Speaker 1: This program is intended for mature audiences only.
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Speaker 1: Hi there, it's Cameron Suey. This month, we're bringing you
Speaker 1: another older story, a longer tale that's both a love
Speaker 1: letter to San Francisco and a reason for leaving. Season
Speaker 1: two is still coming later this year. For more information,
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Speaker 1: we'd love to see you there. And now, after our
Speaker 1: brief word from the observerle Radio Company Store, here's tonight's story.
Speaker 1: I lived so long with it, I didn't realize there
Speaker 1: could be another way, you know, But it was just
Speaker 1: so cold all the time. I don't remember a time
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like I was freezing. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: my hands, or my feet or even my head. It
Speaker 1: was like I couldn't keep my body warm no matter
Speaker 1: what I did. And then my doctor told me about.
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Speaker 3: the Observable Radio Company Store, you'll never suffer from a
Speaker 3: regular torso insulation. Again, ask your doctor if shirts are
Speaker 3: right for you. Shirts stop being cold. You are now
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Speaker 2: Radio Mapping the Crooked Places When I emerged from a
Speaker 2: decade beneath the waves of my private sea. My parents
Speaker 2: were dead and gone. With the clarity I had not
Speaker 2: experienced since my youth, I drifted, like an airborne seed
Speaker 2: through the city. I fell in love not with my
Speaker 2: fellow man, but with the place's men, gather with a
Speaker 2: small fortune, the life, insurance and inheritance that churned but
Speaker 2: modest guilt inside me. I put down gossamer roots into
Speaker 2: a dozen places across San Francisco, staying only long enough
Speaker 2: to satisfy my curious new desire for belonging, before again
Speaker 2: taking to the breeze. In every place I settled, I
Speaker 2: drew a map, dreamed a new metaphor. When I lived
Speaker 2: in the shadows of the medical college, haunting bars filled
Speaker 2: with sleep deprived and wild eyed doctors to be my
Speaker 2: map of the city was like the organs and cells
Speaker 2: in a body, a vascular system of roads, a nervous
Speaker 2: system of wires, and the pale and textureless connective tissue between.
Speaker 2: When I left the drafty coal valley flat for a
Speaker 2: studio loft in the mission, I mapped the city as
Speaker 2: a battleground, isolated camps of combatants brought together by common ideals,
Speaker 2: surrounded by the rotting to militarized zones of cultural vacancy.
Speaker 2: From a top floor apartment on Market Street, I saw
Speaker 2: the city as a vast and productive farm, where I
Speaker 2: surveyed each field, growing signature and airloom crops to be counted, stored,
Speaker 2: and sold. Like any farm, there were fallow pieces between
Speaker 2: the fields, cracked in rotting fences, and rusting abandoned machinery
Speaker 2: in every place I settled. These nameless in between places,
Speaker 2: The featureless, empty zones between the landmarks and neighborhoods filled
Speaker 2: me with shivering unease, like mines without souls. The interstitial
Speaker 2: burrows seemed on the verge of rotting away beneath my feet.
Speaker 2: It was many months before I could admit why they
Speaker 2: were the places that I had once sought out, gray
Speaker 2: places filled with gray faces, where I once found quite
Speaker 2: oblivion without judgment, the empty hollows of civilization that I
Speaker 2: let suck so much of my life away. With the
Speaker 2: veil now lifted, I did everything I could to avoid
Speaker 2: them and their whispering temptations. Inside the vibrant neighborhoods where
Speaker 2: I now made my homes, I would travel only by
Speaker 2: foot or bike or fear that I would wall myself
Speaker 2: away from the beauty. But when crossing the borderland I
Speaker 2: needed the barriers of taxi cabs and train cars. The
Speaker 2: empty places reeked of my disease and threatened to make
Speaker 2: me ill. I passed through them only when need dictated
Speaker 2: and my resolve was strongest. When my map of the
Speaker 2: city and her identities grew dense, I had still not
Speaker 2: found a place I felt I belonged, a place I
Speaker 2: would want to truly live in. I imagined, like the
Speaker 2: newborn that I was, that all the city's secrets were
Speaker 2: known to me, and my love for her turned sour.
Speaker 2: I flirted with the idea of starting again, picking another
Speaker 2: of the world's greatest cities, and emerging, naked and fresh
Speaker 2: into it yet another new life. In a fugue of
Speaker 2: self pity, I forgot why I feared the hinterlands between
Speaker 2: the hearts, and wandered into their blankness again and again.
Speaker 2: I found outposts inside these places, where people gathered together
Speaker 2: for heat, for light, for company, defiant against the bleakness
Speaker 2: that surrounded them, although I could no more relate to
Speaker 2: them than I could the denizens of the more desirable neighborhoods.
