Blue Wolfe and Friends presents: Camp Here and There.
Episode Forty-Four: Under a Static Sky
[CLICK]
ROWAN
Imagine you’re a person. A man. You’re average. You have your sins, just like everyone else. You wake up in the morning with heavy limbs and a dizzying fatigue, but you drink your coffee and eat the eggs lovingly ordered into a smile on your breakfast plate.
Your daughter, she’s dealing with allergies this year. The pollen must be bad. You wipe the snot from her plucky face with a soft tissue. She is joy abundant, and you’re just happy to see her smile at you before blowing her nose.
Your son is entering the sixth grade now. The rebellious phase, you tell yourself, as his grades start to plummet and the hours he spends awake in the evening increase. He is, predictably, not awake for breakfast. You make a note to have a chat with him later, man to man. You both have a responsibility to the household, after all. With all your pride, your broad shoulders, your stubbled chin, you’re okay with the life you live.
[OFFICE AMBIENT SOUNDS]
You go to work to feed your family, with a white collared shirt and iron-pressed pants that your wife prepared for you the night before. It’s nothing exciting. The chair hurts your back, the screen hurts your eyes, the briefcase full of papers always feels cluttered and disorganized. You keep meaning to buy paper clips, but the moment always passes you by. Tomorrow for sure.
You’re tired, yes. But it’s worth the way your daughter smiles. It’s worth your wife’s home cooked steak and potatoes. It’s worth your son’s baseball games, cheering him on a moderate amount. You don’t want to be too loud, but you like to show him you love him, even as he fumbles most of his catches. He’ll never be great, you tell yourself. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t your son.
You dream, day and night, of being a doctor, of healing the sick and wounded. You dream of curing your daughter’s allergies. They get worse by the day, sticky and miserable. The poor thing can barely breathe, but every morning you diligently wipe her nose as if it will help. You dream of healing your wife’s ache, of waving your hand and seeing her stand without a wince. And every night, you diligently massage her shoulders until you tire. You wish your company offered better insurance.
Your wife encourages you to go to school. Become a doctor, she says! But you can’t. Maybe you had that courage once, but she’s at home, and without your work to provide, you both couldn’t support your kids. There are more important things anyways. Such as the fact that she leaned over in your shared bed that night and told you she hated the distance. You’re always there for her, though. You don’t know what she’s talking about. Everything you do, you do for her, ultimately. Everything is about her. They’re her kids as much as they are yours. It’s her who you praise for her excellent use of barbecue sauce. It’s her grainy photo you look at in the car on your way to your work.
[PUB AMBIENT SOUNDS]
You love to go to the pub with your coworkers. Men in all walks of life, clinking their tankards together. You watch your younger coworker try to talk to an even younger college student, making plans to ride home together in an hour. It moderately concerns you as you sip stale beer with too much ice. It doesn’t seem healthy to you. You’re happy, you think, that your wife is waiting for you at home, just as she always is.
The sky is grey that morning as your daughter smiles at you with a gap in her teeth. Her baby teeth are falling out, and she looks cute as a button. Your wife has her hair in pigtails this morning, and they frame her round cheeks sweetly.
Your son is up this time. He’s poking dully at the egg-face your wife set in front of him. You wonder if he finds her breakfast art as odd as you do. But never mind, you love your wife as she is, hash brown sculptures and all.
He’s tired, as usual. Dark bags line his inset eyes under a tousle of choppy hair. You had given him a stern talking to the previous day, discussing what he owes to the world as a man. They’re always like this at this age. You remember the nights you’d spend in your mother’s house, up on the computer playing Solitaire. You would message your future wife every evening on an outdated email interface, learning new things about yourself and your body, wracked with hormones and guilt. You feel too sheepish to confront your son more head-on, but he glares at you from across the table, obviously blaming you for having to drag himself out of bed.
Your daughter sneezes, and you hand her a napkin. Your wife complains about the humidity on her joints, and you grunt in reply.
[RAIN BEGINS TO SOUND]
Off you are, then, to work once again.
By noon it’s drizzling. Raindrops trail down the window by your cubicle, streaking the glass. ‘Good for the trees,’ your wife would say. You can hear her mumble as if she were there.
Your coworker strikes conversation by discussing the weather. It’s a mindless drawl, and you largely ignore the noise.
