Speaker 1: This program is intended for mature audiences only.
Speaker 2: You are not listening to observe the radio.
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Speaker 3: who never consciously knew she wasn't at home in this world,
Speaker 3: but lived her life going through the until something profoundly
Speaker 3: strange happened to her. But first, a word from the
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Speaker 5: Radio turning over. There was something stuck in her throat.
Speaker 5: She was no stranger to tonsilstones, those nasty, calcified bits
Speaker 5: of food debris that got caught in her tonsils. But
Speaker 5: typically she could get them out on her own, just fine.
Speaker 5: A vigorous cough here, a poke with a cute tip there,
Speaker 5: and she was good to go. She even got so
Speaker 5: used to the process that sometimes she could dig them
Speaker 5: out with her finger, not even looking in the mirror.
Speaker 5: It was disgusting, but it worked. This this felt different.
Speaker 5: She tried to ignore the fact that she had the
Speaker 5: sore throat for days with no relief, no matter what
Speaker 5: she tried. She was now on day fourteen of salt water,
Speaker 5: gargling a rigorous hydration schedule and possibly brushing her teeth
Speaker 5: a little too often. Never before had she found herself
Speaker 5: so distracted by something that was usually a non issue.
Speaker 5: She forced herself to swallow saliva, as though that would
Speaker 5: bring any relief, and tried to put it to the
Speaker 5: back of her mind. She had completely zoned out the
Speaker 5: last fifteen minutes of her meeting with the regional director,
Speaker 5: who was looking to her for an answer to a
Speaker 5: question she never heard. The pain in her throat throbbed
Speaker 5: that evening. She widened her mouth as much as possible
Speaker 5: and hit the usual angles with her phone's flashlight so
Speaker 5: she could peer right into the crips of her tonsils.
Speaker 5: A doctor once told her that they were exceptionally large.
Speaker 5: She thought it somewhat amusing that this would be the
Speaker 5: one area in her life where she could be considered exceptional.
Speaker 5: As she looked down her throat, she couldn't see the whitish,
Speaker 5: yellowish lumps that she expected. In fact, for the most part,
Speaker 5: her tonsils looked normal. As she slowly moved the light
Speaker 5: to see between the fleshy crevices, something unfamiliar caught her eye.
Speaker 5: She almost dropped her phone. There, toward the back of
Speaker 5: one of her tonsils was a dark spot. She felt
Speaker 5: like she stared at that spot for hours, but no
Speaker 5: matter how hard she looked, she was unable to identify
Speaker 5: this odd form. It definitely seemed solid, not like a scab.
Speaker 5: On the surface of her tonsil. She could feel her
Speaker 5: heart beat quickened, fighting tears and the urge to look
Speaker 5: up dark spot on tonsil is at cancer on the Internet.
Speaker 5: She quickly washed her hands and went straight to bed.
Speaker 5: After an hour of lying in the dark, she finally
Speaker 5: felt herself drifting off to sleep. She heard faint whispers
Speaker 5: of her name, which she ignored. Just like the tonsil stones,
Speaker 5: she was used to the hypnogogic hallucinations that came to
Speaker 5: her from time to time. She had experienced them for
Speaker 5: as long as she could remember, long before she even
Speaker 5: knew that they could be considered scary by some folks.
Speaker 5: By the time she was old enough to have that understanding,
Speaker 5: their phantasmic visitations happened so frequently that she saw them
Speaker 5: as completely benign. They were nothing more than the brain
Speaker 5: getting its wise crossed. After all, the whispers faded to
Speaker 5: nothing as she sank into the dark of a dreamless sleep.
Speaker 5: For the next few days, she tried to ignore the
Speaker 5: growing soreness in the back of her throat. She maintained
Speaker 5: her tried in true Antitonsilstone regime, but it didn't seem
Speaker 5: to help at all. Her sleep became more and more
Speaker 5: restless every night, and she grew exhausted from sleep deprivation.
