Blue Wolfe and Friends presents: Camp Here and There.
Episode Sixty One: Hunger and You
JEDIDIAH
The time is… 10:34AM, and the date is July 2nd. This is Jedidiah A. A. Martin, nurse’s assistant at Camp Here & There, and I’ll be recording a session of conflict mediation between a competent, yet overly forgiving individual and… a disgusting heretic.
SOREN
Cease this, puny clockmaker!
JEDIDIAH
It is a miracle that Lucille hasn’t sent you home yet. Again.
SOREN
Bah! [LAUGH] That old crone needs me for her botanical whims. Who else will both care and stand sentry?
JEDIDIAH
Yes, well—
SOREN
You simpering hospice lamp! I’ve seen sturdier spines on the slugs that infest my pillow!
JEDIDIAH
[SPEAKING OVER] In accordance with the terms of my employment, I’ve made myself available as a neutral third party for the oversight of kindergartners.
FENNEL
Geeze.
JEDIDIAH
I’m not upset with you, Fennel.
FENNEL
Are you okay, man?
JEDIDIAH
No.
FENNEL
Is there anything I can do?
JEDIDIAH
No.
FENNEL
Do you want to talk about it?
JEDIDIAH
No.
SOREN
Where is the half-life?
JEDIDIAH
[SIMMERING] Do not call him that.
FENNEL
Where is he?
JEDIDIAH
Lucille had to talk to him.
FENNEL
Why’s that? Is that why you’re distressed.
JEDIDIAH
I do not want to talk about it, Fennel. Please stop asking me questions.
FENNEL
Alright…
JEDIDIAH
[SIGH] State your names and perspectives into the tape recorder.
FENNEL.
Uhm. Alright. Um. My name is Fennel Marlborough, counselor at Camp Here & There. I guess— My perspective is that I’m worried. Y’know. Uhm, this is a less a need for mediation on my end and more of an… an intervention? For Soren, I mean. He’s been about talking about this storm and his… his divine love, or something, and I don’t think any of it is metaphor anymore. I think he’s actually going to… to kill himself.
SOREN
[SOUND OF OFFENSE] Only to live a second sanctum! A breathless becoming! A… A bloom beneath the burial!
FENNEL
See?
SOREN
It’s like you’re not listening!
[FENNEL SIGHS]
JEDIDIAH
Thank you, Fennel.
SOREN
My turn!—
[SHUFFLING]
JEDIDIAH
Hey! Don’t grab my recorder!
SOREN
My name is Soren Bartholomew Baltimore, and well I am sick to the dying Mother of this squab and squeak! From my perspective, I was dragged here by a supposed friend. I was perfectly content continuing my work, my sacred work, until Fennel decided to stage a teary little “intervention” like I’m some lost sheep chewing on wires. I’m not confused! I’m not sick! I understand perfectly what I’m doing and I know the consequences! It’s you who all don’t understand.
JEDIDIAH
Okay, Soren.
SOREN
And I happen to hold very clear, very ancient religious beliefs. I didn’t make it up! I was called, as all else are called on their own crusade. You may call it delusion or whatever cute, sacrilegious label makes it easier to sleep at night, but it will happen. I will walk into the storm. I will offer myself to the Mother’s embrace, and I will rise again. Oh, you’ll see. You’ll all see.
FENNEL
See?
JEDIDIAH
You two have known each other a long time, haven’t you?
FENNEL
It wasn’t always like this…
SOREN
I’m right here, Fennel!
FENNEL
Hush. Yeah… he was always a little strange. I mean— When we were little he once dug up a dead squirrel and came to me crying with the stinking bones. And he was always talking about what color the sky will be when we die.
SOREN
[GRUMBLING] It’ll be grey.
FENNEL
But he was sweet. I was weird, too. Like, y’know. I liked to wear skirts and play with my hair when other boys were… well, not doing that. But he understood me. We’d play outside near that graveyard everyday. We were best friends, y’know? The kind of kids who captured frogs in the flowerbed to build giant frog-castles out of mud… I loved him back then. I still love him now.
