SBR 1.31: Nevertheless

There are places in depths of the world, under miles of ocean or stone, where creatures are born, live, and die… entirely in darkness.

Welcome back to Spirit Box Radio.

[INTRO MUSIC]

Hello Faithful Listeners. Good news is I wasn’t asleep for the entire week this week. In fact, I didn’t sleep at all.

Not really.

I… well. I don’t really understand what’s been going on, to be honest with you Faithful Listeners, but to those of you asking on the Forums, I can tell you that you’re officially all I have left.

I can’t reach Kitty. Anna won’t talk to me. Rhytidia answers the phone but hangs up when she hears it’s me on the other end of the line. M… is. Dead. And Oliver.

Oliver is gone.

I tried to call him, I can’t get through.

I went to the shop and it—

It’s boarded up.

He’s really, really gone.

He left. He left me, like they’ve all left me—

[DEEP BREATH]

There is no use dwelling on it. And you know. Better to have loved and lost than. Not that I. Anyway. So, that’s it! Just us. That’s it.

I, um. I have an augury forecast for you, Faithful Listeners!

You know. It’s strange. I found this once scrawled in the back of a book. Anyway. Here it is, faithful listeners!!

Three eggs in the nest are pointed eastward, the fourth is pointing west. There is trouble on the horizon. Cautiousness is best.

A hawk flies against the wind across the river, the line of it’s path charts the route towards the cliff. Tread lightly or risk a downfall.

The snapdragons dance in the morning breeze: do not trust Jim. He lied about the almond milk.

Do not try the door. It is unlocked. And you do not want to see what lies behind it.

And so concludes the Augury Forecast!

[SIGH]

You know, at some point, maybe I’ll try my hand at Augury! I’d love to learn.

Speaking of the forums, we’ve had a wild time on there this week with a few people talking about. You know. Whatever. Happened. Last week. But nobody has been able to contribute anything. Uh. Useful.

The thread about the Man in the Flat Cap still doesn’t seem like it can be deleted so. Yeah. And it seems like there have continued to be intermittent problems with the Spirit Box Services. People are getting more messages, but ones that don’t seem to make any sense based on the questions they’ve been asking.

None of it is anything too alarming, mind you, just the odd cry for help, and a couple of mentions of doorways, just a few bits like that. Please remember to update the forums if you’re trying to hold commune; please. It makes everything so much easier,

Anyway, the big news on the forum this week, well. Besides. You know. Me. Which you really don’t need to… I mean, I understand why you speculate. If it were someone else and I were on the forums I’m sure I’d speculate, too. But I’m fine, I promise you. And I—

I don’t know.

I just feel more collected? When I’m airing the show? I’m sorry. I don’t mean to keep doing this to you. I don’t mean to keep spilling the beans but. I don’t know. I look forward to airing the segment all week and I suppose I just get carried away? But.

Oh, ugh, it’s more than that. I feel like I can think more clearly when I turn on the microphone. Like the times between the Enlightenment Segments are just… waiting. For the next time for it to air. And it was less bad for a couple of weeks, you know. With Oliver.

But. Now I just.

[SIGH]

I’m doing it again, sorry, sorry.

Forums. News.

Right. Uh

There was a new thread started this week about a children’s program that seemed to have aired in the 1990s, I think? It was started by Maisie from Bridgend. Here’s what they had to say.

Hey Faithful Listeners!

Long time forums lurker here. I was wondering if any of you remember this weird show that started to air in the 1990s? I’d actually clean forgotten about it until the other day, but my brother paid me a visit, and he said he’d stayed up late the other night and fallen asleep on the couch with the telly on, and when he woke up, there was a rerun of this show we used to watch when we were kids.

The show was Counting with Courtney Q. It was one of those shows with different segments in it, all of them designed to teach kids a different sort of skill. There were the silly shapes, who were cartoon shapes who’d get chased around by a live-action hand holding a pencil and eraser, and changed into different shapes. I always liked that one because they’d sing a little song about how many sides they’d gained or lost. There was Miss Mouse, who taught children about animals and the food chain. I didn’t like that one so much because I didn’t like to think about animals eating each other. There were a few others I can’t really remember; about keeping fit, one about healthy eating, I think, but the one I remember the most, the one my brother was calling around to tell me about, was Guessy Jessie.

