Oso Sur

Block 1 — 23:00

Caller: No (rolled 2)

No caller. The opening block went out clean into the January dark.

The stars were wrong tonight. Not moving — just wrong. The arrangement above the lookout did not match the chart on the wall. The Watchers in the treeline appeared to be looking up rather than at the tower. Oso noted this and kept broadcasting.

---

Block 2 — 00:00

Caller: Yes (rolled 5 — urgent/distressed) Caller card: King of Diamonds — authority figure causing problems

Male, late fifties. Former government worker — he named the department obliquely, the way people do when they know it’s being listened to. He’d been handed a notice that morning. Not termination — something worse. Reassignment to a role that doesn’t exist yet, in a location that hadn’t been confirmed, effective on a date that kept changing when he asked about it.

He’d been forty years in the service. He knew what this kind of notice meant. It meant someone had decided he knew too much about something he’d been trying to forget for a decade.

He said the song that had just played — This Must Be the Place — had been the song at his wedding. He said that without self-pity, like a man cataloguing what still belonged to him.

He wasn’t asking for advice. He just wanted to say it to someone who wasn’t involved.

Oso let him say it.

He thanked the broadcast and hung up quietly.

---

Block 3 — 01:05

Caller: Yes (rolled 6 — phenomenon) Caller card: Five of Spades — something that sounds like an ending

Female, early forties. Completely calm — the kind of calm that either means very rational or has moved past the part that would normally produce fear.

She’d been driving back from visiting family. Passed through a town she’d grown up near — she knew it well, she said. Every building, which side of the road they were on. She drove through, continued twenty miles, realised she’d missed her turn, doubled back.

The town was there. But mirrored. Church on the left instead of the right. The grain elevator facing south instead of north. The gas station’s sign reading correctly, but everything behind it reversed.

She slowed down, drove through carefully. Continued another twenty miles in the new direction. Turned around again.

Third approach: the town was normal.

She pulled over and called WBPR.

Oso asked: was there anyone in the town, either time? She said the second time — the mirrored one — there had been people, but they were all facing away from her. She couldn’t see their faces.

Oso told her: you’re through it, it’s behind you, don’t go back tonight. Sleep somewhere before you drive further. In the morning it will be road and town and nothing else.

She said she thought that was right. She said thank you.

She sounded like someone who had already decided to be fine about it. Oso respected that.

---

Block 4 — 02:05

Caller: No (rolled 3)

The final block closed quiet. Two songs instead of three — the third card drawn but nothing played for it. Some nights end before the playlist does.

The yellow at the eastern horizon was faint — a thin line, not a flood. Something had come close tonight, or passed nearby. Not through.

The Watchers were still at the treeline when Oso powered down.

---

Oso Sur — Personal Notes

The stars were wrong tonight. I’ve been noting stellar drift for a while but this was different — not individual stars out of place, but the whole arrangement sitting in the wrong configuration. Like someone had moved the furniture while I wasn’t looking.

I didn’t say anything on air. I don’t know what there is to say about it yet.

The government man: I know what that kind of notice means too. There’s nothing useful I can offer someone in that situation. I can just receive the weight of it for a few minutes so they’re not carrying it entirely alone. That’s the job.

The woman with the reversed town: first person to report it matching the pattern. The faces turned away detail is new. Worth logging carefully.

Yellow at the eastern edge. Faint. I’ll watch the horizon next session.

The coffee pot did not activate tonight. Either it’s settled, or it’s waiting.