Shownotes
Book tries to crack some mysteries from his past as he begins to open his mind to the psychic maelstrom.
This one is a very special bonus episode released due to some internet access issues with the added bonus of dragging out a cliffhanger even longer!
Bonus usually means "extra" instead of "shorter", but next week, we will get back on track with TWO full-length episodes.
love you bye
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Transcripts
Welcome to Oops!
Speaker:All Apocalypses, a show where we explore the collapse of society by playing fun, tabletop role-playing games.
Speaker:I'm joined by one of my good friends here.
Speaker:Hey everyone, I'm Brady, and I play Book McCready, a kind but nitpicky detective type who, despite the size of his head, is constantly in over his head.
Speaker:You may notice that we're missing our good friend and creator of Ocean, Jacob.
Speaker:That's because this episode is going to be a very special, personal episode, with just Book and his very messed up brain.
Speaker:At the end of last episode, if you recall, Book unwisely decided to open his mind to the psychic maelstrom for what I believe was to become friends with wolves?
Speaker:Oh, without a doubt.
Speaker:Just that?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And that's a very...
Speaker:This is the first time we've had anyone open their mind to the psychic maelstrom, and this is a pretty big event.
Speaker:As we've talked about previously, the psychic maelstrom is kind of different for every person.
Speaker:It's something that everyone experiences in some ways, and people are constantly trying to keep it out of their head.
Speaker:And Book decided to just let it wash over him.
Speaker:I want to dive a little bit deeper into that and see how specifically Book deals with that whole situation and the psychic maelstrom in general, because this is going to have lasting impacts on the campaign.
Speaker:Well, as far as Book can remember, this is his first time opening his mind to the psychic maelstrom.
Speaker:I was going to ask that.
Speaker:That's a good statement.
Speaker:I'm going to emphasize, as far as he can remember.
Speaker:I think he blocks out a lot of trauma.
Speaker:I think he thinks he doesn't.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:I think genuinely, because one of, you know, a very well documented trauma response is forgetfulness.
Speaker:And I don't think that Book suffers from forgetfulness in his daily life, because that would make him a pretty shitty detective.
Speaker:But I think that over the course of his life, there are absolutely things that he blocks out.
Speaker:That makes the, you know, the details around his parents the thing that he wants to know the most about, the most fuzzy in his life.
Speaker:That's very interesting.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:I think this is going to be a shorter episode.
Speaker:We may release it as like a bonus episode or something like that.
Speaker:But I still think it would be interesting to see what's unique about you.
Speaker:Maybe we'll do something like this with Ocean when he decides to open his mind to the psychic maelstrom.
Speaker:He's just been sitting around unmind opened this entire time.
Speaker:He's still trying to open his mind to his memories.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:He's got to get through that hurdle first, and then maybe he has time for the psychic maelstrom.
Speaker:Dear listener, if you could just picture in your mind like a really well animated CGI me, as in Book, falling through his own head, like a doctor strange kind of montage.
Speaker:He's falling through his own head, and then his head has a bunch of hands in it, and then each of those hands has more hands, and then all of those hands are holding a brain, and then that brain grows eyes and a mouth and starts talking like in that Little Dicky music video, Pillow Talk.
Speaker:And then finally, you go...
Speaker:I don't know what.
Speaker:I do.
Speaker:So this is going to be a hard one to transition from the intro to an actual episode, because it's basically just what we just talked about.
Speaker:So I'm probably going to play some music here.
Speaker:Yeah, there's really only one place to go from here, and it is the Psychic Maelstrom.
Speaker:Book, you've just opened your mind to the Psychic Maelstrom.
Speaker:How do you think you do that?
Speaker:Like I've talked about before, it's always there in the back of your mind, and you have to let go and let it in.
Speaker:You quit fighting it off, basically.
Speaker:But how do you specifically get to that point where you let the Psychic Maelstrom overwhelm you and enter your mind?
