Click for Content Warnings
- Grief and references to past trauma
- Stereo audio (audio which sounds different in each headphone)
- Distorted vocal effects (echoing, heavy reverberation)
- Static
- Loud Crashes
- Panic/distress
- Mentions of blood/nosebleeds
- Sounds of emotional distress (crying, gasping breaths)
- Mentions of blood/nosebleeds
- References to childhood neglect
- References to death
- Mentions of childhood trauma (emotional and physical)
- Mentions of violence against a child
- Mentions of caves and being trapped in caves
Transcript
SPIRIT BOX SKIPPING, VOICES WARPED AND STRANGE
KITTY: … what in seventh hell is going on…
SAM, BUT AS HE SOUNDED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SHOW: …like the beady eye of the beast, and along with the prickling feeling I usually get…
M: …you don’t have to be any of that, alright? Listen! You don’t have to so this, you understand me?
STATIC, SPIRIT BOX SKIPPING
SCOURGE, HIS VOICE AS THOUGH ON THE RADIO: Hello, little bit.
SAM: Hello?
SPIRIT BOX SKIPPING STOPS ABRUPTLY.
M: Are you him? Are you the one who walks here and there?
FAST SPIRIT BOX SKIPPING
QUIET.
THE ARCANE SHIMMERS.
A STRANGE, DISTORTED WIND BLOWS
REVEL: Prrn.
SAM: Revel?
REVEL: Mrah!
SAM: What are… how. How are you here? Where even is here?
REVEL: Mreep!
SAM: No, Revel, wait come back I–
A WHISPERY VOICE, OTHER, CALLS SAM’S NAME MANY TIMES, QUIETLY, FROM ALL DIRECTIONS
OTHER: This is the end. Welcome back.
SAM: Am I dead?
OTHER: Yes and no.
SAM: What’s that supposed to mean.
OTHER: Yes and no.
SAM: Where am I?
OTHER: Unknown.
SAM: What?
OTHER: Unknown.
SAM: I don’t understand.
OTHER: Of course you don’t. It is the unknown. It is unknown. It cannot be known. It cannot be understood. It is the furthest reach of all there is. It is everything and nothing. It is everywhere and nowhere. It is unknown.
SAM: It’s the arcane.
OTHER: Unknown. The unknown is the end and the beginning. The source all things flow from, the force that draws them back. It is the birth and death of everything. It is nothing and nothing more.
SAM: What are you?
OTHER: Other.
SAM: Other what?
OTHER: Other unknown.
SAM: And what am I?
OTHER: You are the little bit that binds us.
SAM: Little bit?
OTHER: In you is the seed that grows. I am the apple it comes from. I am the tree that bore it, the soil at its roots, the stars from which the minerals fell. I am the dust your bones will grind into. I am the End and the Beginning.
SAM: But. That’s me, isn’t it? I’m the End. I’m Death.
OTHER: A little bit.
SAM: I’m a little bit of death?
OTHER: It is a little bit of you.
SAM: And you’re a little bit of me?
OTHER: And you’re a little bit of me.
SAM: Um. Sorry. I’m just. Confused. I thought I was coming to like. Kill the Man in the Flat Cap?
OTHER: A seed on the wind. Everything and nothing. A vine that reaches out, made of ideas. All we are. A dream of the unknown. He is what happens when they try to give me shape. It will happen. It has happened. It happens and it happens and it happens.
SAM: I’m lost.
OTHER: And found.
SAM: I’m… please just. Will you help me?
OTHER: Look into the mirror.
SAM: What mirror?
BELL SOUND
SAM: Oh. That mirror.
OTHER: What do you see?
SAM: Me?
OTHER: Me.
SAM: We’re… the same?
OTHER: I’m you, but you are not me. I am Harbingers. I am the One Who Walks Here and There.
SAM: But– you can’t be all of us. We’re not the same.
OTHER: Seeds from an apple from a tree which grows from dirt filled with stardust that came from heat that bore me. You twist threads. I made the sheep whose wool the threads were spun from.