Speaker 5: One night, she woke up in a panic. It was
Speaker 5: still dark outside, Her heart was racing a mile a minute,
Speaker 5: and she could see a figure standing at the foot
Speaker 5: of her bed. It was a being that appeared skeletal
Speaker 5: at first, towering above her at six or seven feet tall.
Speaker 5: As she stared, she realized that it was not skeletal,
Speaker 5: but an entity that was made of twigs and sticks.
Speaker 2: It appeared to be.
Speaker 5: Bound at the joints with twine or some other fibrous material.
Speaker 5: Its triangular hair tilted down at her her with ampler
Speaker 5: like bows jutting upwards and nearly scraping the ceiling. Its
Speaker 5: arms reached out toward her, gnarled fingers widespread. She could
Speaker 5: hear the creaking of wood straining against movement as the
Speaker 5: being extended its limbs in her direction. A low rumble
Speaker 5: accompanied its presence, like an earthquake, rattling only inside her
Speaker 5: ear drums. She sat up and blinked, expecting it to disappear,
Speaker 5: but the vision of the being lingered, its limbs still outstretched.
Speaker 5: After a few moments, the being and the rumble finally vanished,
Speaker 5: but she found it difficult to allow herself to breathe.
Speaker 5: It was just another hallucination, she told herself, attempting to
Speaker 5: soothe her nerves, But as she reorientated her body under
Speaker 5: the covers, she was afraid to turn her back to
Speaker 5: the corner where the entity stood moments ago. The next morning,
Speaker 5: the pain in her throat was agonizing. It was worse
Speaker 5: than the strip throat she remembered having as a child.
Speaker 5: She called in sick to work and stood in front
Speaker 5: of the bathroom mirror, stealing herself for what she might see.
Speaker 5: She slowly brought the flashlight to her lips, afraid to
Speaker 5: part them. She reminded herself doing nothing fixes nothing, and
Speaker 5: allowed herself one more deep breath before dropping her jaw.
Speaker 5: The dark spot was larger, It was more solid. Dread
Speaker 5: resonated in her rib cage. Carefully, she stuck a cue
Speaker 5: tip in her mouth to poke it. The spot was hard,
Speaker 5: but it moved. It moved like a tonsilstone. That was
Speaker 5: some small measure of relief that meant it could come out.
Speaker 5: She took the cue tip and gently pushed the object
Speaker 5: out toward the front of her mouth. It caught on
Speaker 5: some of her tonsil flesh as it moved. Inducing a
Speaker 5: terrible coughing fit. She hoped she wouldn't accidentally inhale the thing.
Speaker 5: She had coughed violently, she managed to spit something out
Speaker 5: into the sink. Through tears, she could see the object
Speaker 5: sitting in the white porcelain. It looked like a raisin.
Speaker 5: She picked it up to inspect it. The object unexpectedly
Speaker 5: had a very rough texture that felt somewhat familiar. As
Speaker 5: she examined it closely, she was shocked to discover that
Speaker 5: it was a piece of bark, like tree bark from
Speaker 5: the outside. She dropped it in surprise, and it tumbled
Speaker 5: down the drain. She was simultaneously thankful that it was
Speaker 5: out of her sight and angry that she had lost
Speaker 5: her only physical evidence of this strange situation. On the
Speaker 5: bright side, there didn't seem to be anything else in
Speaker 5: her throat, aside from the slight redness and irritation from
Speaker 5: poking at her tonsils. She went to bed, thinking she
Speaker 5: could rest easy now the object was gone. She was wrong.
Speaker 5: That night, she dreamt. She dreamt about a forest. It
Speaker 5: was dark and warm and damp. She was inside this forest.