By 5pm there’s a flood warning. You need to get home to your family. Lightning crashes through the sky like a shattering window, and your leather shoes slosh through the current as you struggle to your car.
You just need to get home safe.
[THUNDER SOUNDS]
It rains all through the night. By morning, there’s water crawling in from under the space in your front door. You and your wife bunch towels against the gap. She mutters miserably about the decorative rugs. You laugh; dry, brittle, inappropriate. You watch the water soak the stitching.
The dread sets in.
Not a scream, but a worry. A whisper in the corners of your psyche, gnawing at your jaw as you flip through yesterday’s paper. Perhaps you simply missed a memo.
By midday, not that you can tell from the sky’s endless churn, the water has climbed to your windowsills. Above is neither day nor night, but a bruised blur of gray. There is no sun, no horizon, no break in the clouds. Wind rattles the house. The light bulbs flicker. The air is heavy, still. Your daughter holds your hip and asks if she’s going to die. You tell her no. This is just a storm. Just a little rain, you assure. It will pass.
You try the news, but the anchors are gone. [STATIC RESOUNDS] It’s all static now, the sound of the swelling seas trapped in a metal box. A voice tries to cut through, then decays into a tinny alarm. [BELL TOLLS] The image warps and collapses. You turn the volume down. It doesn’t help. You pick up the landline. There’s no dial tone. The handset hums in your ear, low and broken. You hang up. You try again. Still nothing. You unplug it and plug it back in. No change. The machine is dead.
The power goes out. The heater shuts off. The floor is cold. The wallpaper peels. A leak licks at the ceiling above the couch. Another opens above the stairway. And then another. You walk to the kitchen to find a bucket. You walk back to find the leak has widened. The drywall is soft and distended like dank flesh ridden with a festering infection.
You feel wetness on your nose and tell yourself it’s just a drip. But it keeps coming. The trickle curdles to a torrent. The breath of your house heaves into a sob.
You’re sitting in your favorite chair, the one with the little tear right in the cushion. You watch the water spatter, sloshing up and down, up and down. The fireplace has long since drowned. Your wife’s knick-knacks from the side table float lazily in the murk. The couch swells and yawns like a corpse. The water is a hungry thing; a gaping mouth dragging its tongue over your thighs, your chest, your chin, as it drools over you from above.
Your wife is screaming, her voice a sharp thing in a dull world. You can’t make out the words. You think she was crying your name. You think it might not be your name anymore.
The water reaches your waist.
The cat is face-down near the bookshelf. You do not move it.
The water is rising faster now. The house moans as it is gutted. Your son is missing. His discarded sneakers sway with the current. You do not look for him. You do not call out.
The cat is dead. You see it float by, eyes wide and vacant, yet still meowing beneath the rippling surface.
The water reaches your stomach.
The fridge door swings open. Floral plates tumble from the cabinets. A photo frame sinks to the floor and splits beneath the waves.
You can no longer feel your legs.
There’s a chill inside your bones, behind your teeth. It knocks politely on your ribs.
Your daughter clings to the stair rail. Her face is gray. Her nose drips. You hand her a napkin. And she doesn’t take it.
You are calm. You are still. You are staring at the windows, watching as the world outside dissolves behind the murk and wet. The front window is almost fully submerged. There is only a narrow line of dry glass at the top. Your teeth ache.
A crack forms at the base of the glass. White and hair-thin. It blooms across the windowpane. The shape is beautiful.
You are watching.
The window shatters.
[SOUND OF RUSHING WATER]
The glass bursts inward with the shriek of a dying animal. The flood punches through the house, and water slams into your chest like a jealous lover. You thrash. You choke. You claw at nothing through the thick. The weight of your wife drags you down, her fingers clenched at your waist until her nails reach beneath your bones.
You—you, you sink down. Water swallows your head and sucks at your limbs with a violent gulp. Your muscles scream. Your chair is ripped from beneath you. Your arms flail. You cannot find the floor. You cannot find the ceiling. You cannot see your daughter and you cannot see your wife!
Guilt.
The sound becomes an absence.
Your lungs become teeth.
You are not in the water.
You are beneath it.
No hand will reach for you.
No ark will wait.
Guilt.