Speaker:Well, like myself, I would say that Book's probably always got a lot flying around in his head.
Speaker:You know, he is obsessed with these mysteries, and he's constantly mulling them over, trying to work out the facts and get a grasp on it.
Speaker:And I think that the only thing that will allow him, that would allow him, to get the clarity, almost the time, to be able to capture that, to pause in that moment and allow himself to relax, would be to solve one of those internal mysteries, get that dopamine rush of, you know, that self affirmation of, you know, figuring out a little bit more either about himself or about the things that he is trying to work out in his life.
Speaker:And a little bit of you thinking you're smarter than other people, right?
Speaker:Oh, it's, yeah.
Speaker:I mean, Book is definitely one of those people who thinks he's solved the mystery maybe before he has, you know, 100% concrete evidence.
Speaker:Like a lot of times, you'll hear Hercule Poirot say, correct me if I'm wrong, but two nights ago, you bought this drink at this bar, but really, that was a doppelganger, and you were here, is that correct?
Speaker:And there's no way that he could possibly know that for a concrete fact, but he says it anyway.
Speaker:And I think that's the type of energy that Book tries to embody.
Speaker:He's like, I don't need the hard proof because I know in my heart of hearts that this is true.
Speaker:And most of the time, he's right.
Speaker:Hopefully.
Speaker:Like Columbo, just feeling that.
Speaker:There's something rubbing me the wrong way.
Speaker:There's just one thing bothering me.
Speaker:Because you said you were at the bakery, but the bakery's closed on Sundays.
Speaker:Where's all the powder on your blouse?
Speaker:No one eats those delicious scrumptious cakes that cleanly.
Speaker:I think I lost my Columbo voice.
Speaker:I think you did.
Speaker:By placing a piece in the puzzle, Book is able to find the mental piece to allow the psychic maelstrom to take over.
Speaker:So it sounds like what you want me to do is write an entire mystery novel off the top of my head immediately with a nice resounding resolution in this short bonus episode.
Speaker:If anybody could do it, it's you.
Speaker:Well, let's do it.
Speaker:You start trying to open your mind.
Speaker:To the psychic maelstrom.
Speaker:You feel your vision get cloudy, and you feel yourself falling, falling backwards, and then suddenly you're back.
Speaker:When you're younger, you're 14.
Speaker:I should choose a different age.
Speaker:Yeah, maybe.
Speaker:You're 16 for a moment.
Speaker:You're 16.
Speaker:You've been apart from your parents for a while now, a little bit.
Speaker:You're still living in the cave.
Speaker:What were you doing in the short period of time after your parents left?
Speaker:Was it trying to survive, trying to figure out where they went?
Speaker:How did that go?
Speaker:I think, like so many before him, Book always hoped or thought that his parents would come back for him.
Speaker:And I think he spent the first couple years just waiting for that to happen.
Speaker:And I think that he was pretty resourceful, and I think he got by okay.
Speaker:But he really clung to the idea that he would be reunited with his parents.
Speaker:And then I would say after the first two years, he decided that it was going to have to be his own agency that would reunite them, except he always found a reason not to.
Speaker:I think every time that Book tried to leave, every time he packed his bag and slung it over his shoulder and maybe took a couple steps in that direction, he would look back over Hamlet opening and see all of the people that he's helped and all the people who have helped him, and something would hold him back.
Speaker:And I think sometimes it was maybe the thought of having romance or finding romance, and other times it was not wanting to leave Ocean behind.
Speaker:And I think it also still stemmed from that long forgotten hope that his parents would just come back.
Speaker:Because they did not talk to you at all before you left, right?
Speaker:They were just gone one day?
Speaker:I think they told him, it seemed like a very normal day because like anyone in Hamlet opening, like anyone in this apocalypse, you have to, you can't be home all the time.
Speaker:There is no opportunity for you to live, you know, off of your cave.
Speaker:There's nothing, you know, there's nothing to grow.
