He Who Wanders | CreepCast

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Paid membership with connected payment account required. See Experian.com for details. Experian. Welcome back to Creepcast. Normally Hunter's the guy who says that at the beginning of these, but he's not here. Couldn't be with us today due to tragic circumstances. But we do have another guy here whose name also starts with an H who you've probably heard of. Our show producer, Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry. I am doing pretty good. How are you doing? I am doing fantastic. Harry normally works on these episodes on the back end of things. You've seen him a couple of times. He's come on camera during some of the in-person recordings or he's commenting from behind the camera. Harry does all of the checks beforehand for our stories, gets all the stuff in line with the authors, helps us out on the ad side of things, proofs, watch videos, all the stuff that I frankly don't want to do. So for this episode, Harry is going to be in the second seat. Because Hunter is out. What is it Hunter was doing again? Yeah, I was going to say, do we want to let people know what's been going on with him? I mean, it's probably, he's not here and frankly kind of left me out to dry so we can be honest, I think. Well, I mean, he's probably like just going down right now. He is going in for the liposuction procedure and, you know, prayers up for him. We're hoping that things look good. And come back well. Yeah. And he should probably be back soon. So that's why we're just, I'm just filling in for a quick moment. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, he was kind enough to fill in for me. I think that was something that you suggested though, right? Or you had floated, you were one of the people that floated out to him. Well, what it was is like, he had kept talking about his doctor before and how initially the doctor's like, oh, it's an elective procedure you can go through. And he kept hinting at it. But it got to the point where his doctor's like, you need to do something. And, you know, I was like, hey man, you know, maybe it's time. So I kind of, you know, did the proverbial hand on the shoulder, said it was time to do something about it. So thankfully he is. So, you know, maybe he can get another six, seven months out of his life now. That's true. I should reframe that. That made you sound cruel. This was after he had told you on the podcast that he thinks he probably has give or take five years max. Right. And so this is you trying to, to preserve that timeline and extend it. If anything, that wasn't you being just, of course. Yeah. I would just, you know, I want to make money on the show comes from a place of love. If he did well, I, and I also want to make money on the show. So if he dies, that puts me here. You got, you got to fill your Ridge wallets, man. You know, a couple more shillings. I need more cards for my Ridge wallets. Uh, yeah. Well, you can store up to like 12 in those things, you know? Uh, yeah. I'm telling him myself that I helped write the, uh, ads. Um, but no, he was, he was kind enough to cover for me when I was out, you know, with the kid and all that. So I'm covering for him here as he's, he has his own proverbial child. Um, so yeah. And you know, rather than me doing it by myself, why not have Harry, the guy behind the camera, step in front of the camera for a change. So, well, yeah, I appreciate you, uh, bringing me on. And, um, again, prayers up, uh, in the chat for Hunter and he should be back soon. I know that, uh, people are going to get itchy, man. They just had you on a solo solo dad, um, episode for Patreon. And then now they got, uh, long, long haired Asian version of Hunter. And, uh, they're going to, they're going to miss him very dearly, very soon. I mean, they might, they might forget about it. I see this. There's a chance they're going to like, when he comes back, they'll be like, Oh, who's this guy? Is this, Oh, that guy. That's right. No, no. Here's the thing. This was all orchestrated to bring the giant roll. Out parade. Because if you know anything about creep cast, everybody hates me. Uh, if you spend a little bit of time on the internet with creep cast and my name comes up, it's, it's not a good thing. So, well, I've done that. Everyone's going to remember how much they love him. Cause there have been a couple, couple of times I've kind of thrown you under the bus. Um, when more so, I feel like you have thrown yourself under the bus at the expense or at the saving of others, which is, I, I'll take that. Yeah. Um, yeah, just lean in headfirst under those, on those big tires. Yeah. But anyway, anyway, we have, we have episodes to record. How are you doing though? Isaiah? We've talked about Hunter. We've talked about me. How are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm doing very well. I am, uh, uh, doing my best between all the videos and fatherhood and whatnot. Uh, but everything's a blessing. Very happy to be doing it. Uh, what's funny is, right. Well, this is our second attempt at recording during the first attempt. And like the first minute, uh, Harry's power went out and I was trying to message him and be like, Oh, I can still hear you. Or what do you think the issue is? And I went to discord and the camera's blocking half of my view of discord. So I typed in Harry and I clicked on the first result, assuming it would be you, Harry. Uh, but for some reason, the first result was a guy I had played Tarkov. With like four years ago one time. So I accidentally went to him never messaged before and just typed. I can hear you. Uh, and I, and I just thought that you have multiple Harry's in your discord. How dare you? I think, I think it's just you too. I don't know why I prioritize you, who I speak to day daily underneath a guy. I played a video game with one time. Well, to be fair, I have an M in front of my name. My, my name is, it is meet Harry. That's probably what happened. That's probably why. And that guy is probably just Harry. Like three. Well, he got a message from Wendigo and saying, I can hear you completely unprompted. So we'll see, uh, we'll see what he does with that. Um, anyway, so normally you pick out a slat of stories on the front end and then Hunter and I go through, pick our favorites, what we want to read. So for this episode, you've picked out a couple of yourself. So you want to introduce them to, uh, the audience at home? Yeah. So the first door, I thought we'd do two parts here. Uh, I feel like, I feel like we haven't heard from kills from the creeps in a while. And, uh, you know, we love that fan base. We love cultivating young authors and even having like these established authors, like Imperial invective and strange accounts, you know, chiming in and lifting them up. I think that's great. Kind of what we're building over there. So I wanted to read another story from this, but I'm going to be honest, I did not read this story beforehand. Like I normally do. I wanted to kind of fly blind, uh, with you, uh, all, uh, a real creep, cast story. So I pulled this give credit where credit's due. Uh, the Republic who we have read before on