You scream, and no one hears you. Not the heavens. Not the house. Not the family you built, piece by piece, with your raw hands and the soft hush of your breath in her hair. You had built them a raft. You thought it would help. You thought it was enough.
It wasn’t!
Guilt.
This is what it means to be forgotten.
To be ordinary.
To be left behind.
Guilt.
Your last thought is her intimate touch as she rips beneath your skin, or maybe the sound of your daughter coughing behind the door. Or maybe it’s the briefcase at work still full of unsigned papers, soaked in ink, never filed. Maybe it’s the eggs you didn’t eat. The cheers you didn’t cry. The paper clips you never bought. The life you meant to live.
Guilt.
Your chest caves in like a collapsing cathedral.
You see stars instead of ceiling.
Guilt.
Then, it is black.
[ROWAN TAKES A MINUTE]
I never dream…
I never dream like that.
It’s coming. Take me seriously. I think we need to do something.
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
SYDNEY
Good morning campers! It’s [STATIC] 8:56AM and the sky is… well I can’t really tell you… It’s an evershifting expanse of technicolor explosion! Would that simply be rainbow? Too trite. Technicolorific? Hueshiftalous? Lumitastic? Hm… I’ll have to come back on the appropriate word. Stand by, everyone, I’ll think on it!
Did any of you sleepy critters hear Rowan this morning? At 4AM, he broke into this room in a tizzy to give some spiel about a bad dream. Woke me up from halfway across the camp, and I got him to bed quickly with some sedatives and a bedside hand. But I sure hope you all stayed asleep! No need for his semi-lucid ramblings about floodwaters and God’s hatred rattling around in your soft little skulls. I’ve since had a talk with him, because he knows he’s not allowed to do that on my loudspeaker.
[CHAIR CREEK]
But the sky sure is weird today, isn’t it lovelies? Spinning and swirling through color like the hair of a 13 year old who listens to bands with names like Bleeding Violets or Lint Trap and tells people they, quote, ‘relate’ to dead moths! Yes, appears the everlasting breadth of space above us has malfunctioned into static concoctions of every color known to man! And even some that aren’t. I can see them, of course. But I’ll never tell.
Funny though, as static is a very different sort of magic to the sky! Now why would our sky be so harsh to the point of resembling a computer room setup? It hurts to look at! I would dissuade you children from staring at it for too long, even from just outside my window I’m starting to get dizzy!
[BLINDS CLOSING]
Ha, this must be how Rowan feels! [HE LAUGHS]
Well, never mind. I do suggest we spend today indoors if we can. It’s no blood storm, knife rain, or pachidermal creepshow, but I do worry for your retinas. Wouldn’t want any eyeball sludge dripping out of your head, cause y’know, insurance rarely covers photoreceptor desolation. Tsk, dang corporate Ohio.
[AHEM] So, today’s activity will then be shifted to a coloring competition! Your job, campers, is to use whatever common coloring tool may inspire you most; be that magic marker, crayon, wax, mouse, whiskers, fur of the Beast Beneath, cheese, or various fingernail paints, to illustrate an exact forgery of Picasso’s Blue Period, [WHISPER] and the winner gets 40% of however much we can swindle out of some sucker down at the auction hall. C’mon, kids, it’s not too bad. Dont’chya know that all art in some way is mere thievery?
Today’s breakfast isss…. well, Matthew has prepared us with lovely, artistically inspiring Paintbrush Pie. Seems word got around, and as an artist himself, he wants to get everyone into the spirit! Wahoo! [HE CLAPS] And vegans get chalk.
That’s all for now, kids. See you at lunch!
[CLICK]
[CLANK]
ADAM
Joyous breakfast, camp youth! [TAMBOURINE SHAKING] Why I do believe the time is [AWFUL NOISES] Ah! Oh! Silly me! Bounded by the rules of this dastardly world, a demon can not utter the time. It’s magic much stronger than what my Chthonic form can handle. Tsk tsk, tsk, let this be a lesson to all demon lovers out there in our wondrous building of recreation. Us demons, we’re tissue paper, nothing but tearable threads across the woven cosmic tapestry. Why, so terribly frail that the mere mention of current time of day can render our spirits asunder! [HE BELTS A HEARTY LAUGH] Oh, the heavenly absurdity!