Guessy Jessie was a small felt doll. She’s ostensibly to teach kids logical thinking. Jessie always guesses wrong. Jessie never speaks and makes all of her guesses by pointing and nodding and shaking their head, and sometimes at the end of the segment, Jessie would tell the narrator she has a riddle. The riddle would pop up on the screen and the answer would be blank and stay blank and never be answered. It was pretty fun, actually, though it probably did our mum’s head in that we never got the answer because after a little while speculating about it, we’d inevitably go and pester her about it.

To my memory, all of Guessy Jessie’s riddles were really common ones, you know, like ‘Round like an apple, deep like a cup, all the kings horses can’t pull me up, what am I?’ or, the classic ‘thirty white horses upon a red hill’ one.

Anyway, my brother was calling because he’d switched on the telly the other day and Counting with Courtney Q was on, and he was suddenly feeling all nostalgic so he sat down to watch it for a little while, and it just so happened to be an episode with a Guessy Jessie segment. When it got to the end, Jessie huddled to the edge of the screen and the narrator asked her, ‘what’s that, Guessy Jessie? do you have a riddle’ and Jessie nodded her little felt head, and raised a felt hand as though covering her mouth. And then the narrator said.

‘Now the door is open it cannot be closed, and you have to walk through. I wonder what that could mean! What do you think children?’

And then that was the end of the segment.

My brother was really perplexed; like I say, the riddles were really common ones in hindsight, and so he felt really silly that he couldn’t figure this one out, and he couldn’t seem to find out anything about it when he looked it up online, either. I couldn’t work it out, either, which is weird because I really love riddles and I’m actually pretty good at solving them, if I do say so myself.

After he left, I thought I’d look it up and see what I could find, too. But I couldn’t find anything. Not just about the riddle, but nothing about Guessy Jessie, nothing about Counting with Courtney Q at all. And then yesterday I thought I’d give the Spirit Box services run by Spirit Box Radio a go for more general reasons, and. Well. I heard the theme song to Counting with Courtney Q. the channels were skipping, I could hear the little skippy hiss that underpins everything, but, it was the theme tune, barely interupted. And then a voice. ‘What’s that, Guessy Jessie, do you have a riddle?’

And then my laptop crashed.

I’m not sure if it’s just more of the same problems other people seem to have been having with the Spirit Box, or if it was my laptop, somehow. Or maybe I’m just losing my mind.

Anyway! I thought this was the place for it to find out either way.

Stay spooky, love Maisie (they/them)

Thanks for bringing this to the attention of the forums, Maisie! Because we’ve been getting these strange interferences with the Spirit Box service, what you heard might just be an extension of that, but as several forum users have pointed out, the likelihood of music to come through a Spirit Box is extremely low, not when you’re using it properly. Which does beg the question, actually. Are we using the Spirit Box properly?

Unfortunately I have no idea how to even begin to answer that question.

A couple of users on the forums seem to have recollections of Counting with Courtney Q, and—

[PHONE RINGING]

Oh. Sorry about that interruption, Faithful Listeners! I should answer, in case it’s Kitty, or… I don’t know. I should answer.

SAM: Hello, you are live on Spirit Box Radio!

MC: Hello? Hello? Is that Sam? Sam Enfield?

SAM: Uh. Yes. It is. Who is this?

MC: I– I don’t know.

SAM: I’m sorry?

MC: No, don’t worry about it. I just. It’s funny. I woke up here and the only name I knew was yours. I thought it was mine, but it isn’t.

SAM: You woke up where?

MC: I– I’m sorry. I don’t know, exactly. Sometimes I think it’s a train station. Other times it’s a street I half remember. Sometimes its a small room. But it’s never all there. When I try to look at things for too long, they shift under my gaze. It won’t… settle.

SAM: But you’re calling me?

MC: There was a phone. I picked it up, now I’m talking to you. It’s the first thing I’ve been able to touch.

SAM: But you knew my name?

MC: Yes. I heard you say it, like I was thinking it myself. You– you said ‘I’m Sam Enfield’

SAM: Is that all?