Speaker 5: She heard shuffling in the trees around her. She moved slowly,
Speaker 5: like she was wearing heavy weights on her legs. What
Speaker 5: little dapple sunlight made it through the leaves above only
Speaker 5: made it harder to tell where she was going. She
Speaker 5: had to move forward deeper. She couldn't breathe, or she could,
Speaker 5: but these lungs were not her own. They were foreign, borrowed.
Speaker 5: Each breath felt like she was inhaling through a damp cloth,
Speaker 5: straining to fill her chest with air. Her hum rumbled
Speaker 5: in the forest around her, deep and thrumming. She knew
Speaker 5: this noise. She knew it from a time when she
Speaker 5: was too young to know to be afraid more, moving, more, shuffling.
Speaker 5: She strained against the resistance of the thick air. It
Speaker 5: was here, she could feel it. She made it to
Speaker 5: the clearing. It was waiting for her, its limbs reaching
Speaker 5: out toward her, its triangular head tilted at her. The
Speaker 5: antlers appeared to grow before her, reaching higher and higher.
Speaker 5: The shuffling grew louder and louder, until it crashed around her,
Speaker 5: combining with a hum that was now so rich and
Speaker 5: so heavy, creating such a clamor that it sounded like
Speaker 5: boughs breaking above her head, until finally it was on
Speaker 5: top of her, and it was all she could do
Speaker 5: to nod do. She woke up in her bed, sweating
Speaker 5: and crying. Her throat was dry. She forced herself to
Speaker 5: work every day, knowing that she didn't have enough paid
Speaker 5: time off saved up to stay at home rest. Her
Speaker 5: hair started falling out by the handful in her showers,
Speaker 5: and she stopped wearing make up. Her wardrobe shifted from
Speaker 5: carefully planned outfits to barely meeting dress code as she
Speaker 5: wore the most casual and comfortable clothes she could get
Speaker 5: away with. She noticed that people stopped making small talk
Speaker 5: with her in the office. Some of them even avoided
Speaker 5: eye contact with her. She was too tired to care.
Speaker 5: The dream became reoccurring, sapping her of her rest and
Speaker 5: energy day after day. Every night, she stayed up later
Speaker 5: as she dreaded returning to that clearing and hearing the
Speaker 5: droning and the crashing. Strangely, she was never afraid in
Speaker 5: the dream. It was almost like she was excited. But
Speaker 5: the terror flooded back to her bones upon waking as
Speaker 5: she ruminated on the fact that she did not know
Speaker 5: what was happening to her or why her skin started
Speaker 5: breaking out with what appeared to be black heads, not
Speaker 5: just on her face, but across her limbs and torso.
Speaker 5: There was one particular bump on her forearm that she
Speaker 5: found herself picking at often. The sensation wasn't pleasant, but
Speaker 5: it wasn't painful either. She knew she should leave the
Speaker 5: bump alone, but she couldn't help it. One day, as
Speaker 5: she absent mindedly picked at the bump, she noticed that
Speaker 5: something was moving inside the enlarged paw every time she
Speaker 5: poked it. She squeezed it, and it was clear that
Speaker 5: the thing inside was much larger than the small opening.
Speaker 5: It reminded her of the video she had seen of
Speaker 5: butterfly lava, except it didn't move on its own. She
Speaker 5: dug her nails into the flesh around the opening, coaxing
Speaker 5: the object closer to the surface. She was surprised to
Speaker 5: find something green coming out. It was still attached to
Speaker 5: the inner layers of her skin, but it was clear
Speaker 5: that whatever this was, it was rolled up in there.
Speaker 5: She grabs some tweezers from her desk and got a
Speaker 5: fur grasp. Pulling slowly and steadily, She could feel it
Speaker 5: heavily anchored inside her arm as it resisted her but
Speaker 5: she didn't stop. The dull pain barely registered in her
Speaker 5: mind as she concentrated on the excavation. Relief overpowered this
Speaker 5: stinging sensation. As the object was freed from her flesh,
Speaker 5: she uncurled it and found that it was a leaf.