SOREN
Tch. Spare me the guilt trip.
FENNEL
Hush! Jedidiah, he’s not just some walking threat assessment! I know everyone thinks he’s too far gone, but I think… I believe there’s still something there. I think he’s scared. He just wants to feel safe. Even that’s something I can understand. If he goes through with this plan, it’ll kill him.
And I—I know this isn’t really about me, but I’d feel it. If he died, I’d feel it in my heart forever… I—I need to help him, even if he hates me for it.
JEDIDIAH
Right… well… what do you need me for, then?
SOREN
At this point I just want them to leave me alone! I don’t want to die, Fennel! You would know that if you just listened. I want to live! You can live too! Don’t you want to exist together… forever?
FENNEL
I need you to help me, Jedidiah. Can we restrain him maybe? Keep him safe somehow—
JEDIDIAH
I don’t think that’s—
SOREN
Why do you insist on treating me like your purse dog instead of a person to speak with?
FENNEL
Soren, love, you really worry me. No, really, you do. It’s all— It’s a faith thing to you, right? If you’re allowed to believe in storms and death and whatever, then let me believe in my thing for a minute. That’s fair, right? That’s a neutral thing. Like you said.
So, okay, listen. Ever since I was little, like, little little, my zeydeh used to tell me this story. He’d say: “In Prague, all the Jewish families were scared all the time.” And I never had to ask why… I mean, I knew fear. Even when you’re seven.
But the important part was that they had a protector. A big guy, like, so big you could hide behind him. Not, like, a guy, technically. The golem. He was carved by a desperate man with river and mud; things which are earthly and for us humans. We die there. We build. It’s for us. This rabbi, he made the golem to keep our people safe. But it only worked because everyone believed in it. We made it what it was. Like, not just pretending, but actual, living, miserable faith. But not the faith of Adonai. It was…
With words we are not allowed to speak, he brought it to life. It was silent and obedient. It did as it was told. And so it was loved. The golem would walk the perimeter of the ghetto, and all the children would peep around corners, and sometimes they’d catch a glimpse of it through the fog and think: ‘That’s for us.’
But it was a monster, too. It smashed anything and everything. It didn’t eat, or sleep, or care, or pray… You could carve in its head “servant,” or “avenger,” and it would just do that, over and over, until it broke apart. Controlling life as men is not solely an act of gratitude. The rabbi looked at what he’d made and saw not just safety, but… control. And in that control, he saw himself reflected.
So, he led the creature back to the river where it was born. He smudged the… he obscured its name, and unmade what he had done. It crumbled into, like, into our mud. And he buried it there as it ended. And it met what all truth must meet, death.
That’s what the story is supposed to be, like, a warning. If you make someone out of fear, you only get more fear. If you love a god that’s just clay, like you’d love Adonai, you debase yourself into the dirt at its feet.
But I don’t know… I never saw it that way.
I used to imagine, what if someone made a golem out of love? Maybe it wouldn’t last… Maybe it would melt to mud the second you hugged it, or it would never know what to do with a flower, or a piece of bread with honey on it. But it would try. Just because you asked it to, and you needed it to. Is that just ego, too? Mmm… [MUMBLE] Do I turn away from God when I want to protect you…?
[THEY SHAKE THEIR HEAD TO RID THE THOUGHT] I guess what I mean is, Soren, is that your Mother, or whatever, it feels like the same story to me. I don’t mean it like… badly. I mean, you’re made out of mud, too. We both are. I see you building your god out this… this need, and I just want you to see mine, too. It’s the same, really. We’re all just scared. If I’m a heretic, then so were all the kids peeking through the curtains at the golem, thinking ‘It’s safe now.’ The mother, she’s…
I mean. Threaten me if you want. It doesn’t matter. I’m by your side, whether you like it or not. What I’m trying to say is it’s not salvation. It’s mud.
[PAUSE]
… And I don’t want you to die. That’s all.
[AHEM] That’s my perspective.
JEDIDIAH
Right, well— That’s… well said, Fennel.