Speaker 2: I found comfort in those places, not the comfort I craved,
Speaker 2: but the comfort I remembered. It was there that I
Speaker 2: could crouch on the precipice and peer back down into
Speaker 2: my old obliette. An old, familiar voice whispered back from
Speaker 2: the darkness, and I began to think echoes of old thoughts.
Speaker 2: Perhaps I had ignored these places and much of the city,
Speaker 2: so much of what truly made it, under false pretenses.
Speaker 2: I had allowed the weakness of my own character to
Speaker 2: cloak these misunderstood places and a my asthma of fear,
Speaker 2: a fear that stemmed only from my own failings. With
Speaker 2: renewed desire, I threw myself back into exploration, to again
Speaker 2: be a cartographer, to map the crooked places that had
Speaker 2: once held me in a different kind of thraw. I
Speaker 2: could return to the shadow lands and see them for
Speaker 2: what they really were, and I could pass through them,
Speaker 2: unharmed and clear of mind, and continue my search. This
Speaker 2: is what I told myself. I even believed it some
Speaker 2: of the time. It was on this last leg of
Speaker 2: my quest that I came upon the Tower. It stood
Speaker 2: alone in a district that should have curled cold tendrils
Speaker 2: of unease around my spine. The streets were empty and
Speaker 2: clean in a way that suggested not constant attention but disuse,
Speaker 2: and its only neighbors were warehouses and the pale shadows
Speaker 2: of failing restaurants and cafes. I had seen it skeleton
Speaker 2: from a dozen of my nests, or it had been
Speaker 2: growing all the while, like the twisting branches of a
Speaker 2: great stone and glass tree for the last half of
Speaker 2: a decade. It should have filled me with loathing, artless
Speaker 2: and empty, a featureless glass monolith designed to house the
Speaker 2: young and wealthy, and those who were drawn to the
Speaker 2: in between places for all the wrong reasons. But when
Speaker 2: I encountered it, then, during that final phase of my exploration,
Speaker 2: something inside it tugged at me, hooked me like a fish,
Speaker 2: and never let go. Something high above the city streets
Speaker 2: called out to me, singing to me alone. It was
Speaker 2: an old song sung with a new voice. The sensation
Speaker 2: was so familiar that I was scarcely aware of the
Speaker 2: it felt by coming home. Nothing about the tower was beautiful,
Speaker 2: I see that now, But I had written a check
Speaker 2: a deposit for one of the sterile condos above me
Speaker 2: before I realized that I had walked inside in that
Speaker 2: familiar fog of desire. I knew one thing. I needed
Speaker 2: to be on the upper stories, for the song came
Speaker 2: from high above me. I convinced the corpulate building manager
Speaker 2: of my need, and he cracked his wide grin bearing
Speaker 2: twin rows of perfectly straight teeth, and assigned me a
Speaker 2: unit on the top floor. I rode the elevator in
Speaker 2: breathless anticipation and went straight to my first room. My
Speaker 2: belongings and possessions were brought to me later, For once
Speaker 2: I entered the tower, I only exited it once more
Speaker 2: for good, nearly five months after. When I left, I
Speaker 2: was free of the fog, free of my crooked need
Speaker 2: to find the soul of the soulless places, free of
Speaker 2: my love of cities and the places of men. I
Speaker 2: was scoured clean, left raw and naked, every sensation amplified
Speaker 2: and painful. I left with only my terror and my life,
Speaker 2: although how much of that I retained is in question.
Speaker 2: The first apartment spacious and empty. Rooms still smelled of
Speaker 2: construction dust and antiseptic cleaners. One glass wall in each
Speaker 2: room offered a sprawling view of the bay and the
Speaker 2: crumbling docks, the last few vestiges of proper industry inside
Speaker 2: the city's borders. I already understood that it was not
Speaker 2: the view that my sudden, hot desire for elevation demanded,
Speaker 2: was something else. Within moments, I also understood this. The
Speaker 2: top floor was too high. Whatever I was drawn to
Speaker 2: was now beneath me. I left the room and began
Speaker 2: to descend the stairwell, the metal steps still covered in
Speaker 2: powdered drywall. I felt the invisible draw in my lungs,
Speaker 2: and the beating of my heart, and the crooked trail
Speaker 2: of scars in my arms. It took a few floors
Speaker 2: before the locus of my attraction was level with me,
Speaker 2: and I entered a hallway that looked identical to the
Speaker 2: one above. My fingers drifted up to the eastern wall
Speaker 2: without thought, as so many of my actions had once
Speaker 2: been and would become again. I paced the hallway and
Speaker 2: I felt a pole down the length of my arm,
Speaker 2: like a dowsing rod. I dragged my fingertips across the
Speaker 2: rough texture. The hissing friction of fingers on plaster and
Speaker 2: my soft footsteps on the carpet were the only sounds.