Never mind the matter!
[MUNCHING NOISES] [RUSTLING PLASTIC]
Hey, children, Have you ever tried trail mix? Hold on! Let me tell you all about it from an “article” I read today! It’s a type of snack mix, typically a combination of granola, dried fruit, nuts, and sometimes candy, developed as a food to be taken along on hikes. Trail mix is a popular snack food for hikes, because it is lightweight, easy to store, and nutritious, providing a quick energy boost from the carbohydrates in the dried fruit or granola, and sustained energy from fat in nuts.
[RUSTLING BAG]
Oh my, it is SO effervescent! A perfect marriage of flavor! Have you had it?!
[CRUNCHING] You must all get in on this!
What was I saying? Oh, yes! Apologies, all is simply phenomenal!
This morning, this lovely morning. As you know—
[CRUNCH]
I’ve called for the immediate cease of any further terrorism upon the denizens of Camp Here & There, previously led by the artificially-horned little fellow Natsume!
Another fun fact about demons, my youth, I do indeed have horns affixed to my scalp! And I appreciate the spirit. I may just obtain a headband for myself some time. The little plastic nubs are quite charming, are they not? A fun custom, truly!
[TAMBOURINE JINGLING]
But I suspect this is not the end of our jovial escapades with Camp Here & There. While I am an honest man, and do find the announcer quaint in companionship, of whom I have a history, I am not in control of your actions. Only you are in control, dear children! Such is the most important lesson of emotional maturity. Signed yours, Up and Adam, M.A., PhD, DTF. [TAMBOURINE SOUNDS]
And I realize that you asked me here to assist in camp ventures, but I am simply your schedule communicator! I implore you to make ethically lucid decisions. 🙂
Now, for an oral coverage of the day’s coming events and status of Camp Over Where.
Hmmmm. The structure we constructed of timber, stone, and marble to act as our room for our recreation and meals… it is holding up swimmingly!
The Deer with No Face has brought sweet Marie Ann, cute as a button, to act as nurse’s assistant and administration. Jane Doe wants me to relay this message to you all: Her limbs are supposed to bend that way!
As for our newly arrived “counselor,” Miss Mavis Marlock, well, youth, I have no idea where she came from. Truly. One day, she simply appeared in the makeshift staff lounge, holding a clipboard she stole from a bird, and saddled with the newfound responsibility of childcare. No résumé, no backstory, just a wide-eyed expression and the general air of someone who has recently “peeped the horror,” as it were.
She keeps scribbling into a textbook titled: Introduction to Transplanar Meta-Vortices and Unstable Realities (Third Edition), and pausing every few moments to glance suspiciously from side to side, like she’s waiting for someone to say the magic word that will return her to her real timeline.
Marvelous absurdity, Mavis! I’ve asked her what she’s writing, and she told me, quote, “cross-referenced incidents for long-term behavioral trend analysis.” Which I believe is code for “a list of people to watch.” Possibly including me! [HE LAUGHS]
Do not be alarmed! She’s delightful. A little high-strung, certainly, but she only twitches when startled, and has only screamed into her hands twice today. A promising start for a burgeoning career in daycare!
Please welcome her with open arms, and do insist on it! She’s still not used to hugs that go both directions.
[CRUNCHING]
And I am meant to say activities, yes? Do you all know what activities you wish to perform today? Preferably, ones which do not involve Camp Here & There staff! I hear you wish to hunt deer for lunch, yes? I believe, if I am not mistaken, that Jane has rendered this venture impossible. There are no more deer left, children!
Might I suggest something a little more plentiful? Porcupine, perhaps? Or hedgehog. I can vividly imagine the stringy, defiant meat of hedgehog between my teeth…
[TEETH CLACKING NOISE]
Hahhhh! How texturally unsettling! Just the way I like it. And you can use the needles to pick your—what do humans call them?—“teeth” after. Hey, I have an idea! Why don’t we, for today’s “activity” of the people, fashion obsidian spears, much like your ancestors of old? Did you know I was there when the first spear was whittled, and coincidentally, I was there when the first human spleen was skewered! It was a Tuesday. Always a Tuesday. Ahhh, memories…
Oh, a final note for my “announcements” as they are called.
The sky appears to be falling.