FENNEL
Thank you. And Soren I… I feel deeply… Sometimes I really miss LA, and like I don’t, too. But I guess I miss that… time together. Before all this. I miss how we’d play in those gardens and dig up the plants. Ohio is my home, but it doesn’t feel that way without you. I love you. You must understand that. I don’t know what I’d do… without you. There’s like… there’s a piece of you in my soul.
SOREN
[NOISE LIKE A GROWL]
JEDIDIAH
Nothing to say, hm?
SOREN
I—
JEDIDIAH
Do you get it yet? It’s violent, and ugly, and it doesn’t fix anything it just— God, it might fix one thing, but it breaks ten more.
Look, you don’t know what it’s like to be— … to be the one who comes back. You wake up, and yeah, it’s your body, but it’s… wrong. And you know it is. And you smile at people because what else can you do? They’d freak if they knew. If they even can know… So you just… go through the motions. Do your job. You smile when it’s appropriate. But nothing—nothing feels right anymore.
People don’t just come back. They’re twisted and they know it. And it’s hard to hide. And eventually, they stop talking about how it feels, because it doesn’t make sense and it never will.
And then you’re just… silent. Dead. Silent. How must that feel?
And sometimes… when it gets bad enough, you do something really bad a-and crazy. You just… you want to feel like… Not like this. I get it. I know that. [HE’S CHOKING UP] And what can anyone else do, Soren? What are we supposed to do for you? There’s really nothing. It’s happened. It’s over now. People—people like Fennel who love you just have to watch. And… and at that point it’s not even your fault…
[SIGH]
If she does what you think she will… You won’t be able to explain why it’s worse. But it’s worse.
SOREN
You have no idea what I’ve been through.
JEDIDIAH
Enlighten me. I promise I know what I’m talking about.
SOREN
You want to be truly enlightened? Fine. Light a candle, nurse-boy.
I was born into rot.
My father, raised wealthy in Bangkok, traveled across the Pacific for love. He was alone, then he wasn’t, then he was again. That wench. She took the money. She took our fortune. She took everything but me.
So we dug.
Graves. That was the job. My father took it because it was the only thing that didn’t ask for a resume, just a spine and hands ready for work. And when I turned thirteen, he gave me a shovel and said, “Who’s gonna dig that grave?”
Dig.
You ever dig six feet down into frozen earth?
Dig.
I was thirteen and splitting open the skin of the world every afternoon. I knew the weight of corpses better than I ever knew textbooks. I got familiar with the way people turn gray, and bloat, and slip.
Dig.
You ever dig a grave for someone you’ve never met? How about five in a row? Or seven? In the wind and rain? While the mud is sucking at your ankles and chilling your bones?
You ever do it before you’ve kissed anyone, before you’ve even learned to drive?
Dig.
We buried so many, I forgot to count. But I started naming them. I talked to them. Pretending they talked back. They asked me:
“Who’s gonna dig that grave?”
Me. I am. I’m gonna dig it.
Dig.
I started coming up with deaths I never knew.
I couldn’t stand the silence. I couldn’t stand not knowing. So I made them up.
This one drowned in a bathtub because the water refused to stop. This one choked on his own tongue during a lie. This one walked backward into the field and never turned around.
This one was swallowed by her own reflection, headfirst, a mirror like mercury. This one coughed up birds for three days until his lungs gave out. This one fell asleep in a thunderstorm and woke up in pieces.
Because I couldn’t ask. I couldn’t just knock on their coffins and say, “What happened?”
This one was murdered by silence. This one by guilt. This one died of grief that turned solid in her stomach.
This one lived too long and started to rot from the inside out. This one walked into the river and never came back.
Dig.
It never ends.
It gets in your joints after a while. My knees start to go first. Left one locks up in the cold, right one just aches. Ankles swell. Wrists pop. Elbows grind like gravel. Every time I crouch it sounds like I’m cracking a wishbone.
Dig.
Your skin splits, too. Blisters at first. Then callouses. Then it splits right through the callous. The shovel handle bites you in the same spot every time. You bleed into the dirt.
Dig.
Your fingernails go black. Your shoulders pull out of place. Your back starts to bend—
From the dig. Dig. Dig.