here, um, the, um, the hunted, uh, story. It's not called hunted. It's called, uh, it's escaping breathless. Thank you. Um, and he, they are really good about just reading power, reading through a lot of the stuff on the sub. And they usually will post kind of like stories that they, uh, like a short hitter list of stories they really liked recently. Um, and think more people should read. And so I grabbed this one on, I had it as an alt for when we did the batch recordings a little bit ago, we never got around to it. So I was like, let's do it here. Um, yeah. And then another one is, uh, he, who wanders. That, um, seems to be a very interesting story that has a pretty high rating on creep. He pasta.com, which, you know, mileage may vary with that, but yes. Yeah. The he, who wanders story, uh, it came out in 2017 and it's got, it's got nine out of 10 stars, which that 2017 is kind of getting out of the era of people uploading memes and then getting 10 stars just for like the sake of it. Uh, so the nine stars probably does mean something. Um, so I think we're going to start with the tales from the creeps and then go over to he, who wanders. Right. Yeah, I think we should do that. Yes. Cool. So our tales from the creep story is titled. My estranged mom asked me to help her move. What I found inside was deeply disturbing. Uh, it was posted by user ever black, a black death mask, which it looks like scrolling through their stuff. They post a lot in Creepcast and r slash bullets for my Valentine. So shout out. He gets it. Tears don't fall. So it's pretty. So I didn't even know this was a subreddit. They've posted in r slash no sleep refugees. Come on, man, which is a subreddit. I thought you were going to say I didn't realize there was a bullet for my Valentine's celebration. I was like, come on, give me some credit. They were a band once upon a time. r slash no sleep refugees. The description is a place to post your horror stories when they don't fit on no sleep. That's so funny. Oh my God, that's crazy. That's hilarious. Why would you like you couldn't do like Island of Lost Stories. You have to actually do refugees. People are like going there to figure out like if their relative is okay after emigrating somewhere and they're finding like my poop. Pee pee man jumped out of the closet and tried to kill me like that. That is so bad. They shouldn't let you do that. That is crazy. It's not even like like it's not even you could have contextually said story refugees. It's just r slash refugees. No, no, it's no, it's r slash no sleep refugees. Oh, I didn't. You clipped. I didn't hear that part. Okay, that's better. It's still like a crazy phrasing. But I thought you were just. I thought you were just on r slash refugees and you. Okay, okay, okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I messed up. Oh, that's funny. But I'm still. I'm still. No, now I have the visual in my head of like an actual refugee looking up no sleep refugees and being like the poopoo man. Well, that's what that's what I was getting at. It's like, yeah, you're trying to see like, hey, is it okay? And then you just yeah, like who wants another Jeff the killer in twenty twenty six and you're just like, what? Wait, what? That's so funny. Yeah, I thought. That you heard our sleep, but you were going on about that. And I'm like, well, I don't think the title is that bad. Okay. No, no, no, no. Phrasing calling them refugees is a little crazy, you know, in reference to your stories that haven't gotten traction or something. But yes, I thought I thought you were some of those mods. I'll tell you what it is like a refugee trying to escape them. They bring down the hammer. I look, I'm one myself now, so I'm a self-hating mod. I mean, you know, I'm in the creepcast one. But. I'm not like, to be honest, I don't do anything in there really just to oversee. But you can't say the word mod in front of me. That is my go word. That is that is a triggering word for me. I say just I have a lot of thoughts, a lot of. So, oh, but real, real fast before we go on, thank you to all you've made it this far. Thank you to all the Spotify listeners. If you're listening to Apple podcast or Spotify or anywhere, you can get your podcast. We appreciate you listening to us there. Go ahead and give us a nice, nice rating and even a comment, you know, even a negative comment can go a long way. Say I hated hearing Harry on here, but just give us a comment as long as you're listening and supporting it over there. And of course, you know, be sure to give your respect to Hunter, assuming he doesn't make it through the live procedure. Just go ahead and drop your rest in pieces for him in the comments. Well, OK, that's a little presumptive. I was going to say, let's put the prayer hands. No, no, I think we'll pass that. I think we're already like you're just saying straight doves and R.I.P. Doom songs. Yeah, I think go ahead and, you know, more make a sort of memorial section in the comments to see this is see this is this is why this is why you never trust the quiet kid at school. Because Isaiah was like, it's cool, man. You didn't pick me up from the airport. I'm just going to casually bring it up all the time. I'm not mad about it. And now he's just being like, you know, he's dead. I kind of pushed him into this, like, not this elective liposuction. And, you know, if we want to get into the weeds about it, he kind of pushed himself there, I think. I mean, I wasn't the one who, you know, sure, sure, sure, sure. But yeah, rest in peace, Hunter. Anyway, yes, rest in peace to Hunter. And also we also also we have a Patreon before we go too far. I kind of mentioned it in passing the beginning with. But Isaiah did just post a solo dad stay at home solo dad recording on the Patreon, which I think was really fun. We brought SCPs back. I know people have been asking kind of on the main channel, like, when are you going to read SCPs again? This was a good chance. So Hunter couldn't kick and scream at all the redacted. So we let you read that yourself. And the one you read was something you talked about a lot. The House of the Worm. And it was it was my first time reading it or listening to it when you read it. And it was very, very cool. Yeah, I'm really I'm really impressed with it. Again, like I mentioned in that episode, so many. Yeah, you said you gained more respect for it. Yeah, because there's so many stories I read when I'm younger than like, I don't know if it was actually that good or if I'm misremembering or stuff like that. But, you know, like it's hit or miss sometimes. But that was one that I went back to see that I'm like, oh, this is solid. I like this a lot. So I'm super stoked with how that turned out. Yeah, you can check that out on the Patreon if you're interested. Well, what's your what's your thoughts on everyone referring to you as not the not the dad, but the mom in the comments? Do you have any thoughts on that? Wait, say that again. People referring to. Well, because we had kind of framed it. We kind of framed it in the title like, oh, you know, you're going with your other dad this weekend. And everyone was like, no, this is staying at mom's house