[TAMBOURINE RATTLING]
Let us sing! Let us sing!
[CLANK]
[CLICK]
SYDNEY
Hello, kids. Happy lunch!
The time is [STATIC] 12:09 and… I think we all know what I am about to say.
The sky is blue.
An impossible feat. Even I have never seen this in my life.
It hurts, this pristine color. Clear and cold, dreadful in its vastness. The fumes wafting in from outside are thick and pungent, like a gaseous petrichor mixed with the bright reek of ozone. If you venture out, campers, take care not to breathe too deeply! I’d hate for the wet of your lungs to turn as blue as the heavens above us!
I was once told that humans cannot see blue as sharply as other colors. This I believe, because I cannot see. I cannot see beyond a burning light, strongly, so strongly blue. Blue like a chemical burn, like hydrogen gas, like a bleached bone picked clean. The color of sterility, of emptiness… of a hospital blanket.
It’s giving me vicious vertigo! The blue is a wound. A gash in the fabric of the world. This isn’t right. This isn’t how things are supposed to be. The sky is a kaleidoscope, a stained glass fever dream, not this…this endless, achingly beautiful blue.
Something has gone wrong, evidently. But of course… this brings me to… the train.
Above the trees, disturbing the tops of the leaves, just beyond the eastern side of the lake, a steam train sits in the sky.
[FAINT WHIRRING SOUNDS]
It is not floating. I cannot impress that upon you enough, children. It is not suspended by air, or held by wind or wires, or obeying any sort of natural understanding. It is unmoving. Not falling. Not following gravitational pull. It’s as if it’s… broken. I guess.
The train is enormous. Red, gray, green, and rusted. Its engine looms above the canopy, and the sheer bigness of its wheels suggests something crushing. Grinding. Heavy machinery intimidates. The structure gives off the distinct sense that it could roll forward at a moment’s notice and rend the world beneath it.
This must be what it looks like to be run over.
It stretches across the sky, beginning just past the lake and continuing on above the camp. Car after car after car. One is open and filled with suitcases. One appears to be a dining car, silverware and folded napkins still resting pristine. Others are sealed shut, windowless, or fogged from the inside.
There are no shadows beneath it. But the treetops below bow, ever so slightly, under its invisible weight.
It’s been exactly nineteen minutes.
And we do not know what this means.
But it has been ringing out. In the pleasant quiet of our day, it sounds like a horn. A long, low tone. Then silence. Then again. It’s not constant, but it returns, always. A periodic song. I haven’t figured out the pattern.
Perhaps it’s trying to announce something?
[SILENCE]
Jedidiah is… [SIGH] not present. I know. A tragic loss for all of us and for the field of impromptu sky-train interpretation. I can’t help but imagine that, were he here, his engineering know-how might offer a vital explanation, or at least a flowchart. Perhaps he’s heard of airborne locomotives in one of his schematics, or stumbled across an archived blueprint labeled “HEAVEN’S RAIL SYSTEMS.” His strange little gadgets and whirring horrors have always had a way of syncing up with anomalies, mechanical tendrils reaching into the unknown and tugging gently on the curtains of reality. He’s good at that. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing he’s printed off the copier.
[MUMBLING] So why is he gone again?
[AHEM] In any case, I suppose I’ll have to get a closer look myself. There’s not much to lose, is there? A little train-time never hurt anybody! Probably. Not in a lasting way.
And now, an important update on our most decorated criminal: Miss Pipi Paint, daring rogue and agent of chaos, has successfully smuggled $805,578,983,578 across the Camp Here & There border, from those Fine Art schmucks. That’s right. Over eight hundred billion, give or take a few trailing zeroes. Factoring in current inflation rates and the precarious value of the paint-based economy, Pipi Paint, I believe that means you can now afford… a single bag of chips. Maybe two if you go off-brand. Congratulations!
[HE CLAPS] A true visionary.
As for this afternoon’s activities: Joshua will be leading something called The Wolf Hour. I must say, the name lacks imagination. Come now, Joshua, we’ve talked about this! Doesn’t Evil Red Eye Murder Awesome Wolf Pack sound so much more thrilling? You stupid, dumb animal. Try harder next time.
At the same time, Counselor Rowan will be continuing what he has titled Shovel Club.
