for @boombox-fuckboy’s September Fiction Podcast Zine Festival/Event, I made something for a podcast that has kept me company on late nights and long drives, @thinplacesradio
I took a few of my favorite episodes, a short quote from each one that had stuck with me, and an image related to each episode, and made a little something to keep in my car.
(all images except for the podcast logo and passenger pigeon illustration are stock images. the passenger pigeon illustration is a public domain illustration from the 1925 Portraits and Habits of Our Birds)
In the middle of the night, when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest, the unnamed host broadcasts. Each episode comes from a different location, where the host has set up her ‘studio’ The vibes are very liminal, as each episode the host plays a voicemail from a real-life listener, with people invited to call in about strange or unexplained experiences.
Two full seasons currently available, a total of 32 episodes.
I’m coming to you, I don’t know, from my studio. I don’t know how to feel. I’m at a diner. I went back and back and back. I let the road take me here. My memory doesn’t go this far back, but - I think this is what I’ve been looking for. I think it’s the last thing that I almost-remember. I wish I had something like my name, instead. But I guess this’ll have to do.
It looks really ordinary. ROADSIDE DINER, it says in neon, but both the Es are burned out. It’s painted orange, mirrors lining the inside to make it look bigger than it really is. It looks warm inside. Booths in a U along the edges, a counter in that half-ring in the middle, by the kitchen. A thousand places like this in the continental United States. But nowhere exactly like it. Not really.
So what is Thin Places Radio? Well, you can call in about anything strange that you’ve got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.
Have you been chosen for something you never meant to do?
Have you given a gift to a stranger?
Have you forgotten how you… came to this place?
[sigh] When - When the veil between worlds is thin, we get closer than ever to the strange and the unexplained - but also to each other. Call in, get it off your chest. Lines are open.
[click] [voicemail:]
You can hear me now, can’t you? Oh, you can finally hear me! Good. Good. It takes time for the planes to line up. Sometimes they never do, so.
Please don’t worry. I can’t give you your name. You don’t need it anymore. But I can give you a memory. I can give you the night we met.
You came into the Roadside Diner, just off of I-70. You had that look on your face - that driving-all-night look. That running-away look. Not like you were being hunted. Like you didn’t even know what you were running away from.
You sat in that booth by the back window, near the bathrooms - yes, yes, the one your eyes flicked over to just now. Remember? You ordered a coffee. I was at the counter, talking to the server, and I told her I didn’t have enough to pay for my meal. I said it quietly. There was no yelling. You just noticed. You were paying attention to every person in that diner. Even me. You said, I’ve got it, don’t worry. [huffed laugh] An act of kindness for a stranger.
I slid into your booth to thank you, and you said - and I’m not going to get this all right, because memory’s, y’know, tricky - you said, don’t mention it. You said, I’m sure you would have done the same thing for me. So much trust. How could I not honor it?
I asked you if you were alright, and you told me you weren’t sure. You got out of work that day and you got in your car and you just kept driving. You missed your exit. And you just kept driving, all the way into the night. Are you happy? I asked you. No, you told me.
You didn’t know what was missing from your life, but you knew it was missing. What do you want? I asked you. I wanted to give it to you. And this - this I remember, because this was the important part. “I don’t know,” you said. “I’m just so tired of being a person.”
[radio static]
I put my hands over yours, and I nodded. I knew how to fix it. I asked you if you wanted to be something else. I asked you if you wanted to stop worrying. I gave it to you for free. A deal is a deal. A gift is a gift.
Please don’t worry. I don’t know why you keep worrying. It doesn’t matter what came before. I made it so you never had to worry again. Food, clothes, money. Where to sleep, how to live, how to keep your heart from breaking. The road provides. The road will always provide. I freed you from entropy. I freed you from death.
[the radio shrieks and fuzzes]
I thought you’d stop running away. I thought you’d be happy with the way I repaid your kindness. I took your kindness and your curiosity and your interest in every little person and I turned it into something better. You were a person. [The voice changes from the distortion of a phone voicemail to clear speech.] So what? [They are now beside the host.] I made you a legend.