Speaker 2: The air was redolent of paint and carpet glue. But
Speaker 2: beneath it all, dancing in the air like a cracking whip,
Speaker 2: was a thin thread of something sickly sweet, A night
Speaker 2: blooming flower, a corpse on the border of rot. Was intoxicating.
Speaker 2: I reached a door halfway down the hall, and my
Speaker 2: legs froze, as if rooted to the spot on the
Speaker 2: other side of the heavy wooden door. Just past my
Speaker 2: raw fingertips lay the source of the call. I felt
Speaker 2: an intense, delicious and anticipation, a nearly fulfilled desire, the
Speaker 2: calm that comes just before the pinprick. No logic could explain,
Speaker 2: nor language could describe what my mind yearned for. Or
Speaker 2: although the sensations were familiar, the source of the song
Speaker 2: behind the door was fundamentally alien and a thousand times stronger.
Speaker 2: The sweet ache took root in the very structure of
Speaker 2: my flesh and throbbed with my heart. I raised both hands,
Speaker 2: fingers splayed wide in a lover's caress, and held my
Speaker 2: body to the cool wood at the door. I had
Speaker 2: to enter the room I needed to be inside. This
Speaker 2: could only be the home that I had been searching for.
Speaker 2: I looked up to the numbers twenty three nineteen, picked
Speaker 2: out in delicate and filigreed gold numerals, and committed it
Speaker 2: to memory, repeating them breathlessly. I knew, with a sharp pang,
Speaker 2: that I would need to leave the doorway before I
Speaker 2: could return to be fulfilled. I would offer any price,
Speaker 2: I'd pay any cost, but I would cross the threshold.
Speaker 2: I would go inside, and I would be made happy
Speaker 2: and whole. I might have stayed fixed to that spot,
Speaker 2: almost but not yet, touching my prize forever. But after
Speaker 2: a long moment, through the warped glass bead of a
Speaker 2: peep hole, light flared, shaking me from my trance. It
Speaker 2: took me a fractured moment to understand. While I pressed
Speaker 2: my body to the door, sighing with private intimacy, the
Speaker 2: occupant of twenty three nineteen, the interloper, had been on
Speaker 2: the other side, staring out. What kindled in me then
Speaker 2: was not the polite embarrassment that good breeding and decency demanded,
Speaker 2: but something more akin to sexual jealousy. But there was
Speaker 2: more a violence. I felt boiling in my forearms and
Speaker 2: cledged fists. Something beastial, cruel reason returned, and I relaxed,
Speaker 2: secure in the knowledge that I had the means and
Speaker 2: now the clarity to take what I needed in the
Speaker 2: proper way, with no need for bloodshed. I grinned into
Speaker 2: the looking glass. My eyes slidded with cold assurance. I
Speaker 2: was not a man accustomed to being disappointed. The manager,
Speaker 2: that perfect creature of the dead zones, merely furrowed his
Speaker 2: brows when I returned, holding out my check book. The
Speaker 2: room was indeed taken. It was the first chosen by
Speaker 2: the very first occupant. He made clumsy jokes at first,
Speaker 2: not seeing the clarity of my need desire made me
Speaker 2: needle sharp. I offered to buy out the occupant. I
Speaker 2: offered to buy the whole building. In the end, the
Speaker 2: best I could do was place my name first on
Speaker 2: a waiting list. In the meantime, I moved my deposit
Speaker 2: to a new room twenty two nineteen, where I could
Speaker 2: wait just below and bide my time until the occupant
Speaker 2: could be persuaded. I never unpacked, even though I had
Speaker 2: the contents of my previous beachside flat shipped to me
Speaker 2: great expense. I lived out of boxes, on minimal furniture,
Speaker 2: and subsisted entirely on delivered food twenty two nineteen was
Speaker 2: close enough to the wet and living beacon above me
Speaker 2: to act as a temporary salve, and for a while
Speaker 2: I thought it might be enough. Simply being there filled
Speaker 2: me with a kind of contentedness that I had only
Speaker 2: dreamt of my previous life. The wandering cartography of the
Speaker 2: invisible borders was over, for I had found what I
Speaker 2: had been searching for. I would lie on the floor,
Speaker 2: eyes drifting between the floor to ceiling windows and then
Speaker 2: to the neutral texture of the roof above, trying to
Speaker 2: see through the city beyond held no meaning for me
Speaker 2: any longer. If I wished, I could still see the
Speaker 2: neighborhoods and districts I had loved, I could see the
Speaker 2: gray stripes of nothingness that bound them to each other,
Speaker 2: the no man's lands that I had tried to avoid.