Speaker:So he was used to being alone, and I think he saw his parents packing, and they said goodbye, and they shared, you know, what was a normal but a nice, you know, evening with him before they set off early the next morning.
Speaker:But they didn't tell him where they were going, and they didn't tell him when they'd be back.
Speaker:All that he had was the reassurance from them that everything was going to be okay.
Speaker:All he had to do was find the surface.
Speaker:I think the biggest clue that Book had as to where his parents went and what their intent was, was what they left behind.
Speaker:And I think from those items, he was able to infer a lot of context and information about what they thought they would need because of what they thought they didn't need.
Speaker:I think the biggest clue that Book first clued in on, that's a terrible sentence.
Speaker:Hate that sentence.
Speaker:Keeping it.
Speaker:Pun was not intended and despised.
Speaker:But the first thing that he realized was that they left all of their food.
Speaker:I mean, they had jars and jars of things saved up.
Speaker:And I think as a kid, he always assumed that that was to prepare for this big journey that they were going to take to go to the surface.
Speaker:And instead, he found that they had been storing it all up to leave him so that he could survive without them.
Speaker:It's kind of sweet and horrific.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But it also means that wherever they were going, they expected to find food quickly.
Speaker:That is very interesting.
Speaker:I think that does imply that they went, at least one of the first places they went after they left you is somewhere they could get food like you said.
Speaker:But also, it implies that they knew they were going to be gone for a while if they left you that food, which I think is pretty powerful.
Speaker:It says a lot about it.
Speaker:Okay, with that contextualization, I think more interesting than seeing Book, who is 14 for a moment, would be seeing an even younger Book.
Speaker:16 is the time for you.
Speaker:Such a good fucking song.
Speaker:It's a great song.
Speaker:Such a good song.
Speaker:I like that part when he's like a million years old and still alive.
Speaker:No, I like the part where he realizes that he's immortal.
Speaker:And so that whole obviates the whole song.
Speaker:And he's like, I don't know what I've been singing about this whole time.
Speaker:When he's like, I'm 16, I'm so small.
Speaker:I just nearly died.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:So I think it would be more interesting if we went back a little bit further, maybe in the first couple years after your parents left.
Speaker:And you've started deciding that you have to go out and search more.
Speaker:So you've started looking for clues on where they went, start figuring out ways you can survive out in the wilderness.
Speaker:But like you said, there's always something that keeps you coming back.
Speaker:OK, you are Book as a young lad.
Speaker:You've been on your own for a couple of years now.
Speaker:You don't have a clear place in the world.
Speaker:You've tried to, you're starting to run a little low on the food that your parents left you behind.
Speaker:So you decide to start trying to gain some money through the one thing you're good at, which is spreading knowledge.
Speaker:You've accumulated this vast wealth of knowledge that I guess was instilled in you a little bit by your parents.
Speaker:They had to start this collection.
Speaker:Is that accurate?
Speaker:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:They wanted Book to know all of the things that he would need to know when they reached, you know, the surface of the world.
Speaker:But so you've accumulated this knowledge, and I think this is probably, I wouldn't say you were a strong and rough and tumble kid.
Speaker:You probably didn't have a lot to bring to survive.
Speaker:So I think you would have had to start pretty early, bring your skill sets as like a tutor.
Speaker:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker:Make money to stick around, because apparently no one was looking after you.
Speaker:Yeah, and I think it was hard for me to make a name for myself in the beginning, but eventually, you know, it just kind of started falling into place.
Speaker:Now, am I remembering this in first person or third person?
Speaker:First person.
Speaker:You get thrown back.
Speaker:I'm going to say this may be a little different than how you had it planned out and what you thought.
Speaker:I'm going to say one of the first children you tutored was someone who was about your age, and it is Calista Furness.
Speaker:Her parents wanted a lot for her, and they had a little bit extra money hanging around.