And I know it’s lonely, at first, to be like us. But you’re not the only one.
You’re not alone.
[click]
The host: It’s you.
The entity: Yes.
[click]
[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the ROADSIDE diner just off I-70-] [Various Garbled Voices: the - road - provides -] [The entity: the - road - provides -]
Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of Your Host is Kristen O’Neal. The voice of the entity is Omar Najam.
Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music tracks you heard in tonight’s episode are: the Thin Places theme, by Miles Morkri. If you have a question to ask, a story to tell, or a suggestion for the host, give us a call at (717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.
I’m coming to you, I don’t know, from my studio. I don’t know how to feel. I’m at a diner. I went back and back and back. I let the road take me here. My memory doesn’t go this far back, but - I think this is what I’ve been looking for. I think it’s the last thing that I almost-remember. I wish I had something like my name, instead. But I guess this’ll have to do.
It looks really ordinary. ROADSIDE DINER, it says in neon, but both the Es are burned out. It’s painted orange, mirrors lining the inside to make it look bigger than it really is. It looks warm inside. Booths in a U along the edges, a counter in that half-ring in the middle, by the kitchen. A thousand places like this in the continental United States. But nowhere exactly like it. Not really.
So what is Thin Places Radio? Well, you can call in about anything strange that you’ve got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.
Have you been chosen for something you never meant to do?
Have you given a gift to a stranger?
Have you forgotten how you… came to this place?
[sigh] When - When the veil between worlds is thin, we get closer than ever to the strange and the unexplained - but also to each other. Call in, get it off your chest. Lines are open.
[click] [voicemail:]
You can hear me now, can’t you? Oh, you can finally hear me! Good. Good. It takes time for the planes to line up. Sometimes they never do, so.
Please don’t worry. I can’t give you your name. You don’t need it anymore. But I can give you a memory. I can give you the night we met.
You came into the Roadside Diner, just off of I-70. You had that look on your face - that driving-all-night look. That running-away look. Not like you were being hunted. Like you didn’t even know what you were running away from.
You sat in that booth by the back window, near the bathrooms - yes, yes, the one your eyes flicked over to just now. Remember? You ordered a coffee. I was at the counter, talking to the server, and I told her I didn’t have enough to pay for my meal. I said it quietly. There was no yelling. You just noticed. You were paying attention to every person in that diner. Even me. You said, I’ve got it, don’t worry. [huffed laugh] An act of kindness for a stranger.
I slid into your booth to thank you, and you said - and I’m not going to get this all right, because memory’s, y’know, tricky - you said, don’t mention it. You said, I’m sure you would have done the same thing for me. So much trust. How could I not honor it?
I asked you if you were alright, and you told me you weren’t sure. You got out of work that day and you got in your car and you just kept driving. You missed your exit. And you just kept driving, all the way into the night. Are you happy? I asked you. No, you told me.
You didn’t know what was missing from your life, but you knew it was missing. What do you want? I asked you. I wanted to give it to you. And this - this I remember, because this was the important part. “I don’t know,” you said. “I’m just so tired of being a person.”
[radio static]
I put my hands over yours, and I nodded. I knew how to fix it. I asked you if you wanted to be something else. I asked you if you wanted to stop worrying. I gave it to you for free. A deal is a deal. A gift is a gift.
Please don’t worry. I don’t know why you keep worrying. It doesn’t matter what came before. I made it so you never had to worry again. Food, clothes, money. Where to sleep, how to live, how to keep your heart from breaking. The road provides. The road will always provide. I freed you from entropy. I freed you from death.
[the radio shrieks and fuzzes]
I thought you’d stop running away. I thought you’d be happy with the way I repaid your kindness. I took your kindness and your curiosity and your interest in every little person and I turned it into something better. You were a person. [The voice changes from the distortion of a phone voicemail to clear speech.] So what? [They are now beside the host.] I made you a legend.