Speaker 2: But I no longer saw. I had misunderstood the city,
Speaker 2: and now I saw its true meaning. Every part of it,
Speaker 2: unknown and known, existed across centuries for one purpose, to
Speaker 2: birth the tower, to create the room above me, to
Speaker 2: safely house the thing. Whatever it was that sang out
Speaker 2: and promise to me. I could smell it in my
Speaker 2: waiting chamber. The strong chloral scent permeated the walls and
Speaker 2: stuck in my skin, cloying and thick. I heard harmonic
Speaker 2: vibrations echoing through the walls and down the wires and
Speaker 2: into my veins. My whole life had led to this
Speaker 2: place and this time, and I hovered on the precipice,
Speaker 2: terrified to go any closer for fear of losing it all.
Speaker 2: But soon proximity was not enough. I found myself standing
Speaker 2: on a wooden chair, sometimes for hours on end, trying
Speaker 2: only to be closer to it. I would stretch my
Speaker 2: arms high and press my palms to the ceiling, feeling
Speaker 2: the siren's song running through the carpels and radius and
Speaker 2: ulna and humorous and spreading into my lungs, and a
Speaker 2: heart like a warm and famili your wave. But even
Speaker 2: that could not save me. So I coiled my desire
Speaker 2: and kneed into a sharpened point and brought it into
Speaker 2: baar against the occupant, the silent intruder above me. I
Speaker 2: began with noise. I unpacked my stereo and pointed the
Speaker 2: speakers upward, blasting random and sharp intervals with a tonal nonsense.
Speaker 2: The tower was still sparsely populated, in truth nearly empty.
Speaker 2: I knew that I had the floor to myself, and
Speaker 2: but a single neighbor above yet another sign I disregarded utterly,
Speaker 2: one in an endless parade that should have driven me
Speaker 2: far from this place, had I still retained my sanity.
Speaker 2: But instead I squatted in that abominable and heartless husk
Speaker 2: of a home, in a place that should have set
Speaker 2: my teeth on edge, a wild eyed and unrepentant fool,
Speaker 2: a quizzling to all that I had claimed to love
Speaker 2: about the places of men. When the occupant made no complaints,
Speaker 2: I raised the frequency a volume, until finally I could
Speaker 2: no longer stand my own tortures. I turned to pounding
Speaker 2: on the roof with the brooms, slamming the ceiling until
Speaker 2: chips of paint and plaster fell down into my eyes.
Speaker 2: More than once I thought of simply tuddling upwards and
Speaker 2: emerging from the hole, to choke the life out of
Speaker 2: the occupant and claim my prize. I got a response.
Speaker 2: At last. He would tap his heels lightly an echo,
Speaker 2: and reply to my thundering, a retort I found mocking
Speaker 2: and intolerable. I tried horrid smells boiling, foul and moldering
Speaker 2: scraps of food and pouring them. On the threshold of
Speaker 2: twenty three nineteen, in the small hours of the morning,
Speaker 2: I made complaints against him, claiming he was responsible for
Speaker 2: the noises and the smells, but the manager believed none
Speaker 2: of it threatened to expel me. I began to slide
Speaker 2: notes beneath his door, angry, volatile screeds, threats, grotesque descriptions
Speaker 2: of the violence I would visit upon him if he
Speaker 2: did not vacate the place. They became pleading, muling cries,
Speaker 2: offers of wealth, lies in thin tails, designed to stoke
Speaker 2: his sympathy for my needs. I had made a life
Speaker 2: once of manipulating people to achieve my desires, and now
Speaker 2: I used every tool at my disposal. In the end,
Speaker 2: he would thrust the notes back out as soon as
Speaker 2: I slid them in. He was always in, always home.
Speaker 2: When I understood this, he, like myself and so few
Speaker 2: others knew, felt the pull of the place and of
Speaker 2: whatever was inside. In my most magnanimous and clear headed days,
Speaker 2: I knew that he and I were kindred, and he
Speaker 2: had merely had the luck of being first. I grew
Speaker 2: thin physically and mentally, and I became brittle and dry.
Speaker 2: I was on the verge of giving up not my
Speaker 2: desire for the special place above me, but of the
Speaker 2: very act of living, in a final childish tantrum. Although
Speaker 2: I was closer than I dare dream, the distance felt magnified,
Speaker 2: and I knew if I left, it would haunt me.