Speaker:They ran a scrapyard in town that they would collect a lot of the either broken down vehicles and repair them back up and sell them.
Speaker:Her mom was really good at working that scrapyard and taking some of those broken down vehicles and kind of getting them at least functional again and being able to resell them, which is incredibly valuable in the Apocalypses to be able to take stuff that doesn't work anymore and make it work.
Speaker:So they had a little bit extra money, and they wanted well for their only daughter.
Speaker:So they hired the smartest kid in town, Book, to come teach her things.
Speaker:What subject do you think you taught Calista?
Speaker:So it seems like from Calista's other influences in her life that she has a lot of functional knowledge.
Speaker:So I think, you know what, I think he taught her about all of the animals that we no longer even know exist.
Speaker:That's actually really exciting.
Speaker:That's like a mythology class almost.
Speaker:Basically.
Speaker:I'd be like going to school and being like just learning about Cerberus.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Calista is getting the full gambit as far as dinosaurs, animals, plants, all of the shit that Book wishes was still around.
Speaker:So you're saying the animals that lay eggs, those ones are like all super different than the ones who are furry?
Speaker:Yeah, it basically seems like, well, we could group all of them by the things that they had in common, and the things that made them special, that's how they got their names.
Speaker:So like this is a giraffe, and he's got like a super long neck, and this is a Brontosaurus, and he's got a super long neck.
Speaker:So are they like related?
Speaker:Oh, shoot.
Speaker:Do giraffes lay eggs?
Speaker:Well, actually, how about you, you help me answer that.
Speaker:So what do we know about animals that lay eggs?
Speaker:Well, there's, they got feathers or scales.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And sometimes, you know, lots of things that live in the water, they lay eggs.
Speaker:Fish lay eggs?
Speaker:Oh, fish have scales.
Speaker:Fish have scales.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You're on the right track.
Speaker:One of the things that we know about giraffes is that they had fur.
Speaker:Do giraffes have fur or hair?
Speaker:Fur.
Speaker:You really got to explain to me the difference between fur and hair.
Speaker:Hair grows infinitely, and fur stops growing after a certain length.
Speaker:That's crazy.
Speaker:I didn't know that was a thing.
Speaker:But that made me ask, like, are eyelashes fur?
Speaker:My eyelashes keep growing super long.
Speaker:They don't.
Speaker:Mine do.
Speaker:They've been the same length.
Speaker:No, they keep going, and then they fall out eventually, but they're like super long.
Speaker:Well, yeah, I think that's the cycle.
Speaker:Hair falls out.
Speaker:My daddy bald.
Speaker:Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker:Are we having this conversation in character?
Speaker:What do you mean by in character?
Speaker:Fuck.
Speaker:Don't tell your parents I taught you that word.
Speaker:I gotta sound younger.
Speaker:What the fuck?
Speaker:I gotta sound younger.
Speaker:I gotta sound younger.
Speaker:The thing is, brontosaurus is what people called a dinosaur, and for some reason, they're off in their own category.
Speaker:But I think the super neat thing is that out of all the mammals, the things with fur, there's only one that lays eggs.
Speaker:The giraffe.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Fuck.
Speaker:It's called a platypus.
Speaker:That's a good word.
Speaker:And not only did it lay eggs, but it had a real flat oblong tail and a bill and thorns in its feet.
Speaker:Do you have a picture of one?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:This is the only...
Speaker:Someone's described this?
Speaker:This is the only page in this book.
Speaker:I think someone's pulling your leg.
Speaker:I don't think this is a real one.
Speaker:Well, all I know is it's in the same book where all the other animals are.
Speaker:But, like, this giraffe, it's got a long neck just like Brontosaurus, and it's got antennae like Ant, and both Brontosaurus and Ant make eggs.
Speaker:So I think a giraffe probably lays eggs, and ants don't have scales, and ants don't have feathers.
Speaker:Are ants animals?
Speaker:Oh, shoot.
Speaker:We have ants here.