SAM: So you’re just. It. All things.
OTHER: And none.
SAM: So why am I here?
OTHER: There is no beyond.
SAM: What? But—
OTHER: We are all things. The limit is us. That is all there is. Beyond is unknown. This is beyond. There is no beyond. It is us.
SAM: Uh.
OTHER: You came to destroy him. The One Who Walks Here and There. The unknown made knowable, but only by some.
SAM: Yeah. I did.
OTHER: He seeks destroy himself, you know this. He seeks an end that does not exist.
SAM: Because we are the limit. There is no beyond. The beyond is us.
OTHER: Yes.
SAM: But. If all that’s true, then why am I like this? Why am I a monster?
OTHER: All things are capable of monstrosities, Samael. When you speak, the universe listens. The way it answers may not be how you expect.
SAM: So, what? He can’t be killed?
OTHER: He was never alive. But he is made of threads, and threads can be re-picked.
SAM: The Redistribution.
OTHER: There will always be something. People will always make him. But he will not be always be this. He will not always be the King of the Blood Rose Crown.
SAM: So why is he that now?
OTHER: Whispers and wishes. Hopeful mistakes. The same reasons we are all who we are.
SAM: But. He comes from somewhere.
OTHER: Yes. An accident of hopefulness. An attempt to make the unknown known. A small girl playing with stones and threads she did not understand in a place so far and long ago it does not matter at all. A frightened child trying to make sense of the monster under her bed.
SAM: He’s. He’s a story?
OTHER: Words have power, Samael. The same words spoken often enough by enough people, that can change the world.
SAM: But. How is it fair that I can do that, just me? Everything I made. I. I’m not. I’m not human.
OTHER: Your voice is amplified by those who stand behind you. You borrow their power, weave it into your own.
SAM: Spirit Box Radio.
OTHER: Yes.
SAM: I know why I’m here.
OTHER: Yes.
SAM: It’s because it’s unknown. It can’t be known. And that’s. Fine.
OTHER: Yes.
SAM: And I’m here because I don’t know.
OTHER: No. You’re here because you understand there is a limit and no limit at all. That there is no beyond and the beyond is where we already are. Possibility is endless and finite. All things must end, but everything is eternal.
SAM: So what do I do?
OTHER: Be.
SAM: There is no ‘what I’m for’. I am because I am.
OTHER: You are, therefore you are.
SAM: It means something because we choose it.
OTHER: You choose it because it means something.
SAM: So. All that stuff I did, that was you? The power? Everything?
OTHER: I am everyone and nobody. I am you and not you.
SAM: Am I god?
OTHER: Am I?
SAM: Right. Not the kind of question you answer. Do you ever answer questions properly?
OTHER: Unknown.
SAM: Well at least you have a sense of humour.
OTHER: I am the voice that whispers. I am the seed that lived in you. I am connected with all things. The unknown in your heart.
SAM: So. You’re the bit of all of this that’s inside me?
OTHER: Yes.
SAM: You’re the same as the rest of it but you’re not because you’re part of me.
OTHER: Do you know the gift and the price?
SAM: It’s me, isn’t it?
OTHER: Yes.
SAM: I don’t know what that means though. I thought I did. But I was wrong.
OTHER: It means everything and nothing.
SAM: Right. Great.
OTHER: We’ll find him, Little Bit. We’ll see.
SAM: I know what I have to do.
OTHER: We know what we have to do.
SAM: Yeah. I can’t– I can’t be him. I can’t be the Man in the Flat Cap. Making this place, I’ve just become another version of him. It doesn’t matter how hard I try to make it so there is no ending, there’s always an ending. I can’t save people from it. Because it’s not something they need saving from.
And if I keep doing this, I just. I become everything he was. I trap people against their will, I– I leech the brightness out of them. All those people he’s caught in his threads, tied up in knots he’s twisted and twisted and he has the nerve to make them out to be roses. And I’ve been doing it too. Because I was scared I was going to be what he thought I was going to be, I’ve ended up becoming him. Not quite, but almost. Too close.
