TDM NO. 1

[silentspringmods]

TDM № 1 : December 2023
Part I; Chapter 1. Fires We Don't Put Out

premise & faq rules application invite requests activity NPCs calendar

Hey, neighbor, welcome to the very first TDM for Silent Spring, a semiprivate suburban 60s horrorgame based loosely on the likes of We're Still Here, Holly Heights, and similar. Characters wake up in the uncannily idyllic early 1960s suburbia of Sweetwater, Maryland, an integrated bedroom community of Washington, DC - in the same household as a complete stranger to whom they have apparently always been married, at least according to the eerily and unwaveringly chipper neighbors who seem to know a little more than they should. This TDM will give you a place to test out the setting and get some sample threads if you're going to apply for an invite. Right now there are at least 20 slots available to the general public.

This game and its world, including this TDM, heavily feature nuclear panic, the Red Scare, conformism, sexism and restrictive gender roles, heteronormativity/gender binarism as it relates to being forced into a 'nuclear family', surveillance, gaslighting, brainwashing/propaganda, disinformation, pollution/contamination, poisoning, loss of control, and uncanny valley. IC consequences can involve anything from social shunning to sleep deprivation torture, brainwashing, and nonconsensual administration of large doses of haloperidol. These are the crux of the game and cannot be opted out of — this game offers a very specific flavor of horror and it is up to players whether or not they want to engage. The atmosphere is a dystopia, and while people can certainly bond with each other in extreme circumstances, the point of this game is not an ingame domestic AU, found family, 'adopting' other characters, etc. Although this TDM has been opened for everyone to enjoy, I ask that you be respectful of the work I've put into cultivating a very specific environment. You have full permission to borrow this setting/premise for PSLs focusing on those things.

universe/setting information, role assignment, and FAQs

I. National Everyone-Smile-at-One-Anotherhood Week

Maybe you were on your deathbed, taking your last gasping breaths. Maybe you had just drifted off into sleep. Or maybe you were just in the middle of another ordinary day—but whatever the case may be, you now wake staring at an unfamiliar popcorn ceiling, dressed in a coordinating pajama set or nightgown straight out of the Sears catalog. A complete stranger lies asleep beside you. Perhaps a dog or a cat you don't recognize lies sleeping on a red tartan bed on the floor behind the mahogany footboard.

This is your house, but it’s not your house: on one of the twin dressers in the room, the morning light reflects off the cover glass on a framed photograph of the two of you standing side-by-side and smiling like figures in a Norman Rockwell painting, maybe with a third, also unrecognizable younger party in the foreground between you. A Civil Defense booklet titled ”Survival Under Atomic Attack” hangs halfway off the corner of the dresser, its pages and cover curling upwards with wear atop a dogeared Macy’s Christmas catalog. The other dresser hosts a watch box and a compact radio: yours, if you’re the one wearing the coordinating flannel shirt and pants, or your new husband’s, if you’re in a babydoll-style nightie.

It’s not immediately clear if you’ve found yourself in the fifties or the sixties, at least until you throw on the robe hanging on the back of the bedroom door and head out into the driveway at some point. There you find a rolled newspaper tossed onto the concrete beside a shiny new car, dated December 1, 1960.

Prompt Details:

— All characters wake in a normal human body with any disability aids (including glasses or contact lenses) converted to the most common form of them in the 60s unless a modern development like a sip/blow powerchair is needed for them to be playable. Although cutting edge technologies like myoelectric limbs were just starting to come around at the time, they were not common and readily accessible, and therefore are not allowed.
— Characters have no powers, and regains will not happen in this game. If they biologically need something to function that is fantasy in nature (ex: have to drink blood), that need is gone and replaced with only a normal human’s needs.
— Characters will find their belongings, up to 3 items from home, around the house in normal places for each item to be: a book on the shelf, a framed photo on a flat surface, etc. Items that don’t exist in the regular universe in 1960 may not be brought (ex: gameboy, pokeball, wizard’s staff).
— Characters may bring one normal, non-livestock pet, or may meet said pet for the first time when they wake up in Sweetwater. They can also be petless.
— No items or weapons from after 1960 are allowed, and no weapons more powerful than a hunting rifle or handgun can be brought with them. One weapon per character.

II. Death of a Salesman

You haven’t had much time to acclimate to your new life—maybe a day or two at the most—before there’s a knock on your door. When you open it, a man in a hat and a brown two-piece suit smiles at you, holding a briefcase in one hand and a brand new vacuum cleaner in the other.