Speaker:I forgot.
Speaker:Beyond just being mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and birds, there is a whole other classifications of what animals can be.
Speaker:So you know that bumpy thing that runs down our backs?
Speaker:Yeah, backbone.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, that's our backbone, and it protects our spine.
Speaker:And animals that have a spine are under phylum chordata because we have a spinal cord, or at least that's why I think it's called that.
Speaker:That makes sense.
Speaker:And things like ants and other bugs and spiders and horseshoe crabs, they're in a different phylum because they don't have their what's called invertebrates.
Speaker:So which ones are ethical to eat?
Speaker:All of them.
Speaker:I don't, well, I guess the question is, that's a more personal thing.
Speaker:I think a lot of times it probably had to do with what was healthy to eat, you know, because lots of things are poisonous.
Speaker:Have you ever heard the saying red and yellow something fellow?
Speaker:Yeah, red and yellow something yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow.
Speaker:Yeah, I love that song.
Speaker:And then I turned to myself and I go, Jesus Christ, she has ADHD.
Speaker:I think what we should do is we should build a map of all of the different, maybe a web, of all the different groups of animals.
Speaker:And then we can figure out all of the things that you like in your food and all the things that you don't like in your food.
Speaker:And maybe we can come up with a way to figure out what's good for eating and what's not.
Speaker:Give me a sway someone role advantage.
Speaker:We're playing a game.
Speaker:God fucking damn it.
Speaker:Did you forget that?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So with advantage, that was an 11 plus 2, which is 13.
Speaker:She seems super excited about this.
Speaker:And she goes and she gets all like the biggest paper she has.
Speaker:And she actually has a few colored pencils.
Speaker:It's all the bad colors, though.
Speaker:It's like baby vomit green.
Speaker:Not good wood.
Speaker:That brown that's too red.
Speaker:You know, the one isn't useful for anything in the world because it's like a little too red.
Speaker:So you think you got the right brown, and you start coloring in your cool tree, and you're like, oh, that's a red brown.
Speaker:And then you've basically created a murder scene.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then the yellow that doesn't show up.
Speaker:So the first thing that Book learns about himself when he sees this is that his favorite color is vomit green.
Speaker:Just that real pale sickly yellow green.
Speaker:I hate that for you, and I hate that for me.
Speaker:And the other thing that he learns about himself, oh, the other thing that he realizes actually, as Calista is pouring over this Book and looking at the different kingdoms and phylum and classes and orders and families and genuses and species, is that this web system that he just came up with, that's not just good at classifying animals.
Speaker:This web system might help him figure out some other stuff in his life.
Speaker:I really like that moment of inspiration.
Speaker:So you finish up your lesson with Calista, you run back home.
Speaker:The first thing that I do is I run to the stack of files and loose papers and all of the things that I've been collecting over the years, not just at this point, not just about my parents, but all of the weird things that have been happening around town.
Speaker:And I look at the large flat wall, this cave surface opposite my bed.
Speaker:I grab all of the loose scraps of nails and a hammer and some twine.
Speaker:And this is when I first start to build my mystery board.
Speaker:What are some of the first things you put on that mystery board?
Speaker:Right at the top, in as bold letters as charcoal allows you to write without smearing, is just my parents.
Speaker:And then from there, he starts to lay out all of the clues that he has.
Speaker:And again, the biggest one that we've identified so far is all of the food that they left.
Speaker:And so he starts to list all of the places where food is readily available.
Speaker:And they're all very hard to get to.
Speaker:You finally feel like there's some order in all of the things you've been feeling for this long amount of time, all of this anxiety, all these things been worrying about, trying to figure out if you should move forward or wait for them to come back to you.
Speaker:You feel like you can at least start making some progress in it.
Speaker:So I feel like there's a pretty pivotal moment in your crazy obsession and Charlie-like behavior that will surely follow in the future.