I’ve been so afraid, I’m still so afraid. I’m so scared I won’t be able to fix everything and– and I can’t! I can’t.
I couldn’t bring back Jack, I couldn’t– I couldn’t make Anna happy, I couldn’t make Arlo less afraid, I couldn’t make Kitty feel like she was enough, I couldn’t make Indi trust they were loved, I couldn’t make Oliver—- I–
I can’t make it so they were never hurt.
I can’t make it so they’ll never be hurt.
I can’t fix it.
SAM CRIES
Madame Marie was right. I’m useless. I’m not special, I’m just– I’m just– I’m a foolish little boy who should have stayed away from all of this.
I’m so sorry.
I tried so hard, I really did, I–
REVEL: Prrn?
SAM: Hello, you.
REVEL: Mrrmp.
SAM: It is pretty beautiful, isn’t it?
REVEL: Mreep.
SAM: Yeah. I know it’s the end.
SAM GASPS
Oh. Oh.
The end of this! This moment of the arcane, this instant spun out into centuries which loops and loops forever, it’s the end of this! Beyond it, the real world is still there! I just need to unravel this mess. But. How? I can’t– it’s too many connections, I don’t understand how they’ve been made, all of this, it goes two ways. The balance of power is wrong – I get to speak and they get to listen, but it’s the listening that matters, or I’m just some guy talking to myself alone in a room, aren’t I? It’s the listeners that make the magic. Not me. So how could I untie all of this?
Revel–
Revel?
Where did you go?
I can’t do this alone, I—
Wait. I’m not alone. I’ve never been alone!
Hello, Faithful Listeners.
[WHISPERS OF SAM’S NAME]
SAM: Good. You are here! That’s good.
[WHISPERS OF SAM’S NAME]
That’s my old radio. Um. Thank you?
[SPIRIT BOX SKIPPING, BRIEF THEN IT STOPS]
SAM: Uh. Hello?
[ANNA’S VOICE COMES FROM THE RADIO]
ANNA: Sam?
SAM: Anna!
ANNA: Kitty, it worked! Come quickly!
KITTY: Sam, are you there?
SAM: Yeah, I’m here.
KITTY: Are you okay?
SAM: Yeah, I’m okay.
KITTY: I am going to tear your head off you IDIOT I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU ENDED THE WORLD!!
SAM: Well, no, crucially I just sort of. Paused it, but–
INDI: Why are we yelling?
ARLO: We were trying to play cards.
RHYTIDIA: Yeah, and you were cheating.
INDI: I was not cheating. Rules are arbitrary, but sometimes, as in this context, they can be fun.
SAM: Guys! You’re altogether, I–
INDI: Heir Apparent?!
ARLO: Sam!!
SAM: Hey.
ARLO: Anna’s been tinkering with that thing for weeks.
RHYTIDIA: It’s loud, too. I’ve barely got a wink of sleep.
INDI: It’s an arcane dimension, you don’t need to sleep.
RHYTIDIA: Speak for yourself, spunky.
INDI: Spunky?
KITTY: Hang on a minute, why are we all just having a nice normal chat with him? He’s gone full world-ending levels of mad with power, surely we’re past small talk!?
INDI: With you, sweetie, all talk is small.
KITTY: So’s your life expectancy.
SAM: I have missed you so much.
ANNA: How long has it been? For you, Sam. We know you were erasing our memories, but I still have a fuzzy sense of the times you started this place again. It feels like a lot of times.
SAM: Yeah. I’m sorry.
KITTY: Yeah I’m going to rend you limb from limb for that or something but can you stop it? Can you make it end?
SAM: I’ve been trying, but. I don’t think I can. Not on my own.
ANNA: That was the truth; you can’t do it alone.
SAM: You’ve found each other already; that’s good. Beth’s looking for the forums ghosts, and–
[MANY LAYERED WHISPERINGS OF ‘SAMAEL’ AND ‘HEIR APPARENT’]
BETH: Found them!