Now, for our midday meal: today’s lunch is smoked— wait, smoke? Ha! Oh, Matthew. Once again, you stand boldly at the edge of culinary hubris. One cannot serve smoke. Smoke is the bonfire’s sacred breath. It is to be respected, inhaled with reverence, and not garnished on a plate beside your sad little carrot stick. Good luck, you charlatan.
And with that, my little bluebirds, I take my leave. The sky-train calls. And I, like any responsible adult faced with a levitating anomaly, must answer. Lettuce get a closer look, and add some tomatoes too!
[HE LAUGHS]
See you all at dinner, unless I perish!
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
SYDNEY
Do you remember the first time you ever saw a train? Not saw, but felt, rattling through your chest, your teeth, your fingers, howling out into the sky like a baying behemoth.
[TRAIN SOUNDS IN BACKGROUND]
You were probably small. I was.
Stuck behind a barricade, watching that roaring wall of steel and smoke slice across your path, not watching, feeling it rumble. The lights blink. The horn cries. And there it is: unstoppable. A declaration of motion. Of direction. Of purpose.
Trains, like angels, or maybe gods, or maybe knives, are everywhere. Vast and deafening and completely indifferent to your flesh. You don’t approach a train. You stand back. And if you don’t… well.
I used to visit the tracks a few miles down the road from my home. High school, maybe. It’s a blur. The ground there was always dry and brittle. There were little beetles in the grass, and you could always hear the power lines humming. I’d kneel beside the dusty rails and press my hands to the steel, waiting for the tremble. I liked it. Those tracks were comfortable. Galvanized arms deep in the ground, offering a hug much more loving than my mother ever could. I visited often. I loved the feel of hot metal under my fingers, searching for the rumbling of the coming apparatus.
It made me feel close to something. Maybe not to life, exactly. But… to a decision.
Sometimes Jedidiah came with me. He never asked why. And sometimes he sat beside me. Sometimes he held my hand. And… I understood.
[PAUSE]
Anyway! That’s old business. Hi, buzzy bees! The time is 19:04, and we’ve survived yet another delightfully bizarre brush with the impossible!
You may have noticed earlier, just before dinner, and just past the southern treeline, a crack in the sky. Not metaphorical, but a literal… black crack. No clouds. No glow. No curvature. Just a perfect, ruler-straight fracture in the blue, spindling outward with impossible geometry. Divinely perpendicular!
And tucked neatly in the center of that fault-line… the train.
The very same one. Lovely steam engine. Dozens of cars. Hanging there. Not moving, not hovering, but present. Inexplicable. The wheels hung above the forest canopy. The sky did not ripple. But the train existed.
And… Well, I’m not quite sure how to describe this, but its eye was open. A round headlamp at the front of the engine, dim at first, then brighter. It looked at me.
And I looked back. There was nothing else to do.
I stood there for a long time, and the train did not move, and I did not move. And I remembered what it felt like to kneel by those rails. The waiting. The stillness. The possibility.
The choice.
If I’d stepped forward, back then, if I’d leaned in, I wonder if this is what I would have seen…
[AHEM] But Lucille, our steady, ever-watchful camp director, acted swiftly. She summoned our Friends of the Oak, our loyal puppet companions carved from ethically sourced nightmares and oak wood, and they responded with gusto!
The Friends climbed atop one another, a ladder of creaking limbs and painted grins, stretching high into the sky. When the topmost puppet reached the crack, it produced from its little wooden belt a single strip of industrial-grade duct tape.
Here’s your maintenance lesson for the day, kids: duct tape is a Class-B containment material under most non-magical stabilization policies. Again, it is not magical, but it sure is respected, particularly by structures that have no business standing. When applied with proper intent, duct tape will hold together dislocated knees, faulty bunk beds, jellyfish terrariums, and, evidently, the open sky. You are, however, not permitted to use it on Counselor Juniper… again.
And with a dignified precision, they patched up the sky. Just like that, the train vanished! And it was the most curious thing! Y’know, not gradually or picturesque. One moment, it was there. The next, gone. Like someone had flicked off a light. Or like it had never been.
But I remember it. And I know it saw me.
Anyway! The sky is black once more!