with the nice sandwiches and everything. And I was like, oh, you're going with your other dad this weekend. I will say that I will accept that only because if you had to judge the two of us, I would consider myself far more motherly than Hunter. Yeah, in a good way. In a good way. So as a compliment, I'll take it. Thank you. Hey, man, I get everyone thinks I'm I'm a lesbian from behind. So, you know, looking at me from behind, you know. It happens. But yeah, check out Patreon. We got extra content there. If you would be so inclined. All right, Isaiah, are we ready to get into this? I believe we're ready. So we're beginning with again from user Ever Black Death Mask link in the description. I never had the best relationship with my mom growing up. When people hear that. They usually assume she must have done something horrible. But the truth is a lot more complicated than that. She's not a bad person per se, but rather a victim of circumstance that doesn't know how to ask for help. My father walked out on us when I was just 10 years old. I don't remember him leaving. One day he was there. Then the next he was gone without a trace. If there was a note or an explanation of some kind, my mom never told me all that was left behind, according to her. I don't know if it's true or not, but I can't remember what it was, but I don't know if it was the right thing to do, but I don't know if it was the wrong thing to do, but I don't know if it was the right thing to do. I don't know if it was the right thing to do, but I don't know if it was the right thing to do, but I don't know if it was the right thing to do, but I don't know if it was the right thing to do, but I don't know if it was the right thing to do, but I don't know if it was the right thing to do, but I don't know if it was the right thing to do, but I don't know if it was the right thing to do. I'm just thinking, like, I will, do you, do you think, is this, this is a mother-daughter relationship, right? Mother-daughter, mother-son, maybe? The only thing I'm thinking of is, like, I, it's really, sometimes it makes me sad, when, like, mother-daughter relationships get really fraught, it gets, it can get, like, really, really tough. I've seen that happen with, with friends and their moms, and then sometimes with my sister and my mom. They're way better now, but, like, yeah, it can get really tense. I don't know any indicators yet. The only thing that gives me the vibe it might be a mother-son is the, my mom found creative ways to blame me, that instead I would amount to nothing like he did, which, that would seem kind of like, you know, the mom comparing the son to the deadbeat dad when she's upset. But, it could be either way, I think. I don't think we have any into care yet. Either way, I think you're, for you it is, I think that works, either way. Okay, well, don't, don't give it that. The voice now, I feel like that was, that was too much. For you it is. Years of pent-up bitterness poured out of me. Lose my number. I have nothing to say to you. Wait. There you go, that was for you. There it is. There's, there's the spot. now we're in the money it sounded like she was choking up oh throw it okay jordan not telling us one way or the other it's still we're still in the ambiguity of it place your bets now i'm sorry for everything jordan i was such a terrible mother you deserved better the silence that followed was not only awkward but deserved how exactly was i supposed to respond to that yes i deserved better treatment and she could have been better herself but now that i was older i understood why she was the way she was after i'd spent an uncomfortable amount of time listening to her cry i spoke up listen mom i don't want to talk about this right now i'm busy when can we talk about it is there ever going to be a good time to talk not really i admitted with a sigh work keeps me pretty busy these days i have my own life to live i understand listen kiddo i don't have much time left oh cancer is a bitch and it's taking its toll on me physically i need your help with downsizing the house is so full these days can you please come by and help me move some things out of the house i can't reach the basement anymore i hesitated why don't you want my help couldn't you hire some movers or something i could but i want to talk to you about everything i'll even pay you i rolled my eyes at the proposition how much how does five hundred dollars sound five hundred dollars was five hundred dollars that's money that i couldn't turn down especially with how dire my financial situation was proving to be despite all the hours i was putting in at my job okay i'll help what do you need me to cover great thank you so much i appreciate the help i could hear the relief in her voice come by whenever you have a day off i don't want you to overwork yourself we exchanged goodbyes and then i hung up the phone a few days later i was driving towards a house that i'd swore i'd never step foot in again when i pulled into the driveway i knew immediately that something was off the great okay so what's what's your coin flip what's your bear traps yeah i was gonna ask you that i was gonna say what do you think is going on so the first thing this is not answering your question but the first thing it makes me think of uh is um oh my gosh i'm forgetting but i was thinking you know the stellan scar the yokom trier movie with reynada weinsberg and uh stellan skarsgård that's kind of the setup of this yeah um that one uh i really really like worst worst person in the world um it's the same director with reynada as the lead um but this is kind of the same setup of he's like trying to reach out to me and i'm like i'm gonna ask you this question what do you think is going on in the movie with reynada what do you think is going on in the movie with reynada what do you think is going on in the movie with reynada um in the movie he's you know this really well acclaimed director who just people love but he has no contact with his daughter and he's like i want you to star in this thing and she's just like no why and then eventually he lets it go that like okay i have cancer and that's why i'm trying to get closer to you and try and reconcile and say sorry she leads with it at the top but in terms of what is going on with her um i mean it feels like it's going to be this hoarder thing and maybe she thinks she has cancer but there is this like entity that is just like sapping the life force out of her because she's living so slovenly and terribly uh over the last few years um that's very vague but that's kind of like where my mind's at right now what are you thinking so i'm gonna be hunter uh and i'm going to say that mom's dead and there is some guy wearing her clothes pretending to be her okay which we or another thing another thing hunter would say is he would say oh maybe she's like a big bug now and she's like real gross and gooey and the the bug mom is talking to him on the phone when you said big bug i just i just thought of that clip that we posted on patreon about even it was like eight nine inches you gotta compare it to something how big is it it was like i would say nine to nine inches probably