Speaker:As you're viewing this, as a reminder, this is all thrown back into your brain as you're trying to open your mind to the psychic maelstrom.
Speaker:I want current Book to make a sharp roll.
Speaker:That is a nine.
Speaker:A nine.
Speaker:That is a mixed success.
Speaker:Seeing this vision, and you don't remember having this thought back when you were this age, but reliving this in this moment before you open your mind to the psychic maelstrom to make friends with these dumb wolves, you feel like there has to be some sort of connection.
Speaker:There's something more to the fact that you had all this food stored up.
Speaker:You know there's one source that would let your parents start accumulating this amount to keep you alive, to know that you're going to be safe, something that's preserved, but you can't quite put your finger on who it is.
Speaker:You think someone has to be the connection between your parents and the state they left you in.
Speaker:And you actually see it in your mind.
Speaker:You see the board as you made it when you were this teenager, but you see there's kind of a new circle and a new thread connecting those two points.
Speaker:I think it's a gap.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah, you see this mysterious gap.
Speaker:You see between...
Speaker:it's really about the notes that aren't played.
Speaker:And I think suddenly from underneath one of his empty files that he's now just tacked onto the wall, a picture wafts out and drops onto the ground, and I bend over to pick it up.
Speaker:And who does it show me, Stu?
Speaker:Are you trying to trick me into telling you?
Speaker:Yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to do.
Speaker:Are you trying to trick me into giving you the full success when you rolled less than a tin?
Speaker:You focus on this picture, and it's like this incomprehensible humanoid shape that you just can't put.
Speaker:And you take 2D12 psychic damage.
Speaker:No, you just can't focus on this picture.
Speaker:It seems like you're like, this is the person I should have at that moment.
Speaker:Like, this actually happened.
Speaker:You knock these files over, slid across the floor, and you see this picture, and you should have immediately picked up that picture and put it in that gap, and you feel this in your bones, but you just can't visualize who it is.
Speaker:And your mind, as you're trying to focus on this shape that's slowly starting to form into one coherent person, shoots forward four years into the future.
Speaker:You are going to a new restaurant that's opened up, called The Soggy Worm.
Speaker:This is your first time there.
Speaker:You've heard from a couple people that it's actually crazy good.
Speaker:They have these noodles that somehow still remain good.
Speaker:Most of the noodles that exist now are like turned to mush when you boil them, because they're so old.
Speaker:But they have these weird noodles that already come in Styrofoam cups, that cool new futuristic technology of Styrofoam, and they somehow still have a very good taste.
Speaker:And you go up there and you recognize Calista Furnace is one of the servers working there.
Speaker:And you haven't seen her in a little bit.
Speaker:You see her around town, but her parents have long stopped paying you for tutoring.
Speaker:You probably had that job for a little over a year before they realized she was mostly learning about dinosaurs and nothing that is actually useful to surviving an apocalypse.
Speaker:And she walks up to you and she goes, Hey, nice to meet you.
Speaker:Welcome to the soggy worm.
Speaker:Hey, and immediately I'm flustered because I know exactly who this is, but I don't want to embarrass her, so I say, Hey, nice to meet you.
Speaker:I'm Book, Book McCready.
Speaker:Book, oh, hi, I'm Callista Furness, and I will be your host and server today.
Speaker:We have an excellent assortment of noodles.
Speaker:We have a couple of chicken left, but a lot of shrimp, and they taste exactly like it sounds.
Speaker:Yeah, I'll have, which one is your favorite?
Speaker:I really like the shrimp.
Speaker:They are my favorite invertebrate.
Speaker:That's so cute.
Speaker:Yeah, that's a good word.
Speaker:I'll have a shrimp, please.
Speaker:Yeah, sure thing.
Speaker:And she goes back.
Speaker:She talks to Captain Noodles, and makes you a fucking noodle.
Speaker:And you have your first bowl of ramen, which doesn't taste good, but to you, it doesn't seem good.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Hey, so these invertebrates that you were talking about, where'd you get all that?