“Hey there! My name’s Charlie and I’m here to tell you all about the latest in vacuum technology. Is the man of the house home?”

Regardless of what you say, Charlie the vacuum salesman finds a way to barge into your home and set up his briefcase and vacuum in the center of the living room. He insists that everyone in the family join him to watch, and then the demo begins as he tells the family how inadequate their current vacuum is and how the dirt it leaves behind will make you sick and make your wife look like she can’t keep up with running the house—but if she just buys this vacuum, she’ll be the envy of all of her friends, and isn’t it great timing that there’s a Christmas special on this very unit right now?

He tells the family he’ll give them ‘a moment to think on it’ while he fills up the water canister for the steamer function in the kitchen sink. Characters can hear the faucet running and then shutting off, but the salesman doesn’t emerge with a water tank—he emerges with a butcher’s knife.

“You took too long!” He announces. “I better get to the next house!”

With that, he charges, and begins to attempt to slice or stab whoever’s closest. You’re in luck, or at least it initially seems—it’s two or maybe even three against one. But once you attack him, you’ll notice something odd—the salesman doesn’t seem to react to being sliced at or stabbed, and if your character has a gun, gunshots don’t stop or even slow him. Shooting him in the head, cutting his jugular vein, or beating him on the back of the head are the only ways to kill him - good luck!

Should your household manage to kill him before he kills you, something even stranger happens. The moment he takes his last breath, lying in a pool of his own blood, there’s a knock on the door. If characters ignore it or say “one moment please!”, the knocks get more and more vehement until the hand is practically banging on the door. If they still ignore it, the neighbor strolls around to the window and looks in to see if they’re home, cupping her hands to the glass— but doesn’t react to the dead body. Instead she just smiles brightly, gives an enthusiastic little wave, and points to the door.

When characters finally open the door to let her in, they’ll notice that she’s holding a mop and bucket, smiling brightly.

“I thought you could use a little help cleaning up the mess!”, she says, barging past just like the salesman did before her. At no point does she stop smiling, or seem to register that it’s a dead body—she just starts mopping up the pool of blood, occasionally dunking her mop into the soapy pink water of the bucket, never referring to it as anything other than the vague “the spill”.

If characters ask her for help disposing of the body, she’ll bring in her husband, a similarly cardboard figure who assists the ‘man of the house’ with digging a grave-sized hole in the back yard and dropping the body in. The next day, the ground is undisturbed.

III. We'll become silhouettes

Whoa there, Neighbor! I hope you and your picturesque new family didn't get so comfortable you lost sight of the looming Red Menace. No, it's not just confined to the silver screen: the Communist threat is everywhere, maybe even in your own home—and the skies above. Around 1:15 PM on December 20th, they hear the sound: the air raid sirens clustered like bananas atop the tall poles dotting the city come to life like singing frogs on a bank, sending out long, drawn out calls in a chorus of overlapping pitches. The radios in every room crackle on as if by magic, and a man's transatlantic voice reads the announcement:

"Your attention please. This is Ron Chapman, one of your official civil defense broadcasters with a special message. Military authorities have advised us that an enemy attack by air is imminent. This is a red alert. You are advised to go to your nearest shelter area immediately. Find shelter. There is not time to leave the city.

Your state civil defense director has just issued the following instructions: Please remain calm. Every precaution will be taken for your protection. Keep your radio tuned to this place on the dial throughout the alert period for information. Telephone service to your home may be cut off to permit military and civil defense authorities to carry out vital operations. Do not attempt to join your family or children if they are now separated. They will be cared for where they are. Obey your civil defense warden and find shelter NOW. Take shelter in your basement or in your nearest shelter area. If you can plug in your radio in the basement, take it with you. Use a portable radio set if you have one. Otherwise turn up the volume of your radio so that you can hear it in the basement. Keep calm, don't lose your head. If you are at work, obey your civil defense authorities. Go quickly and calmly to their designated shelter. If your children are at school, they are being directed to shelter by their teachers. If you are in an automobile, pull over to the curb and then go immediately to the nearest shelter area. Do not leave your car where it will block traffic.

