72: a new story for Living in the Future magazine

me reading '72' at the Living in the Future launch

'In the thirty-fourth second he thought, the bird is of course alive, and only playing at being dead. 

In the thirty-fifth second he thought, now there’s a game. 

In the thirty-sixth second he played dead for a little while. It was the same as before really. He sat and let his eyes relax, blurring the sunset colours, and now the park was a paintbox in the rain, all colours running together; and then they separated out into clear shapes as he brought his eyes into focus, the shapes of clouds and trees and buildings, and the sun itself, burning miles upon miles away. He slowed his breath a little, slacked his shoulders, rolled his wrists until his palms faced skyward, extended his legs and turned his feet outward, and soon the only movement his body made was a very slight swaying with the wind.'

The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected by Jerry R. Ehman on August 15, 1977. Ehman circled the signal on the computer printout and wrote the comment ‘Wow!’
 It lasted for the full 72-second window that his equipment was able to observe it, but has not been detected again.

You can read my story of what happened for each of those 72 seconds, which has been published by excellent new magazine Living in the Future, here: http://www.litfmag.net/issue-1/72-2/