Onto activities. Tonight, we’ll be trying something called Squirrel-Tapping, a delightful regional pastime where you gently tap an unsuspecting squirrel on the shoulder and ask about their car’s extended warranty. Oh, they never see it coming! Though, please do not engage the squirrels in financial negotiations. They do not understand compound interest.
Dinner is Squirrel Salami, which, as always, is not made from squirrels! Vegans, you’ll be treated to Chipmunk Salami. Again, not chipmunks. Honestly, not much salami, either.
That’s all for now, goodnight my sleepy sheepies!
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
SYDNEY
You’re sure this will help?
ADAM
Indeed, beautiful! [CRUNCH]
SYDNEY
It’s just not like him.
ADAM
Oh, my beloved Sydney. He loves you, does he not? Is he not trying to do as you say these days?
SYDNEY
I suppose, yeah. Can you put down the crackers?
ADAM
[HE LAUGHS] [CRUNCH] Give it a try! [TAMBOURINE SHAKING]
[CLICK]
[CLICK]
[CLOCKS TICKING]
JEDIDIAH
Hi. Uhm… I–I don’t really know how to do this. I… I already hate it.
Sydney says I should start talking to, quote, “ghost recorder.” Says it might be good for me. That I need to practice processing my thoughts again. I told him I could journal. That used to work, I think. Before I, uh, before I guess I lost the habit. But he was really—he is really insistent on doing it this way. Adam’s way, I guess? Lord.
So, here I am. Talking into a shoddy plastic box. Talking to a “ghost,” allegedly.
He says it helps us grow stronger, or whatever. I guess that’s what this is. Growth. I don’t know. Maybe he just wants to make sure I’m not… lost in my head again.
He says I should vent.
But I don’t need to vent. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. There’s no point in talking about it if it just makes things worse. Saying it out loud doesn’t, like, make it less true.
It just echoes.
[PAUSE]
Like the horn of a train cutting through a field…
[PAUSE]
So I’m supposed to pretend I’m talking to a ghost? That this thing is haunted?
I’ve never questioned Sydney’s… episodes. If talking to a haunted recorder gives him peace, then I’m not gonna take that from him. But I am not pretending there’s a ghost in here. That’s his thing, not mine.
…Well. Maybe there is one. Actually. [MUTTERING] Oh, god. This unholy epidemic.
[PAUSE]
[SIGH] Well. So what’s on my mind today, huh? [HE CLICKS HIS TONGUE A FEW TIMES] …hm, Sydney still isn’t allowed in my office. Not during the workday. I can’t—I still can’t let him know—
[PAUSE]
Y’know, [SMALL BREATH] I’d rather talk to Sydney.
I’d rather practice talking to him, I guess. I’m trying to do that more. Maybe that’s the real reason for this exercise, to rid me of some… some of my cowardice.
[AHEM]
Hi, Sydney. I love you. How are you, my love? Thinking of you. Always am.
Augh. Let me try again. Hi, Sydney. I love you.
…
Hi, Sydney. I love you.
…
How about that train thing today, huh? Big sky train. Cracked sky. I don’t wanna think about it. I’m sorry I went to hide… I’m only practicing this exercise for you because I feel bad after doing that.
But it reminded me of when we were fifteen and we’d bum around that old rail field, sometimes sneaking a bottle of beer. It never tasted very good, though. Kinda pissy. I don’t think I like beer.
Do you remember that? You always used to disappear to the tracks. You loved them, and they were a nice reprieve when you couldn’t handle the way your mom was talking. I don’t think I could handle her either, honestly. I don’t blame you.
[CICADAS AND BIRDS SOUND IN BACKGROUND]
It was a scorcher of a summer day. The kind where the cicadas scream. One of those days where the air feels viscous. The cleaving heat mirage made the trees look like they were melting, or perhaps submerged under a pool of water…
You were standing there when I found you. Waiting for me to say something, like always. But what was I supposed to say? You stood with your back to me, your shadow flickered against the shrubby grass. You always looked taller near the tracks. Further away, I guess.
You believed the buzz of the cicadas was the sun screaming through the leaves. That the trees were straining under their own light. You didn’t realize it was bugs yet. I didn’t want to tell you. It was sweeter, the way you saw things then.
[CHUFF] It was cute.
Your shirt stuck to your back with sweat. You hadn’t spoken in hours. And I knew—God, I knew why you were there.