Speaker 2: A bullet lodged in my flesh, working its way toward
Speaker 2: my heart for the rest of my days. At last,
Speaker 2: after a week of petulant fasting, it came to me
Speaker 2: that there were only a few paths left to lead
Speaker 2: me to what I needed. I pulled my ragged body,
Speaker 2: barefoot and reeking, from the sodden chair where I had
Speaker 2: sat for more than a day. From the kitchen, I
Speaker 2: retrieved the snub nosed pistol that I had hoped never
Speaker 2: to need, and left my Ersat's apartment. I shuffled, un
Speaker 2: tingling legs towards the stairway and began to climb. I
Speaker 2: smelled the sweet death smell on the air conditioned breeze
Speaker 2: when I entered his hallway, and I pushed my shaking
Speaker 2: body toward the door. At the precipice, I hesitated and
Speaker 2: considered moving straight to violence. I could blast the lock
Speaker 2: from the door, enter with or without permission, and still
Speaker 2: have enough bullets to clear the occupant from the equation.
Speaker 2: But I believe we both deserved one final peaceful chance,
Speaker 2: and so I knocked and knocked again and again. After
Speaker 2: a while, I heard him moving behind the door, a
Speaker 2: slithering sound, like a snake squatting in the place that
Speaker 2: should have belonged solely to me. But he would not answer.
Speaker 2: So I knocked as hard as my condition would allow.
Speaker 2: I pounded until my knuckles bled. I shrieked, and although
Speaker 2: the sound from my dry cracked throat lacked the proper authority,
Speaker 2: continued to scream as I hammered the door. At last,
Speaker 2: I heard the sound of whispers, and the thought of
Speaker 2: the occupants speaking to it made me nauseous with jealousy.
Speaker 2: Then I heard him slide towards the door and turn
Speaker 2: the handle. I wrapped my fingers around the cool assurance
Speaker 2: of the gun, a totem of my authority, hud I needed.
Speaker 2: The door opened a fraction of an inch, and the
Speaker 2: occupant's gleaming eyes met mine. He opened it further to
Speaker 2: the full extent the brass chain on the door would allow.
Speaker 2: I might have kicked against the door, forcing my way inside,
Speaker 2: but I held fast some notion that I could still
Speaker 2: get what I wanted without the undue risk islands would bring.
Speaker 2: He was born to be a citizen of the Borderlands.
Speaker 2: Like I had become plain and well groomed. He dressed
Speaker 2: in expensive clothes or uncomfortably, like a second skin. Some
Speaker 2: may have called him handsome, but it was a flavorless
Speaker 2: sort of pleasantry, symmetrical, synthetic. The imprints of our shared
Speaker 2: passion clung to him, marked him as a brother and nemesis.
Speaker 2: He smiled at my wasting body and the stained clothes
Speaker 2: that clung to my bony frame. But after every glance
Speaker 2: I saw his black eyes snap backwards towards the locusts
Speaker 2: of our need. I understand, he said, at last, his
Speaker 2: eyes still fixed behind him, I really do. Despite my resolve,
Speaker 2: I began to cry. Small, exhausted sobs shook my body.
Speaker 2: If he noticed my shame, he pretended not to, whether
Speaker 2: in grace or embarrassment, I do not know. Soon, he said,
Speaker 2: the word hung in the air and coat me like
Speaker 2: a healing salve, pregnant with promise. I'm afraid I'm done
Speaker 2: with it, or it with me. You'll understand. He shook
Speaker 2: his head, a singular, violent snap, and his face creased.
Speaker 2: It was a face unaccustomed to sharp emotions, looking oddly
Speaker 2: fetal and new. As something strong and sharp gripped him,
Speaker 2: he shuffled ever so slightly backward, his eyes fluttering behind
Speaker 2: toward the thing. I could not see, the knowledge that
Speaker 2: my desire, my prize, waited for me just beyond. His
Speaker 2: obscuring body clawed at me. My fingers twitched around the
Speaker 2: weight of a pistol. It waited so long for this
Speaker 2: place to be built, he said, patient. It was here
Speaker 2: before us, for the city or anyone, and it will
Speaker 2: be here long after us. Again, he shuddered, and I
Speaker 2: saw the suit was soaked with sweat, far filthier than
Speaker 2: I had originally thought. Not creased, but wrinkled. I had
Speaker 2: somehow mistaken his tousled appearance for cleanliness, his chaos for order.
Speaker 2: But the glamor had faded beneath the night perfume of
Speaker 2: our mutual addiction. There was something else, something acrid and wrong, panic, hysteria, terror,
Speaker 2: His calm and still demeanor gone, his temporary posture. Once
Speaker 2: wielded masterfully, he could no longer hold for more than
Speaker 2: a minute. This was not my brother, no equal, I thought,
Speaker 2: as I steeled myself for what I had to come.