And I know it’s lonely, at first, to be like us. But you’re not the only one.
You’re not alone.
[click]
The host: It’s you.
The entity: Yes.
[click]
[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the ROADSIDE diner just off I-70-] [Various Garbled Voices: the - road - provides -] [The entity: the - road - provides -]
Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of Your Host is Kristen O’Neal. The voice of [STATIC] is Omar Najam.
Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music tracks you heard in tonight’s episode are: the Thin Places theme, by Miles Morkri. If you have a question to ask, a story to tell, or a suggestion for the host, give us a call at (717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.
A NOTE ON TODAY'S BROADCAST: If you have the episodes on autodownload, please refresh your feed before you listen. There was initially a glitch in the upload (which is fitting). Thank you!
wooden pews in a small chapel with a shining floor, red and blue light. the image is distorted by VCR static. white text reads:
[031] THE WRONG TURN. A CALLER LOSES DIRECTION. THE HOST REACHES BACK.
listen here, or anywhere you find your podcasts. transcript under the cut:
[static, radio tuning]
[Traveling Sales Rep: Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back, after these short messages.] [static, radio tuning]
[click]
Hello and welcome to Thin Places Radio. I’m your host,
and it is the middle of the night. But don’t worry. You’re not alone.
[Thin Places theme]
[wind blowing] [wood creaking] [clock ticking]
I’m coming to you… from my studio, which is what I like to call this rickety chapel, closed up for the week, waiting for Sunday. I can hear the wind whistling in the cracks of the old wood, feel the whole frame shudder. There’s stained glass in the windows, but I can’t tell what color any of it is. Does God stay behind in the places we’ve carved out for him, when no one’s left? Does anything else?
So… what is Thin Places Radio? Well, you can call in about anything strange that you’ve got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.
Are you retracing your steps, even when you can’t remember where you’ve been?
Are you lost in your own hometown?
Are you reaching out for something you can’t experience?
Call in, get it off your chest. Lines are open.
[click] [voicemail:]
Never done anything like this before, but I figured that you might understand? I have a amazing sense of direction, I’ve - I drive somewhere once and I know how to get there, I never get lost. The other day last summer, I was headed to the post office by my house, and I'm driving down the road and I - I'm not recognizing any of the landmarks. And I’m like, well, that’s weird, I must’ve just passed it. So I turn around and I drive back, I’m driving further, and I'm passing the intersection, I’m like, well I must’ve passed it again.
I drove up and down that road three times before I finally had to pull into a parking lot. And I pulled up my phone and my map and - I was on the opposite side of town? I wasn't anywhere near my house or near the post office and I have no clue how I got there. I was so freaked out that I went straight home and I put it in my GPS even though I knew how to get there, I just - just to double check. I thought that was kind of weird. And you know, if you're still looking for a name, Host, you know, hopefully you find yours, but maybe Jade would work in the intro? Just a thought. Bye.
[click]
I do. I understand. Out of all of the things I have experienced, this is the most frightening: a lapse inside of my own world, or inside of my own mind. [eerie, curious music] Sometimes when you’ve lived somewhere for years, you wake up one day and its familiarity makes you feel sick to your stomach. You think, why? Why am I here? What is my purpose? The same misery, every day, on its own reliable schedule? You get in your car after work and you begin to drive home. But you miss your exit. And you think, I could - I could keep driving. I could keep driving all night, until I don’t recognize anything. Until I don't -
[music stops]
I’m sorry, that's... not what you were talking about. I don’t know why I said that. Let me try again, caller.
You were pulled into something wrong, on your way to that post office - something uncanny, unfamiliar when it should have been understandable. Transported, or perhaps transformed. It’s terrifying to look up and not understand how you got there. [searching music] To not recognize the shape of your own life.