what it's like eight or nine inches it was it's like the biggest i've ever seen it was i remember the teacher being like oh my god god daddy gives this toxic sludge he says he says it's his grow grow juice maybe maybe seven but i want to say it's eight or nine inches but which i will say shout out to that guy shout out to that uh patron they someone did guess a praying mantis um i was very very a lot of people said bug and i was like okay like i give me a little bit more that's a good guess though you're on the right track but someone's like i don't know a praying mantis or something i was like how did you get that that is incredible poll for for those the for those plebeians who don't right right right sorry i'm only thinking of the the cream of the crop elites here yeah the one the ones we choose to remember um i was talking about how uh when i was a kid it was in the last it was in the episode yeah we just yeah yeah yeah out of context and put on patreon and i and we yeah yeah what is he talking about when i was uh from the last episode and i'm like oh there are two episodes ago now i think for you guys on the upload i was talking about the pre-manus i had and i was like yeah it was like eight or nine inches harry realized in the edit that clip out of context without the context there's a praying mantis at the beginning looks really strange um because you also put that also referenced your teacher and everyone's like i'm sorry what the teacher was there oh yeah yeah i'm like oh my teacher thought it was huge which is crazy but anyway anyway i do like i do like this bug person theory or it's not who they say they are luring them back in some way i i do like this kind of setup of like because there is that thing of we've been estranged so anything could happen we haven't talked in a long time boy now um i guess the question is though why specifically her um the daughter needs to get lured if it is this honeypot bug like you know swap body swap scenario see see normally i'd be on your side but i just have to take no no no i'm saying go deeper tell me what's tell me what's going on in this well see that that's the problem i don't know okay i don't know why hunter says the things he does sometimes but if i had to guess it's because um maybe the bug accessed her memories or something like that and knows that she can draw her into the house maybe yeah i mean it could also just be like my hunter head cannon my hhc okay trademarked here you heard her here first i do like that idea because you kind of we just had uh my dad finally told me what happened that day go up uh recently and i do like that theory that you guys were getting around which hunter ended up being um pretty close on when he was like the mom you know something well first he kept saying something's going on with the dad but then it ended up being the mom was not the mom and mom had been dead in a fucking box and timmy was you know posing as the mom um so but you had mentioned you guys are kind of talking about that and then also i kind of talked about in pen pal of like once this person was posing they somehow like you know had their stuff they had their phones so they'd access to um so it could just be something of they're just working down the line of of people and just slowly trying to get them in um yeah so it might not be anything specific about the the daughter but just like oh another person to come lure in and feed and whatever bug things you know right right yeah so that's that's if i was pretending to be a um a psychopathic man who again did die during a life of no no prayers that's what i would do yeah prayers up prayers up doves and doves and tombstones in the chat that's true um exactly you know prayers up for allison to now shoulder all of this uh burden yeah allison to take care of his what are they up to now seven children eight children and uh more ducks and horses and uh yeah yeah so donkeys but especially all of hunter's estranged children that he's been paying child support to over the years as we know yeah of course they're gonna be they're gonna be without food for a while so maybe we'll start a non-profit for them we'll see anyway um i want to take a moment to thank today's sponsor zocdoc you don't always control when you get sick but you can control what makes you less sicker and i know that going to the doctor's office can be hard especially when you have to find a new one and you've got to figure out insurance and you don't know if they're going to be a good fit for you or even listen but that's where zocdoc is here to help zocdoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare you can choose the right one for your needs and click to instantly book an appointment we're talking about in-network appointments with more than 150 000 healthcare providers across every speciality 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And you don't want to admit it, but at some point you should probably see a doctor. So right now you can head to the link in the description at ZocDoc.com slash Creepcast to find the care you need so that you can spend less time searching and more time actually working on the problem. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C dot com slash Creepcast or ZocDoc.com slash Creepcast to find the right care for you today. Thank you to ZocDoc for sponsoring the show. Their link will be in the description. And we are now back to the episode. Grass on the lawn was well above knee height and the weeds climbing the sides were nearly vines. Yellowed and frayed envelopes overflowed the mailbox. It looked like one more piece of mail would have made it explode. It was odd that the property had been seemingly pushed to the wayside. If she had been able to call me, then surely. She could have contacted a neighbor or someone else who could assist her with these things, right? I couldn't help but feel a little guilty. That had been a mistake to keep her out of my life while her health deteriorated. I grabbed as much of the mail as I could fit into my arms and crossed the jungle that was the front lawn towards the front steps. The steps were an uneven, cracked mess, and I nearly busted my head when I tripped on the second to last stair. Thankfully, I was able to use the railing to catch my balance. But the mail scattered everywhere. I rang the doorbell and began picking up the mail. Despite it taking me a considerable amount of time to gather the mail, nobody had answered the door. Weird. I rang the doorbell again. I waited a few minutes, but there was still no answer. My eyes wandered toward one of the windows and noticed that the curtains were drawn. From what I remember, my mom had always been one to let sunlight in. Especially when we would deep clean the house on Sundays. So, why were the curtains drawn in the middle of the day? Thinking that maybe she had forgotten the time and dozed off, I set the mail down and called her phone. The persistent ringing echoed from the depths of the house. I listened to her phone ring over and over again, but all my calls went unanswered. Growing more concerned, I pounded on the door and called out to her repeatedly. Nothing. I'm telling you, man, bug lady, it's