This station will continue to stay on the air throughout the alert period to bring you authentic information and official instructions. Stay tuned to 640 or 1240 kilocycles on your radio for official information. Refuse to listen to unauthorized rumors or broadcasts. This is your official civil defense broadcast . . . Your attention please. This is Ron Chapman, one of your official civil defense broadcasters with a special message . . ."

If characters are at the high school, teachers will usher them out of the classroom and down a single packed cement staircase in the direction of the basement, past a yellow and black sign on the wall over the hand railing that reads FALLOUT SHELTER. They don't visibly panic—but it's clear to almost everyone that the teachers are just as afraid as they are, if not moreso. They've simply been deliberately trained not to show it, though there is a quality to the eyes that training can never reach.

The portable emergency radios echo off of the cement floor and stacked barrels of drinking water lining the walls opposite unopened boxes of survival rations. Teachers call roll in strained voices, accounting for every student left in their care—and then, once everyone is in, the heavy metal door to the shelter is closed, shutting out the aboveground world as Principal Jones tells everyone to stay quiet so they can hear the portable radios.

Characters at home have the option of going into the basements of the homes they awoke in, which have some survival rations but hardly qualify as fully outfitted bunkers, or disregarding the civil defense office's commands and risking it to seek safety in the community fallout shelter beneath the Sweetwater Fire Department. It is up to each "couple" whether they split up or seek safety in numbers, whether they prioritize immediacy or amount of protection.

If characters decide to hunker down in the fallout shelter under the fire department, they will be joined by dozens of their terrified neighbors. Responses vary dramatically: some seem almost catatonic, as though unable to believe that the events before them are really unfolding; others weep with fear. A woman breaks free of her husband's arms, screaming that she has to get her son, but a firefighter keeps her from climbing back up the staircase more and more people stream down.

Regardless of where characters choose to shelter, they are trapped there for the next five hours, listening to the Maryland civil defense director's warning circulate over and over in the claustrophobic space. Now might be a good time to field any questions to Dick Clark, your town Civil Defense Officer and Police Chief.

—until at last, the message changes.

"Your attention please. This is Ron Chapman, one of your official civil defense broadcasters with a special message. Military authorities have advised us that the anticipated enemy attack has been diverted. You may now leave shelter and rejoin your families. This concludes the red alert. Your attention please . . ."

Uh oh. Hope you didn't say anything in the heat of the moment you might now regret.

IV. There's no place like (your new) home for the holidays

What a stressful week–even if the townspeople don’t seem too phased by it. In fact, they’re acting as if nothing’s happened at all, and will laugh off any suggestion that anything different might be the case. The neighborhood Christmas party at the grand neocolonial home of HOA president Marjorie Taylor proceeds as planned on the 22nd of the month–Characters’ wardrobes, of course, already contain some cocktail attire, but if it doesn’t suit their tastes, they can find all of the latest fashions on display in the completely normal department store.

Punch made by Marjorie herself is served in a tremendous green Tupperware bowl, though those who would prefer a simple cocktail will have no trouble finding one on any of the bar carts around the house. Mistletoe dangles from the arch leading to the secluded hallway lined with doors to the guest room and downstairs bathroom, out of the sight of those who might judge a character for stealing a kiss from someone other than their new spouse. Married couples dance in the living room while their friends perch on the couch like an overloaded liferaft to watch. The air of the room is bright, jovial, loud - the red threat looms in the dark unknown beyond the windows, but for the moment, all is well. Enjoy yourself, neighbor!

V. Slip a sable under the tree

Three days after Marjorie's successful neighborhood Christmas party comes Christmas morning. When characters head down the stairs (or step into the living room on the same floor, if they're the 'child' of one of the newly introduced couples), they'll find the fully decorated Christmas tree that greeted them upon their arrival now has a few presents wrapped in metallic reds and silvers resting at its base, one for each party in the household, addressed simply with From: Santa.

The catch? The wrapping paper is impossible to open, the ribbons are impossible to tie and uncut, until everyone sits down as a family and opens them together in a true representation of an old-fashioned American Christmas morning.

Characters will receive 1 extra item from their homeworld abiding by the starting inventory guidelines—but the item has to be deeply personal, and something that they're uncomfortable with others seeing... which, judging by the similar reaction their new housemates have to their own presents, almost seems to be by design. It could be a compromising photo, a piece of subversive literature, a relic of who they were and things they'd rather remain hidden... but whatever it is, they've now been seen with it.