But what was I supposed to say? I saw that look in your eyes, the manic hunger you’d shoved down behind a stone mask. The way your heart was beating like a freight train under the dull granite.
You stared at the curve in the tracks where the horizon went soft, past the small bridge tunnel. I walked up behind you. I didn’t ask. I’d already lived through too many nights thinking I’d never see you again. Every goddamn day that I didn’t hear from you felt like a gamble.
I asked, “What sort of sound does a chicken make?”
You rolled your eyes.
YOUNG SYDNEY [MEMORY] AND JEDIDIAH
This is silly.
JEDIDIAH
You said. I said: “Answer the question.” You muttered—
YOUNG SYDNEY [MEMORY]
Bok bok?
JEDIDIAH
And I said: “Just chicken in on you!”
YOUNG SYDNEY [MEMORY] AND JEDIDIAH
Very clever.
JEDIDIAH
But you smiled. So that was something. Then you dropped to your knees and pressed your palm flat to the freight rail.
YOUNG SYDNEY [MEMORY]
Do you feel that?
JEDIDIAH
You asked,
YOUNG SYDNEY [MEMORY]
It’s rumbling.
JEDIDIAH
So then let’s move.
YOUNG SYDNEY [MEMORY]
Hold on.
JEDIDIAH
You stared off to the direction of the coming monster. I said: “Okay, but if I get hit by a train, I won’t be around to help you with homework.”
But what was I supposed to say?
You didn’t shift your gaze. You whispered:
YOUNG SYDNEY [MEMORY]
It never stops.
JEDIDIAH
You were trembling. I didn’t have to ask what you meant. You were always so tightly wound. Holding yourself together with string and scabs. You had thinned yourself down until what was you disappeared.
Your home was disgusting. I could smell the murk and mildew on your clothing. That centipede infestation in your bathroom must have given you a phobia by now.
YOUNG SYDNEY [MEMORY]
I’m so tired,
JEDIDIAH
You said. That hit me. I couldn’t look at you.
I had so much I wanted to tell you. And I wanted—I wanted so badly to tell you. I wanted to tell you how your small pony was cute. That your wrists were shaped in a way that made my ribs hurt. I wanted to tell you that I liked how fat would gather at the bottom of your chin when you smiled. I wanted to tell you that the thick curve of your stomach against your shirt made me dizzy. I wanted to tell you that you didn’t have to be afraid of needing. That I could take it. That we both needed it, right? I wanted to say that you could fold on top of me like a landslide and I would still be here.
I wanted to tell you that life can move on, that the brightness of the blue sky above us doesn’t have to hurt so much.
But what was I supposed to say?
You were starving for love and so terrified to be fed. You couldn’t tell a kick from a kiss, so I didn’t know how to say it.
Instead, I grabbed your hand and held it tight.
You stared at me. A stare I had to avoid.
I pulled you off the rails… you let me pull you off the rails.
And I don’t know what I’m supposed to be saying now.
[AHEM]
But uhm, about a year later thereabouts, after a good few more scares like that, you showed up on my doorstep with all your stuff.
[CLOCK SOUNDS RESUME]
I guess then I was just relieved I could keep an eye on you. I liked that I could be around you more. I sure wasn’t immune to being a teenager.
…
You know, your hair was cute when it was short. But I like it a lot now that it’s so long. I know it’s just no one’s been around to cut it, but it’s really pretty… You’re always really pretty.
And I’ll watch out for you now. I’m real glad we’re together again. I don’t have to be looking at this stupid picture of you on my desk to relieve myself. And weeping from the guilt… Yeah, you know that was… that was pretty pathetic. You deserve to make fun of me for that. I don’t think you’ll ever let me live it down.
I’m glad I don’t have to be so ashamed. I’m glad… that you’re mine.
[PAUSE]
[LONG EXHALE]
Okay. You’ll never hear this. I’d sooner die. But I hope this is what you wanted. Maybe I did need to say it.
[CLICK]
With original music composed by Will Wood and produced by Jonathon Maisto.
Additional music composed by Kyle Gabler and Another You.
Dialogue editing by Emily Safko.
Sound design by Blue Wolfe and Another You.
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Special thanks to Goutdiah, Raine, and Daina
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