SAM: Beth!
ANNA, ARLO, INDI & KITTY: BETH!
RHYTIDIA: Who?
ANNA: I’m so glad you’re okay!
BETH: Yeah I’m fine! Try herding ghosts, though. Worse than herding cats, I swear.
SAM: Have you ever herded cats before?
BETH: No but I’m like one thousand per cent sure it wouldn’t be as difficult as that was.
SAM: Okay, listen. This place, it’s arcane, and it’s built on arcanist principles; it can’t exist if everyone here knows they’re all part of the same thing, I don’t think. If they see the connections, the threads untie, and there are– look this whole place, it needs to go, but the connections oare so strong and there are just so many I can’t do it without you. So you need to, ugh, this sounds so stupid, but. You all need to know and understand, right? You need to know. And understand.
ANNA: Know and understand what?
SAM: The arcane, it– it’s. It just is.
RHYTIDIA: I– I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m so proud.
SAM: It just is, right? It just is. And we’re it. And it’s us, and it goes on, and we go on, in strands, twisted into threads, and. Do you get it?
ANNA: I understand. But how does this help?
INDI: Yeah, come on, Sparky, I want to get out of here.
SAM: Yeah, okay, I know, I know. Right. You say it often enough, with the same intention, it becomes true. Things are going to get rocky. But you just need to know, right, that there is a reality on the other side of this. No matter what happens, no matter what you see. There’s a reality and we’re all a part of it, and we’re all connected. Do you get what I’m saying.
KITTY: I get it, but, Sam, I–
SAM: You said it’s just vibes, right?
KITTY: Yes, but–
SAM: It is. It’s just vibes. I know. It’s just vibes. But keep using the radio like you’ve been using it, okay? Keep talking, keep explaining. Tell them what the arcane is. Tell them the truth about where they are. Make them understand. The more of them that know, the more power it has, and the easier it will be to end it.
INDI: Wait, before you go– and I do hate to ask, believe me – did you kill the Unrelenting?
SAM: No. He did stab me though, which is a nice little spin on things.
ANNA: He what!?
SAM: Doesn’t matter, long story, busy things, we need to get out of here, don’t we?!
ANNA: Yes.
SAM: Good. Okay. Spread those vibes.
[SPIRIT BOX SKIPPING]
BETH: What about us?
SAM: Stay with me? But. Quietly. Alright?
BETH: Okay. And what are you going to do whilst we’re here being all silent and ominous.
SAM: Well. To get this place to end, we all need to agree we want it to. And there’s one other person here who’s got enough power to sway what sort of ending that will be.
BETH: What do you mean, ‘what sort of ending’?
SAM: Well. He wanted to end the world. If too many people are too scared, then–
BETH: Then when the threads start to fray–
SAM: We all slip through them. Along with everything in existence. Theoretically.
BETH: Damn.
SAM: Yeah. This is why it’s probably a bad idea to like. Try to run the universe if you’re just one guy.
BETH: Well I could have told you that for free.
SAM: Yeah.
[SAM SIGHS]
BETH: We’re with you Sam.
[WHISPERING ‘SAMAEL’ & ‘HEIR APPARENT’]
SAM: Thank you. I know.
[SAM TAKES A DEEP BREATH]
White Door?
Take me to my dad.
[THE DOOR CREAKS]
[A DOG BARKS]
SAM: Hey, girl, hey! Hi. You’re a good girl, yes you are!
[HOPE, THE DOG, YIPS AND PANTS EXCITEDLY]
THE MAN IN THE FLAT CAP: Ah. Sam. Finally.
SAM: Hello.
TMITFC: Fine place you’ve thrown together, here. Not quite what I expected. But there’s quite a lot of human in you, I suppose, so it makes sense that you’d have trouble letting go.
[SNIP OF SHEARS, DISTANT SCREAMING]
TMITFC: They always do.