a bug lady scenario. Hey, sometimes you're the hunter and you get it right, man. Sometimes the bear trap does trap, occasionally. Realizing I wasn't getting anywhere, I ventured toward the side of the house. Unlike the front window, the view through the side windows weren't blocked by curtains, but by clutter. Give me that. From where I stood on the lawn, I could see piles of various items, ranging from boxes and newspapers to decades-old furniture and garbage. Show me hoarder. Bing! I'm not saying she wasn't a hoarder before the bug got it. No, no, I'm just, I'm co-celebrating. I still think you're right. I'm just happy that I got, like, a piece of it. I hit, you know, part of the parlay by her being a weird hoarder before she turned bug. Right, of course, of course. My heart broke at the sight. God, mom, what happened to you? I muttered, hopping over the rusted chain-link fence into her backyard. I walked up the stairs to the patio and immediately got chills at what I saw. The back door was cracked open a couple of inches wide. I approached it and was greeted by a horrendous smell that invaded my nostrils. I audibly gagged and pulled my shirt over my nose to shield it from malodorous household. Cripping the door with one hand, I shoved the mountain of junk, obstructing my path with the other. It took a number of attempts, but eventually, it all toppled onto the floor. The gap had widened enough to let me squeeze through. Can I say two thoughts before we move on? I sidled. Go ahead. First, this one's stupid, but I had a thought when you were talking about the bear trap. Would it be good merch if we had a shirt that said, This bear trap snaps back? This bear trap snaps back. I don't know why. That sounds like a sexual. Well, it's one of those, like, because I think there's a political shirt that's like, This pussy grabs back or something, after Donald Trump had made that grab-ride-the-pussy comment. Right, right. So I was kind of playing off that, but I just wondered if. What if we did booty shorts and it said that across the back? Oh, I like that. I do like that. God, we're just going to see some crazy, some just crazy 35-year-old man thighs and cheeks poking out of it. Yeah, I know what this audience is. I know it. There's a reason there's only seven sisters, but a whole lot of brothers. It's a laundry day, so I don't know. I just grabbed these little bear trap snaps back. I just wear my wife's shorts sometimes. Yeah, you share them. They're comfy. Second thought. This is constructive. I really like coming from a poetry background to the line breaks that are being incorporated here. They're not doing paragraph indents, which is totally fine, but I like the amount of breakages in the lines. I really feel like it's doling out this good amount of information, and I feel like we're kind of pulling up to the house, walking up, and then sliding around the side of the house and now going into it well as you're reading. Are you getting anything based on breaking up of the lines of the information? Are you getting that, too, from reading this? Yeah, yeah. It's not exactly paragraph spacing. It's more so spaced in individual thoughts or moments, which I feel like we've seen with a few stories before, but it's not super common. Yeah. Sometimes it seems like, I don't know, line spacing is really, really important, and that's what I just wanted to call out because it's not the only story. It's not the only story that's done it, used it, and then done it well, but I just think it's really presenting this information, especially as it's getting a little eerie and creeping, like right after this, like, you know, they have this standalone line of the back door is cracked open a couple inches wide. I think that's a great example of just that's the only line. Then we do another line break. Then we go into this larger paragraph of the person, Jordan, you know, gender unknown, going now into the house. I just think it's a good little kind of example of doing that. And it's little stuff, too, like the individual sentences where the line breaks are almost like crescendo moments, like the back door was cracked open, stuff like that. Like it gives emphasis to the thing they want to emphasize. Yeah. So I just wanted to call that out because I think it's doing it really well. And yeah, it's just it's good framing for these bigger moments so far that are like, that's kind of concerning. It makes the reading of it very effective. Yes, I agree. I slid my way through my body. I was facing against more junk as I forced my way inside the way my feet squelched beneath me made it feel like I was stepping through a field of rotted pumpkins. I had to hold my breath. Even with my shirt as a makeshift mask, the smell was overwhelming. Years of accumulating mold and spoiled food to transform my childhood home into a place more akin to a landfill than a home. Mom, I've always traveled through the house, but there was still no end to it. Mom, I've always traveled through the house, but there was still no indication that anybody was home. How could she live like this? The more I wandered through the house, the more bewildered I became. It was hard enough to navigate where I was in the labyrinth of seemingly endless garbage, but the sides were even harder to stomach. In the living room where my mom had on numerous occasions screamed at me for ruining her life set pillars of miscellaneous magazines and newspapers that extended to the ceiling like Jenga towers. I don't know why it's always stacked. I've never known anyone who has gone and got things to add to the hoard. I think maybe it's just visual gratification because my great aunt was a hoarder from what I've been told. I've been in her place before, but my mom was always like, Harry, it's so much better than it used to be. But they would explain wall to wall just towers of magazines and newspapers. And she also had a whole cow living upstairs with her. A cow? Yeah, I don't know why. And it would gallop the stairs and then it would just piss everywhere. And it was like this crazy. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Your great aunt lived with a cow in the house? Because I think that I wish I could call my mom right now, but there was some situation where like it was like kind of injured. So they brought it inside and we're nursing it. And then I got bigger and it was like fine. And then they couldn't really part. Like once it became part of the hive inside the house, like they couldn't mentally part or didn't want to think of like putting it outside. And then I just lived around the house, walk around, bump over giant stacks of newspapers and magazines, piss on the floor, shit on the floor everywhere. I think multiple times my mom said like she had slipped. How big was the house? Kind of big. Because like cow size. That's it. when you said that i my mind thought to that snap back to that clip of you in the house and then you're like this is crazy you can fit a whole cow in here yeah it was cow size i mean i want to like i don't want to uh it was it was pretty big because it was kind of like this is gonna sound crazy with what the thing i just said before right but it was like