Speaker:Where'd you learn all that from?
Speaker:Oh, I got a bunch of books, and I made this cool collage about all the different animal types and kingdoms and phylums and families.
Speaker:Yeah, genuses.
Speaker:Yeah, genuses and species.
Speaker:I think that's it.
Speaker:Yeah, that sounds super neat.
Speaker:I'd love to see it if you'd be willing to show me sometime.
Speaker:Give me a sway roll.
Speaker:Fuck.
Speaker:That's an 11.
Speaker:That's pretty good.
Speaker:She goes, oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah, if you come by again, next time you come by here, I'll bring it.
Speaker:Do you think you're gonna...
Speaker:Do you like the food?
Speaker:Are you gonna come by often?
Speaker:This is the best thing I've ever tasted.
Speaker:Oh, I really like it too.
Speaker:I'm glad you like it.
Speaker:But thank you so much for coming by.
Speaker:I will definitely show you that next time you're here.
Speaker:I gotta help some other customers though.
Speaker:Yeah, sorry, I didn't want to keep you.
Speaker:I don't want to keep you.
Speaker:It's okay.
Speaker:Thank you for coming by.
Speaker:And she goes and starts helping other customers.
Speaker:And I hold this nearly empty Cup-O noodles closer to my chest than I had held anything since my favorite stuffed animal disintegrated 10 years ago.
Speaker:As you look into this bowl of noodles at this, it's mostly just some broth and those really, really bad carrots that I don't know if they actually ever were carrots or just dyed orange styrofoam.
Speaker:Almost certainly the latter.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't think they could possibly be.
Speaker:There are pieces of corn that...
Speaker:If you mush up corn, it's mushy.
Speaker:But it gets harder somehow.
Speaker:But they're like flakes of corn.
Speaker:But corn does not come in flakes.
Speaker:Have you heard of corn flakes?
Speaker:Fuck, you've got me on that one.
Speaker:And you shoot back in time to...
Speaker:You're sitting, your parents are still there.
Speaker:You're back at a time when you had a nuclear family unit, the worst type, and you're eating a bowl of corn flakes.
Speaker:You're eating this bowl of corn flakes, crunching along happily, and your dad comes up and he goes, Now, sport!
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yes!
Speaker:Yes!
Speaker:Now, sport!
Speaker:I'm gonna need you to clean up real nice today.
Speaker:We're gonna be gone a little bit longer than we usually are, but I want it to look nice and homely here when I come back.
Speaker:Okay, dad!
Speaker:And I know you're the man for the job.
Speaker:You betcha!
Speaker:I think you're gonna have to...
Speaker:You know how I showed you how to use the can opener last week?
Speaker:I think so.
Speaker:How about you show me?
Speaker:I know you're having corn flakes, but do you know what goes great with corn flakes?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Corn.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:So we're gonna grab one of these cans of corn here, and you're gonna show me how that can opener works.
Speaker:Okay, so...
Speaker:Alright, so you set down the can, and you open up the handle, and then you bite down like you would on an apple.
Speaker:Let me try something challenging role.
Speaker:And then you twist it around all the way home.
Speaker:Nine.
Speaker:Nine?
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:You put it in there, and you start, you smash it down.
Speaker:It's hard for your young hands to be able to break that seal, but you go around like twice before it pierces downwards, you weaken that can, and you start grinding through it.
Speaker:And as you finish it, the top falls straight down into the corner with your delicate kid fingers.
Speaker:It's nearly impossible to get out without cutting yourself, but your dad still looks at you and goes, great job!
Speaker:You did wonderful!
Speaker:And he helps, he pushes it down, scoops out the top for you, throws it away in the trash can, and goes, you did a great job!
Speaker:While we're gone, I think you're going to have to start eating some of this canned food, because it's going to be a while before we're back, but I promise you, we're going to be in a much better future when we're back here.