Speaker 2: I knew, if I knew anything at all, the sight
Speaker 2: of a man on a precipice, and I knew how
Speaker 2: to push. You're right, I told him, and locked my
Speaker 2: eyes to his, stretching the last of my strength into
Speaker 2: a sharpening point. It's going to kill you. It doesn't
Speaker 2: want you, it's bored of you. He opened his mouth,
Speaker 2: let it hang open like a fish. His eyes swam
Speaker 2: behind a veil of welling tears. I know his voice
Speaker 2: was dry in papery, trash caught in the wind. But
Speaker 2: I can't leave, not yet. What makes you think you'll
Speaker 2: satisfy it? It called to me, I said, stepping closer
Speaker 2: towards the gap until I could smell his decay. It
Speaker 2: called to me, and it has sung to me every
Speaker 2: night since I came. Like it no longer sings to you.
Speaker 2: I took this shot blind, but I saw in his
Speaker 2: wincing face that I had struck true. You might be right,
Speaker 2: whispered with a joyless smile, that I'm here at all,
Speaker 2: should cast out all doubt. I pressed further, putting one
Speaker 2: hand on the door to push back until the chain
Speaker 2: vibrated and hummed. Why are you making this so hard
Speaker 2: on yourself. It's time to go, it wants me. At
Speaker 2: that moment, As if to harmonize with my argument, the
Speaker 2: sweet song behind him surge, hot and fragrant. We turned together,
Speaker 2: my gazes searching for the wondrous thing that he alone
Speaker 2: could see. It's good to be talking with you, he said,
Speaker 2: after a long silence. You're right, You're right. He grinned wide,
Speaker 2: and I saw the rot in his teeth. I needed
Speaker 2: this to clear my head. I think the words trailed off,
Speaker 2: and he turned, rocking on his heels. I threw my
Speaker 2: weight against the door with a feerial scream, but his
Speaker 2: strength outmatched mine, and the door slam shut with a
Speaker 2: click that sounded like the end of the world. But
Speaker 2: then I heard the shuffle of his feet away from
Speaker 2: the door, heard him trying to hold his body aloft
Speaker 2: before crumpling to the floor. I heard him cry out
Speaker 2: a lost wail on the knife in the very heart
Speaker 2: of our desire, and I knew that the gun would
Speaker 2: not be kneaded I had won at last. I returned
Speaker 2: to my room below, with a lightness in my step
Speaker 2: that I had not felt since the days below the waves.
Speaker 2: I went to gather my things and return. The time
Speaker 2: to submit myself to the thing had come. The muffled
Speaker 2: sounds of his voice, pleading and ragged, drifted down from above,
Speaker 2: and I grinned, approaching ecstasy. I heard the sound of
Speaker 2: something being dragged, and there was a great surge of motion,
Speaker 2: announced in vibrations through the walls. A trouble, explosion, splintering
Speaker 2: symphony of glass outside my window, a sparkling cloud of
Speaker 2: frozen light, and an over stuffed leather chair hung illuminated
Speaker 2: in the night air, an absurd tableau of shattered glass
Speaker 2: and furniture defying gravity. Then it was gone. I heard,
Speaker 2: in the following silence, the heavy tread of his feet,
Speaker 2: then the meaningless babble of his final words. Away from
Speaker 2: the window, towards the door. Stop, a pacing circle, stop,
Speaker 2: a sudden run, a blazing trail towards the window, towards
Speaker 2: the open night. I pressed myself against the cool glass.
Speaker 2: The breath stopped in my lungs, and I saw him
Speaker 2: go one leg out a runner, jumping hurdles, wild hair
Speaker 2: whipping in the breeze, arms wide to the night sky,
Speaker 2: free and like the glass in the chair. Before he
Speaker 2: was gone, no sound announced his impact. He simply vanished.
Speaker 2: The blooming corpse flower smell surged hotter and brighter than ever.
Speaker 2: And if I could have scaled the air itself to
Speaker 2: ascend to the roof above me, I would have clawed
Speaker 2: through ground, my fingers to the bone. But it was
Speaker 2: too much, and I broke each joint, separating each muscle
Speaker 2: going slack. I dropped to the floor, unconscious. Before I
Speaker 2: hit the ground, I woke how much later, I do
Speaker 2: not know, to the sound of far away sirens trilling
Speaker 2: in the air. My body tapped into its final reserves,
Speaker 2: flooding my limbs with carefully hearted fire, and I surged
Speaker 2: to my feet. I didn't have much time. The police,
Speaker 2: the manager, They would be to his room any moment.
Speaker 2: I took the stairs two at a time and flew
Speaker 2: down the hallway. He had unlocked the door before his fall.