Speaker 5: She was thoroughly unsure as to whether or not she
Speaker 5: was hallucinating, and found herself giggling loudly at this bizarre veal.
Speaker 5: Her manager called her into the office and gave her
Speaker 5: information on stress related leave, encouraging her to consider taking
Speaker 5: a break. The words bounced around meaninglessly, sounding as though
Speaker 5: they were traveling to her ear drums through water. She
Speaker 5: responded as though she was powered by a motor, going
Speaker 5: through the motions of expressing gratitude and nodding. Though she
Speaker 5: felt like some one else was guiding her through it.
Speaker 5: She was too focused on the smell of damp moss
Speaker 5: that seemed to come from nowhere. She lost track of
Speaker 5: time even more. At home, she vaguely remembered a life
Speaker 5: of paperwork. Was that yesterday, five weeks ago? She lost
Speaker 5: her phone somewhere in the apartment. The battery was probably
Speaker 5: long dead. Who knows if any one had been trying
Speaker 5: to reach her. She didn't care. She was exploring her body.
Speaker 5: Since she had found the leaf, she discovered other oddities
Speaker 5: growing out of her paws. Some of them bore leaves,
Speaker 5: just as the first one did. Some appeared to be
Speaker 5: the start of twigs. Those wouldn't come out, no matter
Speaker 5: how hard she tugged on them. In fact, pulling at
Speaker 5: those seemed to make them stronger. Some of these growths
Speaker 5: started happening in impossible places. She found a thorn on
Speaker 5: one of her knuckles. Her teeth started to loosen. In
Speaker 5: her gums, all of the flesh inside her mouth shifted
Speaker 5: from pink to a sort of faint shade of green,
Speaker 5: not quite as sickly green, more like something that seemed
Speaker 5: to need sunlight to feed. She couldn't remember when she
Speaker 5: stopped eating, but she kept showering. She spent more and
Speaker 5: more time showering and letting. The bathroom become humid and foggy.
Speaker 5: As the water ran over her, she found it nourishing.
Speaker 5: One day, as she massaged her hair, she felt something
Speaker 5: come loose. She expected another clump of hair, and she
Speaker 5: was mostly right. Within the tangle, she found some kind
Speaker 5: of vine. She smiled as she traced her fingers over it,
Speaker 5: touching the delicate leaves attached to the stem. She was
Speaker 5: delighted to find a small yellow flower near the end
Speaker 5: of the vine. When she wasn't showering, she was dreaming.
Speaker 5: She returned to the clearing over and over again. Now
Speaker 5: she was earnestly trying to get close to the entity,
Speaker 5: but she was never able to reach it. Before the
Speaker 5: dream ended, what used to be tears of fear upon
Speaker 5: waking were replaced with tears of sorrow. Every time she woke,
Speaker 5: she found her body to be more stiff than before.
Speaker 5: She struggled to bend her joints a little more every day.
Speaker 5: Her skin was no longer as pliable as it once was,
Speaker 5: as it slowly became a rough, protective shell. She felt
Speaker 5: like her internal structure was somehow different with these still
Speaker 5: bones inside her. Did her heart still pump blood? Did
Speaker 5: it matter? Somewhere in the back of her mind, she
Speaker 5: knew her days of exploration were coming to a close.
Speaker 5: She knew that if she indulged too long, she would
Speaker 5: be stuck and all of this would have been for nothing.
Speaker 5: The day she left, she didn't bother closing the door
Speaker 5: to her apartment. She simply found her keys and walked
Speaker 5: to the car. She still had a full tank of gas. Good.
Speaker 5: She knew she was moving slowly, but she was sure
Speaker 5: that she left with plenty of time. She did not gps,
Speaker 5: she knew exactly where she needed to go. She drove
Speaker 5: until she met the tree line. She left the car
Speaker 5: off the side of the highway, partially covered by some bush.
Speaker 5: This time it was not a dream. She made her
Speaker 5: way through the plants, each one a familiar sibling to her.
