The story is about a dream, a nightmare: a catastrophic event (caused by the millennia-long exploitation of mines?) has covered everything in red sand, and in the dream, the protagonist becomes DJ Jo at the microphones of Radio Mine, a broadcaster that likely transmits from the depths of a mine.
In the fiction of the dream, DJ Jo doesn't know if anyone is left outside, nor if anyone will come to save her, so she does the only thing she knows how to do: she keeps broadcasting.
Once the protagonist finishes her story, it is revealed that as terrible as the nightmare may seem, it's just a dream.
We're not told anything about her reality, but we are enveloped in an apocalyptic soundscape, and just like ia a horror movie, what we don't know and can only imagine is more terrible than the worst of nightmares.
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This sound story was created for the University of Cagliari's SHARPER Researchers' Night, an event shared by universities throughout Europe with the aim of celebrating research and its fundamental role in society, by creating original stories that, drawing inspiration from obscure scientific topics, managed to engage the general public.
For the full list of the 10 stories, and for more information about the process of creating engaging stories starting from scientific papers, read (Third) Mission: possible.
SHARPER is a project financed by the European Commission (Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions, GA 101061551) and co-financed by the Fondazione di Sardegna.