Speaker 2: In a final gesture of resignation, I put my hand
Speaker 2: on the door knob and side in glorious expectation. As
Speaker 2: I pushed the door open. The room was a twin
Speaker 2: of mine. The occupant, my predecessor, had lived like I had,
Speaker 2: out of boxes, with minimal furniture. Waist and rumpled piles
Speaker 2: of clothes were strewn across the room. The great hole
Speaker 2: in the glass window sucked at the air. The sounds
Speaker 2: of traffic in the world below came to me for
Speaker 2: the first time in months. The curtains fluttered, whipping like
Speaker 2: flags of surrender. The call was stronger than ever before,
Speaker 2: and I closed the door behind me, my eyes vacant
Speaker 2: and searching. It was here, the siren, the flower, the lure.
Speaker 2: At first I could see nothing, But as I walked
Speaker 2: on uncertain, atrophied feet, I began to at last perceive it.
Speaker 2: As I stepped sideways, it resolved from nothingness, like a
Speaker 2: sheet of paper. Seen first from the edge, It was
Speaker 2: a seam in the world, a tear, a hot, colorless
Speaker 2: wrend across space, impossibly thin yet gaping wide. It flared
Speaker 2: achingly bright in recognition of my awareness. The cloying smell
Speaker 2: flooded my nostrils and twined around my ribs. The call
Speaker 2: was a fire in my pierced forearms, in my veins,
Speaker 2: and my ecstasy was complete. It seemed to curl and whip,
Speaker 2: but it never moved. Alien colors and smells flooded from
Speaker 2: the maw. Somewhere deep in the core of my body.
Speaker 2: I felt it reach inside and touch me. The wordless
Speaker 2: beckon of the past months resolved like a picture snapping
Speaker 2: into focus, and it spoke to me. I walked towards it,
Speaker 2: my hands outstretched, weeping with joy. The heat of the
Speaker 2: thing seemed to reignite every nerve ending in my body.
Speaker 2: It made me whole, healed me, comforted me, washed over
Speaker 2: me like the old wave, and I knew I would
Speaker 2: never want for anything, never fear I would be loved
Speaker 2: for all time. It asked precious little in return. I
Speaker 2: might have stepped into its oceanic arms, forever, might have
Speaker 2: been lost to its promises. If something had not awoken
Speaker 2: in me, then perhaps my true self emerged, sober, at last,
Speaker 2: lost to the bile chasm's draw so long ago. Perhaps
Speaker 2: it was only the unthinking, panicked animal we all hold
Speaker 2: chained in our psyche, the runner, the fighter. Perhaps it
Speaker 2: was the echo of the occupant, his last act of defying,
Speaker 2: Still rustling in the breeze with the shredded curtains. I
Speaker 2: do not know whatever emerged it took control of that moment.
Speaker 2: I saw its lies. I saw it imprisoned by the sky,
Speaker 2: calling out filthy, wreaking promises to those below, those attuned
Speaker 2: to the foul wavelength, the desire for oblivion. I saw
Speaker 2: delicate filaments of influence, coils of burning plasma, reaching down
Speaker 2: to the city below, infecting, cancerous. I saw them wrapping
Speaker 2: around the lights and hearts of men, choking, crushing, hateful.
Speaker 2: It was the Borderlands. It was the name to my
Speaker 2: nameless fear of the dark places in the city and
Speaker 2: inside me. It was, and it will always be. It
Speaker 2: would use me, bend me, break me. It already had.
Speaker 2: When I was done no more use to it, I
Speaker 2: would be cast aside, and it would call again. I
Speaker 2: tugged for control of my body, a flesh and bone
Speaker 2: trader that still approached this fragment of profane divinity. I
Speaker 2: pulled harder, and when my vessel cracked free of its grip,
Speaker 2: I slid back into my skin and allowed the animal
Speaker 2: instincts to guide my escape. I stopped only long enough
Speaker 2: to kick twice at the dials of the expensive gas
Speaker 2: stove with one bare foot, the rotten egg odor of
Speaker 2: gas began to twirl with the corpse flower smell. An
Speaker 2: hour later, I would marvel at the blood pooling in
Speaker 2: my shoe with every footstep as I fled the tower
Speaker 2: and race to the edge of the city. But not now.
Speaker 2: Now I felt nothing. I do not remember descending the stairs.