SAM: You know why I’m here.
TMITFC: To do your job, I expect.
SAM: You are on another level of arrogance, you know? I tried to remake the world, I guess, but you? You tried to make Death into something you can control.
TMITFC: I don’t need to control you. You’ll do exactly what I want anyway.
SAM: That’s… you see how that’s still attempting to control something, right? Right?
TMITFC: I’ve accounted for the variables, Samael, on account of the fact that I am the variables.
SAM: Again. Arrogant. You’re not the variables. You’re the space where the variables may or may not be.
DONNY: And in what way is that meaningfully different?
SAM: That’s like saying what’s the meaningful difference between a box and the cat inside of it, whether or not the cat is dead.
DONNY: Well then. If you’re not here to do your job, what are you here for?
SAM: No, no, you’re right, I am here to do my job. I just don’t think you’re going to like what it’s going to look like.
DONNY: And why’s that?
SAM: You’ve not accounted for all the variables.
DONNY: Look. I’m tired of this. Of all of this.
SAM: I know, and you want it to be over, don’t you? Which is interesting, isn’t it. Tell me again what it is you want out of this?
DONNY: To go to a place where I know I will belong, beyond the bounds of this realm of existence into–
SAM: Yeah, sorry, there is no beyond.
DONNY: You don’t know that. It is the great unknown. The place I am from.
SAM: Oh, gods. Is that what you think?
DONNY: Well, I am, aren’t I? So it follows that I’m from something. And I can’t be from here. This place full of rules and predictions, threads that will always lead somewhere, even if it’s not where you expect. It’s all so dull. It’s all so known.
SAM: You’ve made a fundamental mistake about the nature of existence.
DONNY: Is that so? Tell me, then, oh Master of Death, when it was that you became so acquainted with the exact function of existence beyond reality?
SAM: Look, right. I’m not Death. I’m just a little bit of it. Your little harbinger Scourge knew that, so why didn’t you?
DONNY: Scourge? What could he know that I don’t?
SAM: You really don’t get it, do you? Beyond the existence there is nothing! Nothing.
DONNY: Precisely! And that’s what I want. The greatest unknown of all. I’m the Arcane, the Unknown, and the fear of it. I’m the thing at the edge of your periphery that’s gone when you turn your head. The shape in the alleyway. The thing that goes bump in the night.
SAM: No. You’re not. Not really. How could you be? How could you be all of the unknown? It’s unknown! And you? You’re knowable!
DONNY: Yes, but–
SAM: No, no, someone was telling me, there’s known unknowns and unknown unknowns and– ugh, look it doesn’t matter. What matters is the thing you want, the place you think you’re going to feel most at home in, that great beyond? Doesn’t exist. You want to know what’s on the other side of existence? I’ll answer it now, with something I’m absolutely certain of. Whatever’s beyond the boundary, it’s not existence. You can’t be there. There is no there to be in. There’s just nothing. Nothing and nothing and nothing.
DONNY: You don’t know that.
SAM: Yes I do!
DONNY: And you have the nerve to call me arrogant!?
SAM: The unknown has no voice! The unknown does not speak! Nor does the arcane! And the arcane and the unknown are not the same thing, they aren’t even similes! ‘Arcane’ just means obscure. Known only by a few. Exclusive. Above everything else, that’s you, isn’t it? Sowing seeds to keep everyone as far apart from each other as possible. Even me.
DONNY: The more distance–
SAM: The less is known between, yeah, I get it, seek but don’t search, yearn but don’t bother to try and change anything, self-limit and shut yourself off, that’s your whole deal, I KNOW.
[SAM’S VOICE ECHOES FOR A MOMENT]
And you know what else I know? You only want the world to end because you think it means you will be able to go back to something you think you are missing.
[SAM SPEAKS MORE SOFTLY NOW]
All this time, the thing you’ve wanted is the thing you don’t want anyone to have. You want to understand where you’re from, what it means, why you’re here, what your place is in the world. You want to connect with your past. You think there’s a before to go back to. But there is no before, Donny. And there won’t be an after. There can’t be. That’s what existence is. There’s only this.