I think that there are two things you can do when you get to that parking lot: one, you can take advantage of that strangeness your life has become and say, I’m somewhere new now. I didn’t expect to be here, but I’m going to explore it. Or two, you can do what you've already done: look around at this unfamiliar new place and say, no, no, no, I can’t be here. I have to find my way back home.
Thank you for the name, caller. Jade. Carveable into a thousand different shapes but not easily broken. Resilient. It’s a good name. I wish it was mine.
And, just in case - as always - say it with me - please check your home for carbon monoxide.
[click] [clock ticking]
Something strange, listeners. There is a type of deep-sea squat lobster that eats wood. It is called Munidopsis andamanica. It waits there, in the abyss, for trees and shipwrecks, gifts from the waking world that fall slowly into the darkness of the water. It was made to subsist something it will never see - something that does not exist where it exists. The sea provides.
This is beautiful. I know that it is beautiful. It lives, despite all odds. It finds sustenance, despite all odds. [clock ticks louder] But I think it must be lonely. I wonder if it craves other food. I wonder if it is happy down so deep, or if it thinks of the surface. If it wants to see the sun.
No, probably not. It’s a crustacean. It doesn’t know any of this. It doesn’t know how improbable it is - that it’s either a freak or a miracle, or both. It eats what it was meant to eat until it dies. However long that is. How are you supposed to keep track of something that’s down so deep?
[click] [wind whistling] [wood creaking]
I am going to be honest, listeners, in this empty place. I am going to say it to the wind that's tearing apart this chapel and to you. I wish I'd never remembered that there was something to forget. I wish there was someone who could hear me where I am and not just over the radio. I’m lost. I’m lonely. I want to talk to somebody face to face. I want to see the surface. [eerie, curious music]
I don’t think I can get any of that back. But I have to find out what happened. I’m going back for what I lost, even if I lose it all over again.
[click]
Thank you for listening, callers, and thank you for calling, listeners. I hope you feel a little bit lighter. [heavy pause] I know I do. As always, our number is 717.382.8093. That’s 717.382.8093. Until next time. I’ll be here.
[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the - diner just off -] [Various Garbled Voices: the - road - provides - the - road - provides -]
Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of Your Host is Kristen O’Neal.
Tonight’s voicemail was left for us by a mystery caller. Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music tracks you heard in tonight’s episode are: the Thin Places theme and Unearthed, by Miles Morkri, and Umeed by RANA. If you have a question to ask, a story to tell, or a suggestion for the host, give us a call at (717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.
the sun setting pink and purple over a shallow bed of water at low tide, a bridge in the distance. you can barely make out the name of a restaurant near the road. orange lights inside. the image is distorted by VCR static. white text reads:
[030] THE EXPERIENCE. A CALLER MISSES OUT. THE HOST FREEZES.
listen here, or anywhere you find your podcasts. transcript under the cut:
[static, radio tuning]
[Traveling Sales Rep: Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back, after these short messages.] [static, radio tuning]
[click]
Hello and welcome to Thin Places Radio. I’m your host,
and it is the middle of the night. But don’t worry. You’re not alone.
[Thin Places theme]
[with a hushed voice] I’m coming to you frozen from my studio, which is what I like to call this once-packed-like-ants town by the beach. Now that it’s winter it’s a ghost town, biting cold, snow on the sand, a haze of fog muting all the brightly colored buildings. It’s so quiet and empty right now that I can’t feel… anything. Not my hands or my feet. Not anyone or anything’s eyes on me. No wind blowing, no crunch of snow under my feet, no distant crashing of waves. Time’s frozen over right now.
[normally] I guess I don’t really have to be that quiet. My voice just sounds so loud.
The town’s not closed down forever. Just until next April, when the sun takes that deep breath and the weather clears and the tourists start trickling back in. I’ll be long gone by then.
I remember it when it was full of people. I don’t know why I didn’t go to the beach, to the Bowl-O-Rama arcade. I went to the back alley of a bar a little further inland instead, and I listened.
I’m trying to listen to myself, now. I’m reeling myself back in - back to wherever I started.