Speaker 2: I entered my flat and grabbed a single, still packed
Speaker 2: duffel bag in my long abandoned shoes. It called to
Speaker 2: me from above, furious and reproachful, promising and threatening, all
Speaker 2: at once and painfully familiar. I could not shut it out,
Speaker 2: but I held tight to the image of the occupant
Speaker 2: soaring gracefully through the air, arms, forever fllling at the
Speaker 2: task of being wings hanging in the night sky. I
Speaker 2: would leave the tower in my own way, I thought,
Speaker 2: And this simple promise kept my body my own. I
Speaker 2: lit my own gas so before I went, and from
Speaker 2: a curling strip of a discarded pizza box, I made
Speaker 2: a small torch which I held to the ragged ceiling
Speaker 2: one of the tiny frayed holes. The legacy of my
Speaker 2: vandal idiocy began to smolder. I do not remember choosing
Speaker 2: to do this. I simply did because it was unlike
Speaker 2: everything else in the tower, unlike everything else I had
Speaker 2: done for half a year, right in some profound way.
Speaker 2: When I left it no longer was promising anything but
Speaker 2: everlasting suffering and pain and submission. Yet I still wanted
Speaker 2: to go to it, still felt that elemental undertow At
Speaker 2: the staircase, I very nearly went up, feeling some awful
Speaker 2: analog of gravity tugging me skyward. It would have been
Speaker 2: so easy to go to it, to surrender myself to
Speaker 2: its magnificent tides. When I hung frozen in the air
Speaker 2: with my predecessor, saw his final relief and escape, and
Speaker 2: made my body to set out on the sidewalk. A
Speaker 2: pair of policemen interviewed the manager, jotting notes as the
Speaker 2: fat man wrung as perfectly groomed hands. He saw me coming,
Speaker 2: saw me wild eyed and unkempt, and his piggish eyes
Speaker 2: narrowed into slits. He thought I'd come now to claim
Speaker 2: my spot in the waiting list, to take ownership of
Speaker 2: the room. He thought me a grotesque, monster, murderer. He
Speaker 2: opened his mouth to speak, and from above there came
Speaker 2: a great and terrible roar, a cacophony of cracking glass.
Speaker 2: A tongue of fire licked the night sky from the
Speaker 2: gaping hole of a tower's side. Glass began to rain.
Speaker 2: Burning scraps of paper and clothing danced in the night sky,
Speaker 2: while all eyes were upturned, voices raised in confusion and distress.
Speaker 2: I turned and slipped away into the night. They want
Speaker 2: me back in the city to answer questions. I know
Speaker 2: that any day they will come, but warrant drag me
Speaker 2: from my new home to answer what happened in the tower.
Speaker 2: I know, of course, that I failed to kill it,
Speaker 2: that I could never have even truly harmed it. At best,
Speaker 2: I kept others from it, or a short time, perhaps
Speaker 2: I kept a single, mad and passionate fool from falling
Speaker 2: into its slick and sweet honey trap. This and my
Speaker 2: own temporary safety are enough. I also know that even
Speaker 2: if they never find this cabin, never tracked down the
Speaker 2: twisting trail of money that allowed me to flee the city,
Speaker 2: even if I lived to see a natural death, that
Speaker 2: I can never be free. It has marked me forever,
Speaker 2: that salivating sweet smell as ever in my nostrils, it
Speaker 2: never stops speaking, and I will see it in every
Speaker 2: crumbling barn, in every rusting skeleton of every abandoned car.
Speaker 2: I saw its writhing tendrils growing and thickening across the
Speaker 2: city as I fled. I saw them twine across the
Speaker 2: land in every highway border town. I see them in
Speaker 2: every dying community I've passed through. It is not quite
Speaker 2: here yet, in the dark woods, my isolation, my final home,
Speaker 2: but it will come. It is a corrupting and spreading growth.
Speaker 2: It isolates, It squeezes, it chokes, it infects. If a
Speaker 2: lone cell should escape, then the refugee can only carry
Speaker 2: the contagion with him. It is inside me. Someday it
Speaker 2: will have me back. I can only hope in the
Speaker 2: end that I will fight, that I will not go
Speaker 2: so willingly. But I know that when it calls me
Speaker 2: home at last, I will go without question. I will
Speaker 2: return to a city that has become one immense dead place,
Speaker 2: one massive, heartless hinterland. I will answer for my small
Speaker 2: and meaningless act of rebellion. But not today, the day,
Speaker 2: at the very least main free. Today is enough.
Speaker 1: You have been listening to Observable Radio. Tonight's episode Mapping
Speaker 1: the Crooked Places was performed by the ensemble featuring Jason Smith,
Speaker 1: written by Cameron Suey, Produced by Cameron Suey, Phil ven
Speaker 1: hest Purparina and Wendy Hector. Edited by Cameron Suey. Our
Speaker 1: psychology consultant is Doctor Elisa Leel art by Karn Fletcher.
Speaker 1: Our theme is The back Rooms performed by Mew. Additional
Speaker 1: music from this episode provided by Amber Glow, Aauve Air
Speaker 1: Dex twelve hundred, Bill Fergren, Lennon Hutton, Tim Koolick Parr,
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