Players may keep TDM threads canon if both players are admitted, and TDMers are encouraged to play around with multiple possible family member matches. Have fun!

Comments

[puzzleking]

[ It didn't, he's certain, but he believes her demeanor. And if their different dates of origin are correct, it opens up questions that somehow eclipse the concept of roving, reanimated dead. He holds her gaze and nods. ]

I believe you. And in that case, it's probably in our best interest you share any relevant information about, uh, them. Specific dangers posed, I mean. How to kill them. Stuff like that?

[ Satisfied the bedroom is unoccupied, he exits and descends the stairs into a living room. Unremarkable so far, which is a relief. ]

[littlemissfutility]

Stab them in their brains.

[ She holds up the knife - pointed downward, not at him. ]

Tell me more about your life.

[puzzleking]

[ Points for simplicity. He pads to the front door, already locked, and satisfies himself with un- and relocking it. ]

I don't know how much more there is worth sharing, unless you're interested in getting yourself an honorary certification in accounting. Are you looking for something specific?

[littlemissfutility]

I wanna know who you are.

[ She's curious about the living room, with its old-fashioned furniture and its fireplace. It reminds her of the funeral home, somehow - it doesn't look the same, but it has that same not-quite-cozy coziness. Under other circumstances, it would be a nice home.

There's a guitar case, one that she recognizes with a start. All her stuff was probably destroyed by walkers - how the hell did it survive? How did it end up here? ]

Uh - you should look around in here.

[puzzleking]

Already said. Edward, orphan, accountant, cesspool-resident.

[ No heat. He can't so easily rise to frustration, still thinking about the amount of time stretching between them. But he abandons peeking through the front door's window at her request, following her gaze to the case. ]

I don't play, if that's what we're working toward. Do you want me to open it?

[littlemissfutility]

That's not who you are.

[ She watches him as he turns his attention back to her, and then to the guitar. ]

No. Do you see anything in here that you recognize? Anything that's yours.

[puzzleking]

That's mine? Doubtful. [ He steps into the center of the room thinking he'll just be humoring her, eyes skimming past retro furnishings without any real expectation until he does recognize a particular shade of orange, the spine of a thin, small book resting atop the television. Stepping forward with a frown, he picks it up. The title is nondescript, little more than a factual boast of over one thousand brain teasers. He turns it toward her briefly before slapping it back into his palm. ]

This, but it's hardly an heirloom or anything. Maybe the rest of the house... [ He shrugs. His costume turning up would be inopportune but explainable, taking the edge off of that possibility. He nods toward the guitar, something not uniform with the rest of the room that's seemingly caught her attention.] Is that yours, then?

[littlemissfutility]

It was.

[ I guess it is again. His doesn't seem all that important, sure, but it's still weird to find it here. And maybe it is important somehow. Maybe she just can't see how, because she doesn't know him.

If he's lying about the year, he at least couldn't have done all of this. How would he have known how to find her, and then go back however many miles for her own guitar? And it is hers - the scuffs are in all the places she remembers. If she opened it, the furry inside would be blue. ]

And this is my knife. It's not just...I know it's mine.

[puzzleking]

[ Between her injuries, the intensity of her panic upon waking, and the alleged zombie apocalypse, he decides he can comfortably guess there's some personal history with the weapon that needs no interrogation. He nods, turning his gaze toward the kitchen. ]

I'm going to look for a back door or a basement, if there are any, and then we should be set to tear apart whatever looks promising. Probably won't hurt to try out the television or the radio, maybe someone's been waiting this whole time to tell us something.

[ Or fiddle with her guitar. He wouldn't be shocked if it was emotionally significant, the way she'd looked at it. ]

[littlemissfutility]

I'll come with you.

[ While she doesn't think he's behind this, she doesn't actually want him to know more about the house than she does.

As they file into the kitchen - clean and sunny, and when she opens the fridge, there's so much food - she tries again. ]

What do you do when you're not doing accountant stuff?

[puzzleking]

[ He's glad he didn't let himself hope he'd evaded this line of questioning. He shrugs, peeking over her shoulder into the fridge and wondering if the eggs are safe. Everything is suspect, but it couldn't be easy to poison an egg without breaking the shell. They'll need to eat eventually. ]

Nothing much. I read a lot, kind of an amateur historian at this point. Um, I read forums, online? Tinker - 'take the remote apart and put it back together', that kind of thing. Code. I like learning.