So… what is Thin Places Radio? Well, you can call in about anything strange that you’ve got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.
Did you make all the right turns but still end up in the wrong place?
Are you struggling to reach out and grab hold of something you can’t see?
Are you hearing ghostly meows from downstairs?
When the veil between worlds is thin, we get closer than ever to the strange and the unexplained - but also to each other. Call in, get it off your chest. Lines are open.
[click] [voicemail:]
Hi, it's, uh, it’s me again. I - I realized something recently and - I don't think I've ever had a supernatural ghost experience. Like, recently, a couple of my friends and I were talking about things that they couldn't explain and I just straight up brought up - do you guys have a ghost story? And they all did and told me their stories. And, upon hearing them, I had to sit back and realize - I've never had something happen to me that I can't explain or there wasn't a reason for it occurring. And it felt strange that I couldn't contribute to the conversation. And I wouldn't disbelieve them. I very much believe that ghosts exist - my friends wouldn't lie to me about the things that had happened to them, but I couldn't say anything. And… for some reason that felt very strange. I - I don't go seeking trouble but, what do you do in the situation when there's truth that you have never fully touched or can fully understand because you've never experienced it yourself? I couldn't comfort them in their time of peril because I don't empathize with it. I don't know what to do.
[click]
Hi again, caller, I missed you. Thank you for calling, and thank you for being such a kind friend. Some people, I think, can see into these thin places a little more clearly than others can. It’s not your fault. It’s nothing you’ve done or haven’t done. It’s not that you’re not open enough or that you want it too much. It’s like being colorblind. You can’t see what you can’t see. But that doesn’t help when everyone else is talking about how striking the red in the sunset is.
Here’s the thing. There’s no situation that any two people experience exactly the same way. There’s no truth that any of us have ever fully grasped - only the edges of this great mystery that we get to see into sometimes. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as full understanding. We only live in our own minds. There is a veil separating all of us from each other, and sometimes that veil feels more like heavy velvet than a gauzy mosquito net. Sometimes it feels like a brick wall.
Here is the only thing to do: listen, and ask questions, and reach out. To love and offer comfort even when you don’t understand, and even when you feel like your comfort is failing them. To ask, what else can I do? There is an uncrossable gulf between each two of us. Some gulfs are streams, and some are trickles, but we are never truly on someone else’s side of the water. We must spend every day trying to cross the gulf anyway.
And caller? I don’t think there’s anything you’re really missing. Sometimes real miracles come to us in very ordinary clothing, without wings, or translucent faces, or creaking floorboards, or flashes in our peripheral vision. You have everything your friends need from you already.
[click]
Something strange, listeners. I can hum and whistle at the same time.
[humming/whistling]
[laughter]
[The Host starts whistling a tune she doesn’t realize is “Iris”. It echoes.]
[click]
It’s nice to be alone here. I’m alone in a way I never am at the edges of a truck stop, or a park, or even in my car, when I’m always seeing… somebody in the rearview mirror. It’s an ordinary kind of alone here. I feel like the second I cross the street out of town time will start up again.
It’s so quiet. I’ll walk slowly.
[click]
Thank you for listening, callers, and thank you for calling, listeners. I hope you feel a little bit lighter. I know I do. As always, our number is 717.382.8093. That’s 717.382.8093. Until next time. I’ll be here.
[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the - diner just off -] [Various Garbled Voices: the - road - provides - the - road - provides -]
Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of Your Host is Kristen O’Neal.
Tonight’s voicemail was left for us by Remy Ripple. Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music tracks you heard in tonight’s episode are: the Thin Places theme and Unearthed by Miles Morkri. If you have a question to ask, a story to tell, or a suggestion for the host, give us a call at (717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.
Just wanted to come by and say I like the show a lot. It’s a really comforting thing to listen to when i can’t sleep and the night gets a bit too dark. (I have definitely shed some (positive) tears listening)
So thank you for making it. It really is great.
I hope you have a lovely day/night!
