“Free Artsakh welcomes you” sign (Photo: 517design/Wikimedia Commons)

Autumn gold flanks Ohio’s toll road as I drive to Michigan while drones attack indigenous in Artsakh and radio’s indifference to the kill makes me curse like a gambler owed her jackpot: fresh news of soldier, villager, negotiation, salvation.

As I calculate the time needed to stop for groceries before heading home, I hear “Stepanakert” from a station in Cleveland and thick words follow in emergency cadence. An unfamiliar news template charges the airwaves with electromagnetic truths until station identification announces Artsakh’s jilted news is being brought to me by Armenian students on college radio.

Near Lorain, the signal fades out and a new one fades in: Now someone is singing, “Baby, I want you back.”

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