beachfront property there was a cow on the beach well no that's why you can't you can't have the where did she have a cow how did she get a cow in the first place i thought she was on a farm or something that's a good don't explain why the cow was there no this is this was in hawaii um why they have cows in hawaii listen man i don't listen i don't know how i got there i just know there was a cow and then there was a cow for way too long after like you know what okay how did she come across an injured cow in the first place she's a big animal lover that that's all i can say i know that's a very like political answer i don't know the full specs i just know she had a cow she wanted to take the cow she brought it in had the cow and then the cow would just piss on the floor and she wouldn't see it and she'd walk and like slip and sometimes like twist her ankle and then she'd be like god damn it but then never never kicked the cow out um this lady though props she she was very impressive i have seen this with my own two eyes she would climb because again hawaii i know that's not what you're thinking when i first said it uh she i've watched her machete in between her teeth in her mouth climb uh in in like shorts so like you know the bear trap booty shorts just a shirt no equipment uh scale a coconut tree again machete still in her mouth get to the top hold on to it cut off coconuts with holding on the dendrils on one hand machete in the other hand chopping they fall down and she's she slides back down and uh does that so a lot of her house like a swiss family robinson tree house it was kind of weird like i'd never really we are on that property a lot when we would visit but we never like really went inside the house and now and then later on i figured out why there was no more cow when i was there but like my mom was just like it's just kind of crazy in there so okay um yeah sorry not to i didn't want to cow cow flashbang you there's a lot to unpack with that i think we're just gonna have to move on no we have to move on i just um just there's levels to hoarding a cow in the house has to be like the the crescendo like the the biggest okay anyway you're hoarding a cow okay yeah i again for the record have not read this story if somehow there is a cow in this story a bear trap of all bear traps that's all i'm gonna say yeah anyway in the living room where my mom had on numerous occasions screamed at me for ruining her life set pillars of miscellaneous magazines and newspapers that extended to the ceiling like jenga towers in addition to molded food and other debris broken glass from no longer operable lamps were scattered across the floor what made me most nauseous wasn't the narrow pathways from all the junk or even the couple pounds of hamburger meat infested with flies that was in the kitchen sink it was the spider webs they were everywhere oh bug you've got you got bug bug we have bug on the board i got bug bug bug is on the board bug is in play bug is on the field what will they do with it let's find out going live on the scene with bug in the dishwasher and uh disposal let's see i hate spiders ever since i was a child they've terrified me one of my earliest memories was finding a spider on the back of my bed and i was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna go to the bathroom floor and having to have my mom kill it with the newspaper so when i saw the webs go from tiny membranous piles and corners to being complete thick tapestries draped across entire pieces of furniture i nearly left right then and there i couldn't leave my mom alone to fend for herself in this dump hey mom i'm here cracking voice was accompanied by the sound of something skittering on the ceiling oh uh uh my attention to i grew upward and i saw spiders crawling slowly amidst i'm getting a little okay so it's funny because when we did that the forest of a thousand legs episode i really didn't think i was that afraid of spiders oh yeah uh but then talking about him that long kind of like reactivated it and especially since then when i mentioned i'm terrified of golden orb weavers or like the giant ones with skinny legs um i've had people think it's funny to reply to my tweets with those images and stuff so now i see them all the time and i'm like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die so i was scrolling instagram reels last night and one just popped up on screen and i physically jumped uh so now i think i'm pretty in the arachnophobic camp yeah yeah i held on to that one for a while i knew we wanted to do it and then when we finally did i was like well go with you know good luck isaiah hopefully this doesn't awaken something in you yeah don't worry it made it worse yeah sorry i did not know i did not do this so i did not know there this we were getting into spider territory when i gave you this yeah yeah i'm just i'm just like i'm just like i'm just setting forward in my seat now now acutely aware of everything i'm touching and stuff so 100 the second you get off this call you're gonna go run and take a shower yeah and then spray your whole body with raid and so someone has to ascending the stairs was not the same effortless task it had been growing up in fact it was incredibly difficult slippery plastic bags and the random cardboard boxes that adorn nearly every individual step made climbing the stairs feel like an obstacle course from hell after minutes of cautiously choosing my steps wisely i made it to the top of the stairs to the left of me was the door to my mom's room it was exactly how i remembered it seemingly untouched by time or filth i grabbed the doorknob i turned it slowly i pushed the door open tinges creaking as it revealed a sight i wasn't expecting the room was clean it wasn't spotless but it was cleaner than the previous areas of the house i'd been in but that wasn't what grabbed my attention on the other side of the room sitting in a recliner was my mom buried beneath layers of dust was her figure sitting idly in a reclining chair by the window mom what's going on i crossed the room toward her the closer i got the more frail she became when i nudged her shoulder i thought she would awaken from the nap she had dozed off in that's not what happened i wish that's what would have happened instead her limp body turned to where it faced me and i nearly screamed her eyes were gone the skin of her face was a discolored mesh of tissue her phone was resting on her lap she was dead oh my god i just want to say not the bug thing yet but the the i think mom's dead someone's wearing her dress or whatever you're two for two i'm on the ball with that right now so you know what yep you i'm feeling pretty confident about my traps at the moment you went two for two got balls back now you're shooting for fire yep yeah this is a this is i get three free throw shots right now check right now let's see let's see if isaiah seals the deal here if it's dead mom and bug mom oh brother we're cooking oh you think like it shambles out of like the closet and it kind of looks like the mom but it's clearly like a bug thing an insectoid thing yeah yeah no i think i think i think that's uh that's like a galaxy i don't i