Thank you so much, caller. Making it makes me feel better, too. The dark isn't so bad once your eyes adjust to it - if you wait for that, you'll be able to find your way out.
Hello! I just wanted to say thank you. The world is sometimes a very strange and scary place and most of the time I'm a little lost but I feel safer every time the host says: as always its the middle of the night but don't worry you're not alone. It's silly but it really does make you feel less alone, the world is scary and strange and kind and wonderful and you're not alone. Thank you <3
Thank you, caller! Being a little lost can be exciting, too. You have so much to explore, and so many people to meet along the way.
stacked white pool chairs alongside discarded, tangled blue and white pool lane dividers. blue haze. the image is distorted by VCR static. white text reads:
[029] THE CAT. A CALLER GETS A NEW PET. THE HOST FOCUSES ON THE REARVIEW.
listen here, or anywhere you find your podcasts. transcript under the cut:
[static, radio tuning]
[Traveling Sales Rep: Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back, after these short messages.] [static, radio tuning]
[click]
Hello and welcome to Thin Places Radio. I’m your host,
and it is the middle of the night. But don’t worry. You’re not alone.
[Thin Places theme]
I’m coming to you worn to the sole like an old novelty sock from my studio, which is what I like to call the same motel I stayed in before, the one that looks so different than it did that summer night in this thin, winter light. It's not past the point of recognition, but it's not exactly the same place, not really. I’m sitting outside, on the concrete lip of the empty motel pool. Deep end. [dripping] [tinking sound] There’s a puddle of water at the bottom, rotting fall leaves swirling around in it, a plastic bag with a yellow smiley face on the side. And, as usual, there’s someone watching me. I can see their reflection in the windows. [cars passing] A little taller than me. Can’t see their face. But hey. What else is new.
If I wave do you think they’ll wave back?
[jacket swishing]
[static tuning]
[The host chuckles] Oh. Huh.
So… what is Thin Places Radio? Well, you can call in about anything strange that you’ve got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.
Are you yearning for an experience that you can't explain?
Are you wondering how to balance your living pets’ needs with your dead ones’?
Are you dealing with a location-based curse?
When the veil between worlds is thin, we get closer than ever to the strange and the unexplained - but also to each other. Call in, get it off your chest. Lines are open.
[click] [voicemail:]
Hi, I’ve, uh, never called into a radio show like this, so uh, here goes, I guess? So I moved into this house 2 years ago, and for the first few months I was here, my roommate and I swore up and down that there was a ghost cat hanging around. Not - I mean, it didn't do anything bad. Just you know, we kept seeing cat-sized movement out of the corner of our eyes, or hearing the cat moving around upstairs or downstairs when we're on the other side of the house. And it stopped, unfortunately, after both of us got cats. And I didn't notice anything again until she moved out and it was just me and my one cat. And then suddenly the ghost cat was back, again. Same thing. It's just seeing it out of the corner of our eyes, just movement. A sense that something was there. Small and Cat-sized and honestly friendly. And - I mean, do you think it gets scared off by too many other cats? I don't want to discourage it from hanging around. We all need company sometimes, I guess. So, I guess thanks for your time. Thanks.
[click]
Thank you for your voicemail, caller, and thank you for taking the time to really notice - to pay attention to the blank spaces and strange noises. [eerie, curious music] It's a skill that gets harder and harder the louder the world gets. The more there is to notice, the more we overlook. But love lives in the still small voice, the quiet moments. I know you know this already, caller, but the inconveniences are a gift. The imperfections are a gift. Our lives must be rocked by the ripples of others in order to take us where we need to go. Even a small ripple changes our course. Even a cat-sized movement makes our whole lives different.
So I’m glad you’re waiting and listening for her. You’re already doing something good. You’re making space for her. That’s all that she needs. Company.
[click]
Right now, as you’re listening to this, an act of kindness is taking place. Acts of cruelty, too, and desperation, and hopelessness, and hopefulness. But also kindness - the kind that comes for free, out of love for another human heart.
