?Interrobang! · Track 61 · middle
Who Wakes the Waker
OBJECT (intimate, what Sisukiro found): an old flip phone of texts she could never delete. OWNER (re-linked by Sisukiro): Late Riser Rita — knocker-upper from industrial England; note the irony of the name. FOUND AT: isolated Gotska Sandön, in the Baltic. THE (UN)LIKELY STORY & THE UNANSWERABLE QUESTION: Rita woke the town before alarm clocks though she's a Late Riser; left an old phone of saved messages on an isolated Baltic isle. Who wakes the one who wakes everyone?
Lyrics
[Intro] Gotska Sandön. September. Not a soul for miles. Just the old lighthouse from 1859, sweeping over shipwrecks and seals. And you. A little plastic shell, half-buried in the sand. [Verse 1] There's still a little juice left. Just enough for the screen to glow that sick, nostalgic green. I see the saved texts. A whole life sent out, one short message at a time. They called you Late Riser Rita. A cruel private joke for a public service. I can see you, though. Not with this phone, but in the past it points to. Lancashire, maybe 1912. The smell of coal smoke and damp wool. A twenty-foot pole with a rubber tip, tapping a frosted window pane before the sun even knew. [Chorus] But this phone, this was your modern pole. A thousand gentle taps sent out across the air. "Sun's up, love." "The birds are at it." "Time to open your eyes." You woke the world, or just one person's world, every single morning. But who woke you, Rita? Who wakes the waker when the shift is done? [Verse 2] No replies saved. Not one. Just your words, hanging in the outbox of the heart, timestamped before dawn. "Don't forget the milk." "I dreamt of you on the coast again." "It's Tuesday, you can do this." An entire relationship built on one-way nudges. A morning ritual of care. You were her personal knocker-upper. Her human alarm. Pushing her out into a day you couldn't quite face yourself. [Bridge] I read that the old wakers, the real ones, had a chain. One would tap the next one's window, and the next. A line of duty, passed down the cold, cobbled street. But your line went dead. The texts just go out, into the ether. There's no tap coming back for you. Is that why you came all the way here? To the island of silence? To finally let someone, anyone, sleep in? [Chorus] This phone, this was your lonely pole. A thousand gentle taps sent out across the air. "Sun's up, love." "The birds are at it." "Time to open your eyes." You woke her world, day after day after day. But who woke you, Rita? Who wakes the waker when the love is gone? [Outro] The screen flickers. The last bar of power bleeds away to black. The messages are dark again. Gone. Only the wind now. And the waves on the sand. And the question.