don't know that how that equivalents i'm gonna i'm gonna be fired up i don't know how to correlate to usd but that that's a galaxy yeah i backed away tears threatening to fall had i been here any earlier maybe she would still be here the woman who i'd wish would suffer for how she had treated me when i was younger was no longer here i couldn't take back how i felt i couldn't take back how i felt what i said or what i did not now not ever all i could do was sit on the bed and cry i talked to her earlier that week i swear i had if i hadn't talked to her who would i talk to jordan where are you it was my mom's voice oh bug mom bug mom in the attic let's go i felt a chill creep up my spine my eyes darted from my mom's body to the doorway there was no way that the woman whose deceased body i had seen with my own eyes had called out to me honey i can't find you the house is so full these days i didn't answer i held my breath as i heard noises coming from somewhere downstairs i pushed myself upright and listened to the mattress spring settle behind me with a muffled series of pops inching my way to the other side of the house i heard a voice coming from the hallway towards the door i peered around but didn't see anyone jordan answer me right this instant the voice had now grown irritated it was a voice i had been accustomed to associating with my mom for years hearing it again filled me with a dread i hadn't felt since childhood i didn't heed the command instead i stood in the doorway and listened to the voice grow angrier and closer don't make me come up there don't make me come up there - This time the voice more guttural I covered my mouth to prevent myself from responding the sound of shifting clutter and scampering up the stairs filled the house I retreated at the bedroom but the floor creaked beneath me giving me away I know where you are with the nightmarish rhythm its abdomen swayed as it stalked forward Isaiah you're in the money also you hit that too it's a boy it's not a girl fuck you're you're running so hot right now you're running so hot right now paralyzed I couldn't move I could only stare at the clusters of beady animalistic eyes that reflected back at me yes beneath them was a face I recognized all too well my god you're gonna hit it it was my mom her cheeks sagged and stretched around fangs that clicked together and glistened with saliva jointed legs sprawled from beneath twitching at the slightest disturbance of the chitinous shell that trailed behind it let's go oh my god that's wow it even it even is like wearing his mom's face or like looks like the mom too you oh my god I hit I hit mom and posture I hit bug mom and Jordan's a guy you oh my god you soul read the fuck out of this story to be fair you you got a little contextual you saw the bullet for my valentine subreddit action that they're in and you kind of you you got into their brain that's I swear I have not like to the audience I have not pre-read this story I did not know it was going here let's just this is very impressive this is very impressive yeah oh I'm fired up oh I mean excited and and this is cool I love bug mom yeah I do love bug mom the thing proclaiming to be my mom clacked its fangs in advance towards me with patience I recoiled and shook my head refusing to give into this thing's wishes go to hell I declared rushing towards the staircase railing and vaulting over it the cardboard boxes beneath broke my landing as a wailing chittering shriek reverberated from above with an unsettling fluidity the monstrous silhouette descended the stairs I barreled through the garbage on the stairs frantically scrambling back the way I'd come you get back here right now Jordan I didn't look back I kept pushing through all the junk the house was becoming more suffocating with every step I took piles of trash trapped my shoes and made it disorienting to know where I was Jordan my heart thudded against my ribcage as I burst into the kitchen and felt my feet become immediately stuck I had failed to realize that the surrounding area was engulfed in overlapping layers of web wall to wall cabinet to cabinet even the floor the room had become a trap I jerked and wiggled but my movements were no use elastic and silky webbing clung to my hands like glue hysterically I kept trying to yank myself free but the more I struggled the more adhesive it became above me I heard it scamper before dropping into view from the ceiling with a thud it flexed its legs and carried itself toward me my mom's face had been consumed entirely by ravenous intent got you the webs around vibrated with every restricted movement I made I kicked to keep it at bay but a second later it lunged I backed my head away as its fangs snapped inches from my face the impact sent me to the floor and I felt my body sink deeper into the lattice of webbing behind me panic coursed through me as I struggled but the silk clung to my clothes and skin it pulled me down like a fish being reeled in the creature adjusted its position and stared down at me with longing and hunger Jordan mom has missed you so much the voice rumbled through the silk the fangs lowered themselves towards me with an eager precision but before they could connect I used what remaining strength I had to pull my hands up and defend my face they sliced through the webbing allowing me to free my hands I kicked and pushed the creature off the lattice of webbing I pulled my hands up and pushed the creature off the lattice of webbing I pulled my hands up and pushed the creature off of me my newfound freedom allowed me to grab a nearby piece of glass from the floor turning to face it once more I stabbed it into the closest eye with a horrific shriek of pain it darted toward the wall and retreated up along it Jordan how dare you treat your mother this way you unappreciative brat my legs burned with adrenaline as I struggled against the sticky webbing and hurried toward the back door it was still cracked from earlier but I would have to push my way through the same garbage not even bothering to look back I threw myself into the gap shoulder first and powered my way through I moved as quickly as I could scraping my skin against the piles and tearing the last strands of webbing clinging to my body sunlight peeked through the other side like a beacon of hope before I could reach it something gripped my shoe I turned to see my mom holding on tightly with her fangs desperate to drag me back into the house let go I pleaded as I kicked repeatedly my foot squished with every blow that struck an eye or some part of her a resounding crack filled the air as my foot connected with a fang get back here I stumbled out onto the back steps and ran faster than I ever have in my entire life toward the fence after scaling it it bolted toward my car hopped into the driver's side and floored it out of the neighborhood I never went back I'm not sure how long I drove for but when the adrenaline and worn off I pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store called 9-1-1 the police were hesitant to come check it out initially but they eventually relented they found my mom's body and the webs but I never found the monster wearing my mom's