Speaker:And I look behind me, or I look over my right shoulder, and I see the cans that he's talking about, and they are stacked from floor to ceiling, covering the large flat wall that would later be coated in my mysteries and clues.
Speaker:Give me a sharp roll.
Speaker:Nine.
Speaker:Nine.
Speaker:I'm really close.
Speaker:Right through the middle.
Speaker:Really close.
Speaker:All of these Google is too good at being random.
Speaker:And you hear your dad say to you, and he goes, Now, if you're ever in any trouble, just go talk to...
Speaker:And I promise he'll look out for you.
Speaker:And I turn my head up to my dad.
Speaker:Well, who was that dad?
Speaker:You know him.
Speaker:You know, he works down...
Speaker:And you should go just anything you need.
Speaker:Just ask...
Speaker:I've talked to him about our situation, and he'll make sure you're okay.
Speaker:And I don't want to disappoint my dad.
Speaker:So I say, okay, I'll try.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm sure you will, Spore.
Speaker:And he ruffles your head.
Speaker:I giggle and kind of blush, but I'm not going to make the noises for that.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:And he goes, now get to cleaning up.
Speaker:So while I'm having these memories, and I'm able to break away from them for a second, and I start to think about people who would have access to food or be able to find food, especially cans, and I think about the can of beans that I shared with my good friend Ocean.
Speaker:And I start to ask myself, and I start to think about where my parents got all that food.
Speaker:And I also start to think about, you know, the people who I've gone to really rely on.
Speaker:And I wonder, how long has Ocean been in Hamlet opening?
Speaker:Your mind shoots forward to not the first time you met Ocean, but the first time you interact with them.
Speaker:Your good bean story, which I'm not going to recreate because I think it's going to be very special for you guys to have to play that out at some point.
Speaker:But you're sharing beans with Ocean.
Speaker:You look up to that big blank wall that is now filled with, over these years, you've added dozens of new categories, lines.
Speaker:You've mixed charcoal and yarn and marker all over this wall, connecting these different things.
Speaker:They all have different meanings.
Speaker:You see on the floor in the corner, there was a painting that used to be hung up in that area.
Speaker:One of the first times your power was shut off for a significant amount of time, you broke it in anger because in that painting, it's from when a group of people first came to this area and started setting up, and it has your parents in it, so you did, you kept it around a long time for that purpose, but it also has Hickory Fleek in it, so that's why you were upset and you smashed that painting.
Speaker:But there's also one other person in that painting who has been around this entire time.
Speaker:I think back to our earlier episodes, and I remember you saying that the bartender who runs the broken leg, that he was a de facto leader of the town for a while.
Speaker:You know, he owns a bar, the only successful bar in town, and the only place where people have enough respect for each other to not bring in their weapons most of the time.
Speaker:And then, I wonder about, you know, the role that my parents had in the town.
Speaker:And maybe, you know, maybe they had influence too, but it's not sharp enough for me to really put that together.
Speaker:And so, in my mind's mystery board, I have that gap between my parents and all the food that they left me and that sustained me for so long.
Speaker:I know that Ocean fits that gap because he is great at finding things, and that's what I rely on him for now.
Speaker:So part of me wants to believe that maybe he was doing that all along, but he's not that much older than me.
Speaker:And then I think about Juniper, the bartender, and I think about the almost fatherly gaze that he always casts in my direction.
Speaker:I start to move Juniper towards that gap.
Speaker:As you pick up this picture, this form materializes in more clarity and sharpens until you do see a look of Juniper that you haven't seen on his face probably in person since you've been able to remember him.
Speaker:But you see a big smile on his face and his arm around your dad on one side, and he has a big shotgun leaning over his other shoulder with a hickory in the middle with his arms spread across, almost photobombing the picture.
Speaker:And you put that right in that gap, a gap that you still know exists in your current insane scrawling wall.
Speaker:And then you opened your mind to the psychic maelstrom.