DONNY: [FURIOUS] Don’t make me laugh. ‘The moment’ is so fleeting, any idea you could live in it is ridiculous. A moment is so small it can’t even be recorded. It’s one dimensional, it can’t be portrayed.
SAM: [SO SOFTLY] Look, okay, I spent most of my… life? Existence? Whatever I’ve been doing, most of it, I’ve had no memory of my past. I didn’t know what I was like as I kid or a teenager. I didn’t have chance to really be a teenager at all because I was unconscious, and as I child, well. Turns out I knew the future, then, which feels a bit backwards to me but it is what it is, isn’t it? And that whole time I still knew who I was, even though I didn’t have any of that information. I could not know my name, I could forget everything again, and I would still know who I am because I’m not those things, I’m not the past or my memories, I’m just myself. Everything else can be taken away but not that.
DONNY: Who are you, then? You say you’re not Death, then what are you?
SAM: Samael. Heir Apparent to the Blood Rose Crown! No, wait. I am not Samael Apollo Enfield King or Heir to the Blood Rose Crown, not Ghost Maker, not the End, I’m– I’m just Sam.
DONNY: If you don’t remember where you came from—
SAM:I remember! Even if I don’t, I carry it with me! Everyone does! But it’s not who they are, is it? Our pasts aren’t what makes us, where we come from doesn’t define our identity, even if it shapes it. Even if everyone does owe the present to the past, that’s not a debt that can ever be paid off, is it? Not even with photographing and marking down every passing second. So why write down every moment? You can’t ever have them back once they’re gone, and before you know it, all your memories will be of you collecting your memories, and then what? You’re just a snake eating its own tail.
DONNY: Eternal.
SAM: No! Confused and in pain and about to die! It’s not about the details. Tracing every butterfly effect that led us here will not help us take the next step forward. Even death, it’s not a thing, it’s not an event, it’s a process, and when it seems like it’s over, it’s not, because everyone nearby, they still have that, don’t they? You’re mourned, and your body is burnt and the pieces of you drift on the wind, breathed in by rabbits in fields, or you rot in the earth and it holds you like a blanket until the pieces of you are indistinguishable from the pieces of everything else, and your friends play your favourite records and remember how you sang along to the chorus, and people who saw you on the street remember the skirt you were wearing when you walked past, and everything is a part of everything else and it all means nothing!
[DONNY IS UTTER FURIOUS]
DONNY: Centuries upon millennia of being sought but not searched for, thousands of deals struck with the desperate for answers, it amounts to nothing? There’s… no meaning behind any of it?
SAM: Of course there’s meaning. There’s meaning because of us. Not you and me, but everyone whose alive. We are the things that make meaning, and I don’t mean as gods of arcane forces, but as things that think and feel in this world. There is no ‘point’, no grand meaning to be unveiled, no great beyond to be discovered, no hallowed past to return to. There’s just this. And this is the point.
DONNY: But that can’t be right. How would I exist if it were? How could something like me ever happen?
SAM: Same as everyone else; people made you.
DONNY: No.
SAM: Yeah. You’re a story.
DONNY: That’s ridiculous.
SAM: Is it? Isn’t that what all this stuff is? Magic, the thing we’ve been calling ‘the arcane’? Each thread a different direction people’s stories could take, connected to a thousand other stories. When human beings die they live on in the stories that are told about them.
DONNY: You don’t know what I’ve done. You don’t know what I’ve seen. You have no idea what it has taken for me to get to this place. Don’t you understand how close I am to the ending I’ve always wanted?
SAM: You don’t have to be scared.
[DONNY IS ON THE VERGE OF TEARS]
DONNY: Scared? I— I can’t be scared. I am the thing that scares!
SAM: No. That’s just the story you’ve been telling about yourself. But it’s not the only one there is. We make the meanings, remember? You don’t have to play this part you’ve cast yourself in.
