My name is Helen Ward, and I have spent twenty-two years as a ghost.
I exist in a windowless room in Silverwood, Michigan, surrounded by the low hum of cooling fans and the smell of ozone. To the people who call me, I am not a person. I am a disembodied voice, a lifeline, a confessor, and sometimes, the last thing they ever hear. The dispatch center has a specific atmosphere, a pressurized silence that sits heavy on your chest. It smells of stale coffee, industrial carpet cleaner, and the metallic tang of adrenaline that seems to seep from the pores of the operators sitting in the glowing blue dark. Continue reading…
