tell?" she asked, trying to keep her voice calm and professional, even though a curiosity arose in her heart that she had never felt with any phone call before.

"There's a story," the man said, his voice slowing down, as if he were searching for something deeply hidden. "Many years ago, I had a friend who worked the same night shift as me, in a different place, not where I am working now. He was much older than me, almost retired. One night, he told me that he had worked as a guard all his life, no one knew his name, only the alarm bells knew him. He said, 'My job is the job of staying awake, so that others can sleep peacefully.' I always remember that sentence. Later he..."

The man stopped suddenly, his sentence trailing off mid-sentence. Vy waited, silently, not wanting to interrupt, but the silence lasted longer than she expected, five seconds, ten seconds, long enough for Hai Duong to start making worried signals through the glass.

"Sorry," the man's voice came back, but something was different, a little more urgent. "I have to go. There's an alarm at my place. Thank you for listening."

"Wait—" Vy just had time to say, but the line was disconnected, a steady beeping sound rang out in the headset, leaving her sitting there, still holding the microphone, her mouth opening to ask something else that she hadn't thought of yet.

She looked through the glass, Hai Duong shrugged, equally confused. Vy took a breath, pulled the main microphone closer, her voice trying to stay calm even though her heart was still chaotic.

"We just had a pretty special call tonight, from a listener who didn't want to reveal his name. I don't know if you're listening to the show again or not, but if so, I want to say — the story you just told, although unfinished, left something very real in me. Hope you're safe, hope where you're working, everything will be okay."

She played the next song, then took off her headphones and sat silently looking out the window where the rain continued to fall. That unfinished story stuck in her head like an uncut thread - "you have to stay awake, so others can sleep peacefully" - she wondered if that man was talking about that old friend, or talking about herself without daring to admit it directly.

Throughout the rest of the program, Vy maintained the necessary professionalism — reading letters, introducing songs, answering a few other calls — but there was a part of her mind that kept returning to that slow, deep voice, to the way the man interrupted mid-sentence, as if pulled away by something urgent, leaving the story hanging unfinished.

Nearly one o'clock in the morning, when the program was about to end, another text message appeared on the hotline screen, with the same anonymous number as the text message last night that Hai Duong had dismissed as a new fan. This time there were only a few words: "Sorry for interrupting. See you again, if you still want to listen."

Vy read that line over and over again, her fingers trembling slightly on the keyboard even though she didn't understand why she was so moved by a short message from a complete stranger. She typed back a short reply through the station's message system, knowing that he might never read it, or read it much later: "I still want to continue listening. Sleepless Waves, every night, eleven o'clock."

When the program ended and she walked out of the studio, the rain outside had completely stopped, leaving only tiny drops of water falling from the eaves into puddles on the sidewalk. Hai Duong stood waiting in the hallway, arms crossed over his chest, looking at her with questioning eyes.

"How did the call just now make you feel?" he asked, his voice gentle but more serious than usual.

Vy was silent for a moment, looking out at the dark yard in front of the radio building, where puddles of rainwater still reflected the streetlights sparkling like broken mirrors. "I don't know," she said honestly, her voice quiet. "But I think, maybe this won't be the last time we hear that person's voice."

She didn't know how right she was, but there was a certain feeling of certainty, vague but strong, that was quietly forming in her heart, like the first raindrops of the season slowly seeping into the dry soil, preparing for something that would germinate very slowly, for a very long time, but could no longer be stopped.