Alone in a Crowd

A radio play by E.J. Gold.

[SFX: Big city atmosphere — traffic, footsteps, layered voices, distant sirens. It’s bustling but not overwhelming. Then one voice breaks through, FX fade out]

NARRATOR:
This city moves like a machine.
Every hour has its rhythm.
Every face has a mask.
And somewhere in all of it…
is one woman. Just… existing.
Not stuck. Not quite free.
Just… alone.
In a crowd.

[MUSIC UP]

Alone in a Crowd

VOICE #1 (bright, awestruck):
Wow… would you look at this place!

VOICE #2 (gruff New Yorker):
Keep movin’, tourist. Nothing ta see here!

HER VOICE (calm, reflective):
So many people. There must be ten thousand people here in this square.
All of them headed somewhere. Every face… a story I’ll never know.
And me? I don’t even know where I’m going.

Maybe I just want to feel something…
Even if it’s just the weight of the crowd.

The music fades, but the noise never does.
Every block has a story. Every street has a rhythm.
And Avenue A? That’s where the city starts telling the truth.

This is the street.
Past the tattoo parlors…
Past the bookstores that never close…
Past the smell of garlic, incense, and fresh spray paint.

I walk the streets…
And the streets walk me.

Avenue A

WOMAN 1 (calm, observant):
I used to think this place was just noise.
Coffee shops. Street poets. Graffiti angels.
You walk fast enough, you miss the hunger.

WOMAN 2 (sharper, more direct):
They took the Patel family last night.
Gone. No questions.
Just a van. No windows.
No one saw a thing — or says they did.

WOMAN 1 (quietly shocked):
But… they ran that corner store. For years.
They gave out soup when the power went out…

WOMAN 2:
Doesn’t matter now.
It’s happening all over the east side.
One by one.
Food for silence.
A bed in exchange for labor.

WOMAN 1 (steady, voice building):
I didn’t see it.
But I see it now.
Everything has a price.

Bought & Sold — Freedom ain’t Free!

WOMAN 1 (softly, after the last note fades):
It hurts, doesn’t it?
When you finally see it all…
And can’t unsee any of it.

WOMAN 2 (gently):
You’re not broken. Just open.
That’s how the light gets in.

WOMAN 1:
I don’t know how to hold it all.
How to carry this…

WOMAN 2:
You don’t carry it.
You let it pass through you.
Like clear light.
Like breath.

Clear Light Lullaby

WOMAN 1 (still quiet, changed):
That helped.
For a moment, I felt like… me again.

WOMAN 2 (dry, thoughtful):
Yeah. Until the feed resets.
Then it’s back to swipe, obey, repeat.

WOMAN 1:
Is that what we are now?
Just… responses?

WOMAN 2:
Not even that.
Just predictable outcomes.
Someone else wrote the code — we just run it.

WOMAN 1 (bitter laugh):
Digital souls.

WOMAN 2:
With the blues.

Digital Soul Blues

WOMAN 1 (quiet, after the last note fades):
Some days I feel like I’m already gone.
Just… leftover data in somebody else’s folder.

WOMAN 2 (reflective):
That’s how it was for her.
Lady Gray.

WOMAN 1:
You knew her?

WOMAN 2:
We all did.
And none of us really did.

WOMAN 1:
What happened?

WOMAN 2:
She went quiet.
And the city never noticed.

Lady Gray Day

WOMAN 1 (after a beat, voice fragile):
She should’ve had more.
A name that meant something.
A hand to hold.

WOMAN 2 (soft sigh):
She had it once.
We all did.

WOMAN 1:
When?

WOMAN 2:
Before the towers.
Before the codes.
Back when the days were long… and the air was real.

WOMAN 1:
You mean…

WOMAN 2 (a faint smile):
Meadow Vista.

Back in Meadow Vista

WOMAN 1 (brighter now, stirred):
You really lived there? In Meadow Vista?

WOMAN 2 (with a chuckle):
Lived, loved, left.
Dreams don’t grow in small towns.
At least, not the kind I had.

WOMAN 1:
So you came here?

WOMAN 2:
To the city that spits you out unless you sing loud enough to stay.
I wanted lights. I wanted brass.
I wanted to hear my name on a playbill.

WOMAN 1:
Did you ever make it?

WOMAN 2 (laughs):
Almost.
There was this one time…

On Old Broadway

WOMAN 1 (still glowing a little):
So… you almost made it.

WOMAN 2:
Almost.
But the casting agent said I had “too much soul.”
I think that’s code for “too poor.”

WOMAN 1 (half-laughs):
At least you didn’t end up reciting Middle English for a living…

MALE VOICE (entering, cheerful):
Actually, it’s modern English.
And it’s a musical.
We opened last week.

WOMAN 1:
Wait — you?

MALE VOICE:
Yup. “The Canterbury Tales.” I play the Pardoner.
Got a standing ovation for a song about relic scams and indulgences.
Broadway loves that stuff.

The Pilgrim’s Song

MALE VOICE (winding down, still proud):
…and then I bowed, they clapped, and I thought —
this is it. This is the moment I made it.

WOMAN 2 (quietly):
While the world burned behind the curtain.

WOMAN 1:
Did you see the river last night?
The sky was the wrong color. Again.

MALE VOICE (less sure now):
They say it’s… just atmospheric shifts.
Something about refraction.

WOMAN 2:
They always say that.
Even when the birds fly backward.
Even when the children stop dreaming.

WOMAN 1 (soft, almost prayerlike):
These are the signs.

WOMAN 2:
All of them.

Signs of the Times

WOMAN 1:
Who was he?

WOMAN 2:
Nobody, really.
Just some dusty soul from nowhere special.
Showed up, helped when no one else would.
Then sat down under a tree, looked at the sky…

WOMAN 1:
And?

WOMAN 2:
He smiled. Reached out.
And said —
“Take my hand…”

Please Take My Hand

WOMAN 1 (hushed):
I hear it again.

WOMAN 2 (soft, wary):
Don’t answer it.

WOMAN 1:
It’s not a voice.
It’s… a presence.
Like the wind is remembering something.

WOMAN 2:
There’s a girl who sings in the old grove.
Nobody knows where she came from.
Nobody understands the words.

WOMAN 1:
But you still listen?

WOMAN 2:
Every time.

The Long Game

WOMAN 1 (blinking, as if waking from a trance):
She’s gone.

WOMAN 2 (calm):
She was never here.

WOMAN 1:
Then what was that?

MALE VOICE (entering, grand and serene):
That… was the sound of someone who gets it.
Stillness. Patience.
Non-reactivity with style.

WOMAN 1:
You mean… you want to sit still?

MALE VOICE:
It’s not just sitting still.
It’s artfully sitting still.
It’s letting the world roll right by…
because the Master waits.

The Master Waits

MALE VOICE (wrapping up, cool and centered):
So yeah…
I waited.
Didn’t move.
Didn’t flinch.
And you know what?

WOMAN 1:
What?

MALE VOICE (grinning):
They were watching.

WOMAN 2 (more serious):
They always were.

WOMAN 1:
Who?

WOMAN 2:
Everyone.
The neighbors.
The satellites.
The ghosts.
The gods.

MALE VOICE:
The world?

WOMAN 2:
Yes.
The world is watching.

The World is Watching

VOICE (warm and friendly):
Thank you for traveling with us tonight!
This has been a production of the Science Fiction Radio Theater.
We’ll see you again…when the lights dim, and the signal returns.

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Time to board the Bardo bus for our daily video excursion!!!

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See You At The Top!!!

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