Sometimes I wake up and my fingers won’t close. Sometimes they won’t open. And I still haven’t dug enough. Every time I finish a grave, I look up and there’s another one. Another one. Another one. The land is so hungry. My body’s gone crooked.
But I keep digging. Because if I stop, well—
And then… he died.
My father. It was a humid, stormy day. He was pushing the wheelbarrow; half-rotten planks, a rusted-out axle, with some poor soul wrapped in a tarp. We were halfway across the graveyard when it happened.
A flash of lightning split the sky in half. I remember thinking it must be the shape of my spine.
Then he dropped face-first into the mulch, hands still curled around the barrow handles. Dead before he hit the dirt.
The storm broke open as I stood over his body.
His heart had given out. Didn’t even make it to the next plot.
I was seventeen then. And I had to dig one more grave.
His.
And I remember standing there, with the shovel in my hand and the dirt caked under my nails, thinking:
“Who’s gonna dig his grave?”
Me. Me, again. Of course. Always.
Dig. Dig. Dig.
I dug the hole in the cold rain. I built the soggy box from spare wood. I lowered him in after hauling his limp body on my aching back. I told myself if I did it right, he’d come back. If the edges were straight. If the nails were clean. If I hummed the right tune under my breath, he’d rise and greet me again.
I decided that he’d died from a broken heart.
I don’t even know what she looks like. Just that I have her last name like a curse branded on my papers. He never said it. Not once. Not even at the end.
The woman who bore me, named me, and ran before I could remember her face. She took his softness. And left him with me, and a mountain of debt, and a name he couldn’t say.
So when he died, when it was just me and that grave I dug, with the rain coming down in sheets, I thought:
There has to be another kind of mother.
And there she was…
The Gravediggress. Tall and still.
Like the man of clay in that story Fennel loves so much.
She can help me see him again. I can hold his arm again, give him a smile.
Because I still hear them, you know?
Dig. Dig. Dig.
“Who’s gonna dig that grave?”
Me. Still me.
But I’m tired. I want to see his hands again. I want to pull him up like a root. He’s rotted to the core, and she gives me hope that’s okay.
I want to hear his voice, even if it’s all wrong. It’s better than gone, isn’t it?
Coming back twisted? So what, you fickle creature?
I came back wrong when I put him in the ground. Do we not all die a million deaths in our every day? What wrong is this that differs from the aching twist in my spine?
And I still hear it:
Dig. Dig. Dig.
So who’s gonna dig that grave?
Me.
Until she answers.
Answers that I am loved. That I’ll never once dig again.
[WITH GRAVE INTENSITY] Do you understand?
JEDIDIAH
[AT A LOSS FOR WORDS] Y… yes, Soren. Yes, I understand.
FENNEL
What?!
JEDIDIAH
It’s—
FENNEL
You’re joking!
JEDIDIAH
[QUIETLY, BARELY A WHISPER] You do what you have to do, okay?
FENNEL
What the hell, Jedidiah?!
JEDIDIAH
I-I’ve got to—to check on Sydney I’d—I’d best be—
[HE GETS UP TO WALK OUT OF THE CABIN]
FENNEL
Oh, c’mon, Jedidiah! You lousy whelp! If you won’t stop him, I will. I swear I’ll do anything it takes!
[WALKING]
JEDIDIAH
I know, Fennel.
[DOOR SLAM]
[CLICK]
Today’s episode of Camp Here & There was written and directed by Blue Wolfe.
The role of Jedidiah Martin was performed by Voicebox Vance.
The role of Soren Baltimore was performed by Mikee Joaquin.
The role of Fennel Marlborough was performed by Izzy Sarrows.
With original music composed by Will Wood and produced by Jonathon Maisto.
Additional music composed by Kyle Gabler, and Another You.
Dialogue editing by The Leo!
Sound design by Blue Wolfe and Another You.
And a special thanks to Patrons for making this possible!
Special thanks to Toast the Bread.
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Thank you for listening to Camp Here & There! And remember: Three times the trepidation.