MC: No. There was… more. In bits. It was indistinct at first. But then it got stronger. And now, the phone. And I’m speaking to you.

SAM: Do you remember what was happening? Before this?

MC: I don’t… know. Not exactly. Flashes. Moments. I remember. Water. Gallons and gallons. Light pouring through it in shafts above me. Fish. Cold so deep it burned, the weight of the water pressing into me from all sides. Sam. Sam Enfield. I think. I think I am dead.

SAM: …what?

MC: Yes. That’s it. I’m dead, Sam Enfield. And you did this to me.

SAM: I killed you?

MC: No, no, you um. You trapped me here. Caught me here. Suspended in a last gasp.

SAM: I— Suspension at the moment of death. Oliver. That’s what he said had happened to him. But he’s not trapped in some… nowhere place. Not like you. He’s living and breathing. Or, well. Arguably live. He’d dispute that.

But who cares what he thinks.

MC: I was a friend to Madame Marie. She brought you to me. You were so small. I remember you called my name. She thought you could do it. She thought you could suspend me.

SAM: But, that doesn’t make any sense! She thought I was useless.

MC: She lied.

SAM: But why?

MC: She was trying to save herself.

SAM: Herself? Not me?

MC: You are the gift. There is always a price.

SAM: And she thought she could avoid paying it by telling me I couldn’t perform the arcane arts? I don’t understand. Those people talking to Madame Marie, they said she’d meddled with the Arcane in ways she wasn’t supposed to. She was desperate, or something. That’s why these things came for her. They’re working with him. The man in the shell suit and the flat cap.

The King with the Blood Rose Crown. He walks here and there and leaves a trail of blood and petals. Deal with the King of the Blood Rose Crown and pay in blood and body.

SAM: How do you know all of this?

MC: I– I don’t— I don’t know. Sam Enfield. I’m sorry, I can’t help you.

SAM: Why did you call me?

MC: I am yours, now.

SAM: What do you mean?

MC: Those you called back, we are yours to command.

SAM: I don’t understand? What do you mean called back. I don’t get it! On the phone?

MC: Ghost maker.

SAM: What?

MC: Ghost maker. Heir Apparent of the Blood Rose Crown. I am your servant until you release me.

SAM: But — no I. I don’t want that! How do I release you?

MC: You must know it in yourself. You must believe it in yourself. You must understand it in yourself.

SAM: But I don’t!

MC: And so I am yours, like the others.

SAM: What others?

MC: I do not know. I am not here. [ECHOING]

SAM: Please, help me!

MC: I do not know. I am not here. [ECHOING]

SAM: I’ll do anything. Please.

MC: I do not know. I am not here—- [ECHOING] So I am yours to command [ECHOING] I do not know…

[disconnection tone]

SAM: NO! Please! Come back! Please come back!

Come back.

I don’t want to be alone anymore. You said you’d help me, so help me! Come back.

They’re all gone.

It’s because of me. It’s all my fault. I did this. I’m bad, I’m wrong, there is something wrong with me or M wouldn’t have done this. She wouldn’t have done this!

I’m wrong. I’m broken. I’m bad. Gods, I just wish there was someone listening besides you, Faithful Listeners. Knowing you’re there, I feel okay, but I just wish that someone. Anyone. No. Not anyone.

I want M. I want to talk to M, but.

RECORDING MACHINE: I have a message for you.

[PAUSE]

SAM: What?

RECORDING MACHINE: He asked me to tell you he’s listening. [PAUSE] That’s it, that’s the message.

SAM: W-when did you get that?

RECORDING MACHINE: I didn’t.

SAM: He’s listening. He’s listening. To the show. The man in the flat cap is listening to the show.

I. Gods. I.

I need to go, Faithful Listeners.

Goodnight.

| Content Warnings |

– Background music of varying volumes

– Distorted vocals, including vocals with an echo effect

– Discussion of death

– Complex grieving for an abusive/neglectful parent

– Brief, undetailed description of death by drowning (no SFX, one sentence)

– Implications of child neglect

– Abandonment/issues coping with abandonment

– Self-loathing and negative self-talk

– Sounds of emotional distress (shaky voices)

– Crying/sniffling (very mild)

Have we missed something? Tell us here.