[frantic, mechanical music, slowed down]
Your partner calls you from the station where you’re supposed to pick them up, and they’re crying, and crying hard. I fell on the steps, they tell you, please come help me, it really hurts. Their foot is broken. And you try, but you’re not strong enough to carry them, and you see the tears streaming down their face and feel them pooling in your eyes, too.
But then there’s a voice from above, and it’s saying, here, I’ve got this, go get your car. I can help. The man is built like a linebacker, easily 6 4, but he speaks gently. You notice the gray in his beard. Is it okay if I touch you, just here on your arms? He asks your partner. He is gentle when he takes on their weight. He gets them into the car. You dry your partner’s tears. You thank the man. It’s clear you needed help, he says. How could I not give it?
[click]
The sun’s starting to come back up, so it’s time for me to go. I’ve been watching the figure, this time, letting them come into my field of vision instead of staying at the edges. [dripping] I’m paying attention, this time. I hadn’t realized until now that they’ve been with me for so long - longer than I can - remember. When you don’t fix a dripping faucet, you stop noticing the sound after a while, the ripples in the sink. But it’s still dripping.
[to the figure:] Hello? Who - who are you? …Are you?
[garbled, tuning in and out, voice layered upon itself:] Don’t worry --- Remember?
Man, you know I don’t. Thanks a lot.
[click]
Thank you for listening, callers, and thank you for calling, listeners. I hope you feel a little bit lighter. I know I do. As always, our number is 717.382.8093. That’s 717.382.8093. Until next time. I’ll be here.
[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the - diner just off -] [Various Garbled Voices: the - road - provides - the - road - provides -]
Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of Your Host is Kristen O’Neal. The voice of [STATIC] is Omar Najam.
Tonight’s voicemail was left for us by Myr. The act of kindness was submitted by Alexis. Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music tracks you heard in tonight’s episode are: the Thin Places theme and Unearthed, by Miles Morkri, and Junoon by RANA. If you have a question to ask, a story to tell, or a suggestion for the host, give us a call at (717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.
a staircase ascending upwards, framed pictures on the wall to the right. a pink haze over everything. the image is distorted by VCR static. white text reads:
[028] THE CURSE. A CALLER RETURNS TO A DARK PLACE. THE HOST DOES TOO.
listen here, or anywhere you find your podcasts. transcript under the cut:
[static, radio tuning]
[Traveling Sales Rep: Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back, after these short messages.] [static, radio tuning]
[click]
Hello and welcome to Thin Places Radio. I’m your host,
and it is the middle of the night. But don’t worry. You’re not alone.
[Thin Places theme]
[background thumps and buzzing]
I’m coming to you apprehensive from my studio, which is what I like to call this long, long staircase, built from decades-old creaking wood, descending down into the darkness below this antique store. I know I’ve been here before, even if I’m fuzzy on exactly when, or exactly how. Those memories I can look at out of the corner of my eye, if I don’t turn my head too fast. If I just let the road lead me back through my own mind, I think I’m getting somewhere. I’m its supplicant. I follow.
[creaking footsteps] [thumping]
If I turn around now, I can see the rectangle of light above and behind me, the first eight and a half steps down, the splintering railing and a few shelves. A mouth. But now I’m lost to the sensation of nothing, the damp, woodsy chill that’s engulfed me.
[feet scuffing]
There is a kind of dark so absolute it makes you forget you exist as a thinking, feeling creature. You are nothing more than a heart beating in your own eardrums. If I listen very carefully I can hear it speaking with a voice of its own. But I don’t know what it’s saying. The dark. I have to wait for my eyes to adjust to it. But I know they will. You can adjust to anything if you give it a little bit of time.
But it’d be nice if I could find a f***ing light switch down here instead.
So… what is Thin Places Radio? Well, you can call in about anything strange that you’ve got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.
Is your new pet a ghost?
Does something bad keep happening to you when you pass through a certain place?
