Rooftop conversations

Comrade Ri Yong-hwan,

I hesitate to write.

That sentence alone should tell you more than I wish to admit.

Last night, I stayed late—again. Reviewing an internal report on ideological consistency in translated film subtitles. (You would be surprised how often metaphors shift in transit. Or perhaps not.)

On my way out, I passed the old Audio Surveillance Wing C—the one with the analog switchboards and broken frequency dials no one wants to inventory anymore. Dust, rust, abandonment.

And yet—
I heard something.
From one of the wall-mounted speakers.
A pulse. A crackle.
Then voices.

Not an official feed. Not a training loop.
Something live—or very close to it.

I pressed record on the magnetic reel deck (Unit 019, still functioning, miraculously).
I played it back three times. Cleaned the noise as best I could.

What follows is a transcript. Not exact—
but enough.

I do not know where this conversation originated.
The line data is gone. The relay logs were overwritten years ago.
There is no name, no tag, no origin point.

Just this:

[Attached Transcript – marked “INTERNAL USE ONLY | CLASSIFICATION UNKNOWN”]

Voice 1 (F):
What if we got every graphic design student to hide lyrics in propaganda posters?
Like: “Discipline is Strength” — but in a font stolen from a punk flyer.
Or coded into a music sheet… that plays rebellion if you read it sideways?

Voice 2 (M):
I once taught chord structures backward—
Let the kids arrive at subversion by accident.
They never knew they were learning disobedience.
But their fingers did.

Voice 3 (M):
I've thought about hijacking the housing announcement network.
Five seconds of distortion.
Enough to unsettle. Not enough to trace.

Voice 1:
Like a melody that doesn’t resolve.
You hum it while peeling potatoes.
And wonder why you can’t forget it.

Voice 2:
Maybe we don’t need to dismantle the system.
Maybe we need to retune it.
A city’s like an instrument. Out of tune—
But not unplayable.

Voice 3:
What if someone in the Party hears it?
Not to report—
But because they miss something too.

I offer you no theory.
Only this:
Whoever they are, they are not careless.

And yet… they speak.

Tell me, Comrade Ri:
Are these criminals?
Artists?
Ghosts?

Or have they said something neither of us dares to say aloud?

I will keep the reel safe.
Unless you advise otherwise.

Yours in observation,
Kang Dae-hun