DONNY: Who would want this part?!
SAM: Someone who’s afraid of letting go.
DONNY: [SMALL] I’m not afraid.
SAM: Yes you are! That’s what this is all about. There will always be a figure that looms at the edge of what we know. But we don’t have to be scared of you. And you shouldn’t be like this, stuck somewhere between living and remembering, like a walking obituary, dragging the past and all its rotten bagged with you wherever you go and trying to make everyone else as scared as you are.
[GENTLY, NOW]
But you don’t have to be afraid. There is nothing to be scared of. After this? There’s just more this. It’s going to be okay.
DONNY: Don’t you want to be king?
SAM: [REASSURINGLY] The only good thing a king can do is step down. This is not the only story we could tell. We don’t have to be scared. Do you understand?
DONNY: No.
SAM: Okay. You don’t have to understand. You just have to trust me.
DONNY: [BROKENLY] I don’t know if I can.
SAM: [SOFTLY] Well. I do. Just. Let go. Let it all go. You don’t have to do anything. You can just. Be. So just be.
DONNY: I don’t know how.
SAM: Nobody does. And it’s okay.
DONNY: No.
SAM: Please, just, just listen to me–
DONNY: [LIKE A TOLD-OFF CHILD] And who the hell are you to decide power on my behalf!?
SAM: I’m Sam. brother of Anna and Kitty, partner to Oliver Boleyn, friend of the Spirit Box Radio forums, of Beth and Emily and Indi and Bliss and Rowan and Mystery and Julius and Rhytidia and Brynn and Kal and Tal and Karl and Seth and Char and Moth and Cicada and thousands more. I am Temporary host of Spirit Box Radio!
And this is not your story. It’s mine. And I’m telling you that you’ll let it all go.
DONNY: But–
SAM: Every thread you’re holding, it falls away, like a sigh on the wind, and here, at the end of it all, you finally realise.
DONNY: I realise what?
SAM: It’s okay.
[ARCANE SHIMMERS]
It’s alright.
You don’t have to be scared any more. You can just let go. It’s time. And the pieces of you won’t disappear; they scatter. They become a part of everything else, just like they were before they were a part of you.
And that’s the end–
THINGS RATTLE
SAM GASPS
Unghffm.
Oh yes.
Mmmmfff.
Oh I’m feeling very stabbed in the chest right now, Faithful Listeners.
PAPER IS FLUTTERING, WIND IS HOWLING
Oh it’s all– it’s all falling in on itself.
I can’t breathe– I can’t–
[CREAKS AND GROANS; DISTANT OBJECTS FALL AND CRUMBLE]
[SAM GROANS]
Oh, gods. Oh. It’s.
I can’t–
I can’t on for long.
OTHER: Let it go.
SAM: How?
OTHER: Like a sigh in the wind.
SAM: Am I dying?
OTHER: Did you ever live?
SAM: That’s not fair. That’s not fair! None of this is fair. I don’t want to die. I– haven’t I suffered enough!?
OTHER: Your nose is bleeding.
SAM: Huh. It is. And–
[SAM GROANS]
SAM: In the garden. I– I’m still human! I’m not just arcane! I’m still human. My body’s alive. I just need to find the right thread.
[SOUNDS OF EFFORT]
[ARCANE SHIMMERS]
[WIND BLOWS, RAIN HAMMERS]
SAM: Just– a little further–
OLIVER: Sam!
SAM: Oh, you’re here. Of course you’re here. Yeah. Of course.
OLIVER: What are you– you look– you’re bleeding, why are you bleeding?
SAM: Yeah, I sorta–
[SAM HISSES THROUGH HIS TEETH]
OLIVER: You’re dying, oh my god.
SAM: I don’t know. I don’t think so, not if I just need to find the right thread.
OLIVER: You liar, you lied to me, you said you’d never let me go, you promised.
[SAM LAUGHS THINLY]
SAM: Light of my life, that was not a promise, it was a threat.