Are you trying to navigate a galaxies-long-distance relationship?
When the veil between worlds is thin, we get closer than ever to the strange and the unexplained - and also to each other. Call in, get it off your chest. Lines are open.
[click] [voicemail:]
Hi - first time caller, long time listener, love your show. Thank you. I was wondering: do you think that a place can be cursed? Or that somebody can be - I don't know, like, when someone goes through a place that it can affect them in a negative way. The reason I ask is, I am sitting in Waco, and Waco always seems to be a weird place for me when I drive through. So I'm sitting here, in the middle of the night. It's been 3 hours. I'm sitting behind a car wreck. And people go up there and don't come back and it's just been a long time we've been waiting. But, anyhow, this first happened probably 30 years ago. I was driving through Waco, and we stopped at McDonald's, and we're eating our meal and look out the window and a trailer is literally being backed on top of my vehicle. It like, actually climbed up on top of my car. And it was just like so weird. So we kind of avoided Waco for a long time. We had like several other incidents where we got in accidents or almost got in accidents just in passing through Waco off of a particular stretch of 35. So my question: Are places cursed? Can a person be cursed in a place? Thank you.
[click]
Hi, caller, thank you so much - it’s nice to be thought of. The answer to your question is exactly what you think it is.
Yes. Of course.
It’s hard to imagine a place with darker energies than Waco, Texas, but everyone has their own personal cursed places, the places that pull them in again and again to get them stuck and to vanish them and to eat cars. Sometimes you don’t even know where that place is until you pass over it, again, and your body remembers that something happened to you there.
[searching music]
Sometimes what happens in a place curses it; sometimes, you keep carrying out the curse yourself.
And sometimes, when something cursed happens somewhere, it primes you to keep looking for the curse – to keep your ears pricked and your eyes peeled for another stretch of bad luck. When you’re stricken with a curse, that very first time, it’s really hard not to always be ready for it to come back to you. You want to be ready for when it hurts you again. You learn to expect the pain.
Pain will always find you. That’s not something that your mindset can fix. It always comes back to you, and you'll keep carrying it with you. But that’s when it becomes more important than ever to search for the blessed. The relief. The strange small beauties, even in a place like Waco, Texas. The gift of three hours to yourself, in the dark, in a place you didn’t want to sit and think in. The energy of a McDonald’s meal. The saving grace of a near-accident that wasn’t an accident. The wildflowers on the side of the road. The person in the passenger seat next to you.
You’re still allowed to take another route home next time, though. That’s okay, too.
[click]
I could stay down here, you know. That’s what it’s telling me.
[echoed thudding]
In the dark you can be anything, and everything, and in the dark, it does not matter if you do not remember your name. It does not matter if you have a mystery to solve or food to find or a life to live. The forgetting lives in the dark, where there is no difference between sleep and waking. [buzzing, echoed words:] It wants me to stay. It would love me as a sponge loves water. There would no longer be a me.
[buzzing builds, then stops abruptly]
But - no. No, there was someone on the line, just now. Someone that I was someone to. There’s a job I have to do. And there’s a lamp on a desk somewhere, back here. I remember. There’s -
[steps]
There.
[lamp clicks on]
Oh. There’s nothing here. There’s nothing here.
That was weird. I’m gonna get out of here.
[lamp clicks off] [footsteps leave]
[click]
Thank you for listening, callers, and thank you for calling, listeners. I hope you feel a little bit lighter. I know I do. As always, our number is 717.382.8093. That’s 717.382.8093. Until next time. I’ll be here.
[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the - diner just off -] [Various Garbled Voices: the - road - provides - the - road - provides -]
Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of Your Host is Kristen O’Neal.
Tonight’s voicemail was left for us by Kelly. Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music tracks you heard in tonight’s episode are: the Thin Places theme, by Miles Morkri, and Umeed by RANA. If you have a question to ask, a story to tell, or a suggestion for the host, give us a call at (717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.
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