Hello, welcome to the brand new series of shortcuts. I hope you had a nice break between our shows.

Today's show is called Out of Thin Air, much like our arrival again, into the radio ether,

after our little break, much like the autumn mists and the strangeness of this time of year.

And I'm definitely babbling. But welcome to the show.

I hope you enjoy it.

This is Shortcuts.

Brief encounters, true stories, radio adventures, and found sound.

Today, out of thin air.

I mean, I did feel different.

I felt like I had some hope.

I remember big waves and strong winds.

I remember feeling safe in the storm.

Up here you find a new reverence for air,

high enough to quicken the blood and steepen the drop.

The routines of your life can feel well-trodden and familiar.

You think you're sure of what's coming up ahead, but sometimes the atmosphere around

you shifts. Things that seem certain and inevitable no longer are. You plan the route of a journey

so that you won't get lost, but you never know what will come out of thin air.

At first it was a mist.

A cold, quiet gathering of the afternoon air that emptied the roads and leaden the sky.

By the time I stopped for gas, it had grown shrill, a sharp kind of cold that clung to my legs and buckled my chest.

The woman behind the counter told me not to drive.

...