[ Under the sink yields nothing but cleaning supplies. He opens a silverware drawer and, after ensuring nothing is hidden under the tray, makes a point of shutting it quickly. No knives pocketed. He glances up and forces his voice to remain light: if anything should trigger some fuzzy concept of him, it should be this. A last hurdle before he puts another worry to bed. ]

I like puzzles, a lot. Rubik's cube, crossword, sudoku, ciphers, riddles...

[littlemissfutility]

[ Her muscles tense when she realizes he's behind her, but he doesn't do anything. He's just looking in the fridge, too. Does it look like a lot of food to him, or is that just her? (The cold air wafting out and the little light bulb glowing in there feel like a fantasy.) If Gotham's as bad as he says, maybe this is a nice change for him, too.

She shuts the door and moves away from the fridge, wanting more distance between them. He wasn't actually that close - it just felt like it. ]

That sounds fun.

[ The puzzles, maybe less so, but they'd pass the time. But pulling things apart and putting them back together reminds her of Daryl working on his motorcycle. It always looked kind of peaceful, even when it didn't go right and he started swearing. ]

This house looks like somebody's grandparents live here. [ She's opening cupboards now, finding pretty matching plates and baking dishes with little painted flowers. ]

[puzzleking]

That could be it. [ He can't commit fully to any one line of thinking quite yet, but if he imagines some well to do elderly couple, midcentury enthusiasts, it explains away the house well enough. One commandeered for whatever experiment or torture this is, their personalized elements added just recently. Doesn't necessarily explain the handful of cars he could spot from the bedroom window, but maybe they've got a collection. Money opens up a lot of possibilities.

He nearly asks her if any dim bells go off, if the house is perhaps geared toward pushing some button of hers, but in light of 'everyone is dead' he bites his tongue. Better to not run headlong into what unfortunate fate befell her grandparents. Cupboards hardly seem a two-man job so he revisits the fridge, selecting a clear glass and filling it halfway with milk. Nothing visibly amiss, no off-smell. ]

Who are you? When you're not... well, stabbing things in the head, I guess.

[littlemissfutility]

[ Another cupboard door ends up being the pantry, and everything in it looks simultaneously new and old. Like someone bought it yesterday - but the designs on the boxes aren't modern. There's a can of Hershey's syrup instead of a plastic squeeze bottle, a tiny box of Jiffy cake mix, Spam and Jello, endless cans of vegetables...

She's aware, suddenly, of just how hungry she is - but this much food has to come at a price. They just don't know what it is yet.

Her attention shifts back toward Edward and his glass of milk. ]

I dunno. [ Lately, she hasn't felt like she's anyone at all, just a body moving through the world. But when things have been better - ] I like music. And I...before we lost the prison, I had a baby I took care of.

[puzzleking]

[ He isn't quite brave enough to taste test yet, pouring it slowly down the drain. The glass is rinsed, then refilled with water and put through the same routine. No visible contaminants, no off smell. This he is willing to test, one small sip, rolled over his tongue before joining the milk down the drain. He'll try swallowing in a few minutes, he decides, if he doesn't notice any peculiar feeling between now and then.

He stills when she mentions a baby. Not hers, a mother wouldn't say took care of, but a baby. He wants to ask if she plays the guitar in the next room, but the notion of an infant is difficult to get past so quickly. ]

'Had'. What happened after the prison?

[littlemissfutility]

[ She watches with some interest; he doesn't trust the water, clearly, or the food. The idea of tampering with food seems crazy to her, but if it's this easy to get boxes and cans - and fresh vegetables, she saw lettuce in there - then they could justify poisoning it.

Whoever they are.

The guarded interest in her eyes turns just plain guarded at the question. ]

I don't know. [ She looks away - and spying another door, she goes to open it. There are stairs leading down to what must be a basement. ] I couldn't find her.

[puzzleking]

I'm sorry. [ Not a lie. He knows it counts for nothing, wouldn't even if they were old bosom friends, but it must be said. Such a thing couldn't not be devastating, he assumes. He moves to join her at the doorway, eyeing the stairs warily. ]

Want me down first?

[littlemissfutility]

[ Beth nods, staring down at the darkness at the base of the stairs. Yes, she hears him. Yes, she wants him to go first.

She moves back from the door, making space for him to walk past her. ]

[puzzleking]

[ He passes, crossing the threshold with either arm raised, feeling the walls in hopes of finding a light switch before reaching the bottom of the stairs. He does find one, but not before he's nearly disappeared into the room.