Speaker 5: There was no man made path, but this did not
Speaker 5: stop her. She did not need it. She made her way,
Speaker 5: her limbs stiffening slightly more with every step. Her hands
Speaker 5: were nearly frozen in place, her fingers now no more
Speaker 5: than small branches, slightly twisted with lively green leaves bouncing
Speaker 5: at the tips. She tried not to rush her pace
Speaker 5: lest she break something and be unable to move entirely.
Speaker 5: She could hear her limbs groaning in protest with every movement,
Speaker 5: she willed them to keep pushing her forward. She could
Speaker 5: hear the faint droning, and made her way in its direction.
Speaker 5: The shuffling, she now realized was only her. She felt
Speaker 5: a bit silly now, looking back at her initial reaction
Speaker 5: to the dreams. If only she knew, if only she
Speaker 5: could have seen back then, how freeing this would be.
Speaker 5: Every step brought her closer to home. She approached the clearing.
Speaker 5: The entity stood there, beckoning her with an outstretched arm.
Speaker 5: As she made her way to it, ancient knowledge surfaced
Speaker 5: from the depths of her mind, delicate blooms of story
Speaker 5: and pictures that had been buried for so long. Such
Speaker 5: an understanding would have been impossible to conceive of in
Speaker 5: her lifetime before, But here and now there was nothing
Speaker 5: but comprehension and acceptance. The entity guided her to a spot,
Speaker 5: her spot there in the clearing, the remains of her
Speaker 5: feet melted away as roots quickly grew over the spots
Speaker 5: of flesh that were left. She stretched the limbs that
Speaker 5: used to be her arms upward and tilted her face
Speaker 5: to meet the sun. She could feel the roots penetrating
Speaker 5: the soil beneath her, reaching the nutrients and moisture that
Speaker 5: she craved, and she felt strong. An ancient song echoed
Speaker 5: in her mind, and something within her clicked into place.
Speaker 2: She made it.
Speaker 5: She was here. She settled into her spot as the
Speaker 5: song grew louder within her spirit, reverberating through her and
Speaker 5: connecting her to her surroundings. Her body fully hardened in
Speaker 5: its position, she was comfortable and at peace. Here she
Speaker 5: could grow, and here she would be.
Speaker 1: You have been listening to Observable Radio. Tonight's episode, Turning
Speaker 1: Over was performed by The Ensemble featuring Maria Corcobado and
Speaker 1: Jason Smith. Written by Perporina, produced by Cameron Suey, Phil
Speaker 1: Van Hest, Perperina and Wendy Hector. Edited by Cameron Suey.
Speaker 1: Turning Over was originally published June fifth, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: on Gaily Dreadful for the twenty twenty one Gaily Helpful fundraiser.
Speaker 1: Big thanks to Terry Minard for initially hosting the story
Speaker 1: and supporting. Our psychology consultant is doctor Elissa Leal. Art
Speaker 1: by Krinn Fletcher. Our theme is the back Rooms, performed
Speaker 1: by Mew. Additional music from this episode provided by Christian Anderson,
Speaker 1: Blue Saga, Lennon Hutton, Tim Kool, Polar Nights, Ethan Sloane,
Speaker 1: and August Wilhelmson. Observable Radio is listener supported thanks to
Speaker 1: all of our patrons and listeners, including Kathleen John tid Russ,
Speaker 1: Rick Callison, Brianna Zach and Jasper. Patrons fund the production
Speaker 1: costs of the show, as well as get access to
Speaker 1: behind the scenes information, extra production material, a discount at
Speaker 1: the Observable Radio Company Store, and an ad free early
Speaker 1: release feed of this show, all at patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash Observable Radio. With the help of our patrons, we've
Speaker 1: launched the Observable Radio Company Store at observable radio dot
Speaker 1: com slash store. There you'll find stickers, enamel pins, and
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