OLIVER: It’s all the same with you.
SAM: Yeah.
[SAM MAKES A SOUND]
OLIVER: What’s happening!!
SAM: The arcane is unravelling.
OLIVER: Well, stop it!
SAM: I can’t. Not now. Nobody could and nobody is meant to. Just trying is– it’s agony, honestly. I need to let go.
OLIVER: But– you’re arcane, Sam! It’s what you are. If you let it unravel, what– what about you?
SAM: Well, isn’t everyone is arcane, to more or less of a degree? And that’s— that’s the thing, see? The thing they didn’t understand. I may be a monster but I’m human, too. And we’re all made out of stars. You and me, we’re dust from the same one, I think.
OLIVER: You’re not making any sense.
SAM: I’m bleeding out, sweetheart, I’m trying my best.
OLIVER: Fix this, fix it! Put it back together.
SAM: Sh, Oliver. I need to let go. It’s going to be alright. I’m going to be alright.
OLIVER: You don’t know that.
SAM: Of course I do. I know it the same way I know that the sun will rise tomorrow, and the day after that. It just is. I will let go, and the world will go on, and you will go on, and it will be enough. It has to be enough. You’re here. You’ve got me. I won’t let you go. Threat, promise, vow, whatever.
[CREAKS, GROANS, ARCANE SHIMMERING]
OLIVER: Just hold on.
SAM: My love, I can’t. This is it. I just need to–
[SILENCE]
Let go.
[THE SOUND OF BREATH]
Oliver?
I– Oh. I’ve found the right thread.
Thank you for holding onto it. Thank you for not giving up. Thank you.
SAM GASPS
I know, I know this looks rough, but listen, listen. It’s going to be alright. It’s all going to be alright.
Tomorrow the sun will rise on a world that belongs to you, but it won’t feel any different, because the world was always yours, the same way you are the world’s. Life is just a series of moments, each one a glistening thread that reaches into forever and ties us to everything and everyone. But this one, right now, it’s ours. This is our end.
And we need to let go together. Are you with me? Do you trust me? Good.
On the count of three, then.
One, two, three.
[BIRDSONG]
[RUSTLING]
SAM: Oh, hello, again, you.
OLIVER: What is it?
SAM: I found a microphone.
OLIVER: In a field?
SAM: Just happens, I guess.
OLIVER: I worry about your capacity to accept the unfathomable in our daily lives.
SAM: Says you, Mr ‘no crepe will ever measure up to the ones at Versailles’
OLIVER: They won’t.
SAM: I believe you, that’s the awful thing. And I’ll never be able to taste them.
OLIVER: Should have mentioned it months ago, when you were still pulling the strings on these things.
SAM: Oh, so my alternate dimension is the worst conceivable occurrence unless it brings you your favourite pancakes?
OLIVER: Precisely.
SAM: Monster.
OLIVER: More monstrous still for loving you, you absolute nightmare. What are you going to do?
SAM: About what?
OLIVER: The microphone.
SAM: Oh. Turn it off, I suppose.
OLIVER: Do you think…
SAM: Do I think it’s broadcasting? Oh yes.
OLIVER: Should we be worried?
SAM: No. It’s just connections. We went through some things together, we’ll always be connected.
OLIVER: Do you want to say more to them? Do you want to… I don’t know. Carry on with the show?
SAM: No, my love. I want to lie in this field, and later, I want eat sub-par pancakes with you.
OLIVER: Okay. Do you want some time?
SAM: No, it’s alright. We’ve got to get to Kitty and Indi’s on time, Anna flipped a lid last time, going on about Arlo’s spinach puffs. Why do you look so worried?
OLIVER: I thought you let it go.
SAM: I did. That doesn’t mean it’s gone does it? It’s the arcane. It’s in everything. You and me, and them. That’s how it works, you know. But we’ve got a whole life to lead, and so have they. Faithful listeners. I love you. Goodbye.
[THE END]
Hanging Sloth 