The lights click on, revealing...another standard room. Concrete floor, shelves laden with more canned goods, flashlights, a toolbox. Old paint cans, a pair of shovels. ]

Nothing interesting. Or, nothing any weirder than the rest. Maybe an old fashioned bomb shelter, and storage.

[littlemissfutility]

Weird.

[ She stays up at the top of the stairs. Later, she can go down there, but right now, it feels too enclosed. ]

Why would someone bring us here?

[puzzleking]

Your guess is as good as mine, it seems like.

[ He doubts there's any secret buttons or doorways down here, which is equal parts shame and relief. Back up the stairs he goes, electing to leave the light on. ]

I'm going to try the television and the radio. Phone, maybe.

[ He has a burner cell phone or three he doubts the GCPD have unearthed yet, that would be a safe bet. ]

[littlemissfutility]

[ The fact of electric lights in the darkness, of being able to light up a place permanently, somehow makes all of this feel more real. For a few more moments, Beth looks down at the glow from the basement. She's tempted to walk down there and see for herself - and turn the light out, it's a waste leaving it on - but it'd be too easy for him to shut the door and lock it from up here. Basements are closed-off; basements are final.

Even thinking that, though, is starting to feel crazy. He really hasn't tried anything. He's kept his distance; he hasn't tried to touch her or even really say anything creepy. But neither did Dr. Edwards, until he tricked me into killing someone.

She's still on her guard as she walks back into the living room, where she can hear someone - on TV? - talking, but she's tucked the knife into the sheath on her belt. She still stays back from him, and the knife is still easy to grab at a moment's notice, but it's not in her hand right now. ]

Is that a black-and-white TV?

[puzzleking]

So it appears.

[ He's on one knee, at what a parent might call eye-searing proximity to the screen. Like everything else, nothing seems amiss but the format itself. They're observing a commercial, an aproned mother with her arms crossed speaking to two frowning, freckled children at the table. He guesses the ending, that they'll all be saved by cereal or soup or detergent, and turns the dial. It's another bespectacled man, though much better dressed, standing in front of a physical map of what he presumes must be the local area. Still Maryland. Cold fronts on the way, he reports. Another channel flip, now a slow zoom toward Trinidad on a map, dissolving into shots of the ocean, then a boat. Rising to his feet, Edward makes for the phone. ]

Feel free— [ A vague wave to the television set, more a sign he's not planning on returning to it immediately. Let her enjoy what must be at least something like a luxury. ]

[littlemissfutility]

[ She shouldn't be so surprised by all the electricity - the hospital had generators, after all, though not so many that they could light everything. The hallways were dim at best, twilight back-alleys where anything could happen. But she'd had no control over what power there was to be had, and here, she can flip through TV shows like it's no big deal. Three whole channels, all of them kind of boring-looking at the moment.

Beth turns it off a moment later, then turns it back on again - and then off, like a six-year-old. She's not really interested in watching. Her attention shifts to a little bookshelf, full of unfamiliar titles: Exodus. Joy Street. The Last Hurrah. One shelf has thinner books, younger-looking ones: Fifteen. Wait for Marcy. Going Steady. And something that must be completely mortifying, Facts of Life and Love for Teen-Agers. God, those better not be for her.

She glances up at Edward. ]

Does the phone work?

[puzzleking]

[ He watches her, settling into the comfortable role of observer. He's no longer especially wary, having set his vase down to hold the phone with no intention of picking it back up, but with no visual component to the landline and the television off it isn't like there's much else to look at anyway. He scans the bookshelf alongside her, unable to make out the titles of the thinner books but surmising from her lack of physical rifling that nothing sounds especially interesting.

Nearly jumping when she addresses him, he wobbles a hand. ]

I think outgoing works, but I'm not getting to my apartment building, or my cell phone. [ He won't yet acknowledge the possibility these numbers don't go to those places yet, still too new and outlandish and impossible a situation to fix. ] Do you— no electricity, nevermind. Um, do you want to try the tv again? Maybe look for a commercial with a phone number, or something? Unless you see a phone book over there. [ Did period-appropriate commercials ask for calls? He'd never had to consider it. He knots the phone cord between two fingers and hangs up, moving for the radio. Might as well check this box while he waits for a viable number to test. ]