face something I don't really like to think about for too long what I do think about is the moment I opened the door and saw my lifeless mother sitting in that chair I don't know how long she sat there or how much pain she was in all I know is that she died alone and I wasn't there I can't change that people talk about her now like she was nothing more than a hoarder but I don't think about the house when I think of her I just think of my mom wow dude what a good story what a fun little bite-sized piece of horror that's great mm-hmm that was really fun yeah I also like to kind of works as like a representation of like someone who had a mother who you know they've become distant from and it's like the spider creatures almost representative of that dragon they sort of fear her becoming when in reality she's just like a withering woman in a chair you know and that time can't be gotten back that's a really cool allegory yeah or just kind of like this outward manifestation of how of all the negative parts of how you view your mom like yeah like trying to grab on clutch you tight force you to you know through her mandibles to do everything that she wants you to do and kind of wrap you up and spin these webs of who this person perceives you as while you're trying to be an independent person but then having that step or move and look and just just thinking of that withered husk looking out the window talking to no one you know being loved or reached out to by no one it is that kind of very solemn thing because I do think like that's what I was thinking when the story first kicked off when they called about like you know because I'm older now and I'm like I'm not going to be older now and you definitely everyone has spats and disagreements with their parents to a degree but you definitely like with more time and especially I feel like you probably could speak to this more you know becoming a parent yourself but you you get older and pay taxes and like do all these dumb things and go to work every day and and uh get cut off in traffic enough times and you start to really understand your parents and also see them as just 20 something to early 30 somethings that were also that had you know you know you know you know you know you know you know had you that were trying to figure things out too you know during all of that yeah and you can just get such uh understanding and appreciation for that now being slightly more removed and slightly more grown up too for them yeah I mean there's certainly times where I've like thought about people like when I was a kid I would be like critical of my parents for like this thing or that thing but growing up and especially meeting people who were like you know like you know like people who like go through similar experiences that they went through and stuff like that I'm like wow they turned out really good you know uh and I was like as a child with no frame of reference I was far too critical on you know adults who were also trying to figure all this out um so yeah and I really like how that creature feels so it's like the monster you make in your mind like an amalgamation of them of what they really are with what you think they are um also man that was cool one just very very cool visual of a monster but if like taking a step further specifically why do you think um because just spiders like like black widows will eat their partners but do spiders eat their children at times is that a thing I think so because I'm wondering yeah yeah there's species of spiders that'll eat their young yeah they'll like scorpions do that I know yeah they'll give birth out of the eggs and then I think there are like stories of them you know like they're like they're like they're like they're like they're eating some of them or something so maybe that is on top of just again being really cool I left the description of like climbing up the stairs standing on the doorway having that kind of like swaying tilted abdomen body um so it's a cool design but also it could be something like that of the generation of like yeah the you know the parents sometimes want to consume you or destroy you um even though they're the ones that birth you into this world and like have uh not claimed to you but are you know the reason for you too is maybe another sub theme they have going of why it's a spider mom but hey man i'm just i'm just happy we got bug mom and you were right and it was also awesome i'm gonna be riding the high that one for a while the greatest part is hunter wasn't even around to see it he's never gonna believe it you're gonna bring it up on multiple episodes and he'll be like what are you talking about what i could probably i'll try doing this i'll try gaslighting him into convincing him it's an episode he was here for and we'll see what happens because it'll probably work because he can't remember more than an episode ago that that is that is true yeah i i am very again we did not set this up i didn't know where it was going but like even if i did i wouldn't have been able to fully orchestrate a four for four like you did i'm very very surprised that you were able to to hit all i'm pumped with that yeah that was fired up about that no all right well no no cows though you know that's maybe my only there were no cows there were no cows which that's still a can of worms i don't know if i want to open quite yet questions there but yeah there's yeah there's too many to count but um okay yeah yeah that story was awesome thank you to the republic for uh shouting out amongst other people um and putting it on kind of your like top list for that uh period of time because uh yeah i just did not read this one picked it uh on your recommendation went in blind and it it was it was really really cool it's awesome yeah that was a good story and again that author is uh maxwell black what was uh uh i don't know what is it there was a ever black death mass yes ever black death mass if you sure check them out and tales from the creeps that was an awesome story please keep writing a tales from the creep original hood classic right there that's right that's right i 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while supplies last and after your purchase if you could let them know that we sent you it'd mean a lot thank you to ridge for sponsoring the show their link will be in the description and we are now back to the episode all right so after that uh we have another story called he who wanders um this was written by a user named simon simonian uh who it looks like they were they have this story and another one called the eternal woman um i'm trying to go to their profile page i don't see any specifics like if they're still writing elsewhere or something like that that has to be a pen name right simon simonian i would say so yes uh oh wait simon simonian okay there's a simon simonian author who died in 1986 um so i assume this isn't him uh so you would have loved who wanders r.i.p simon r.i.p hunter and simon simonian and r.i.p simon simonian from 1986 you would have loved he who wanders both of you equally so this this is a uh this guy's just posted a couple stories under the name guy or girl has posted a couple stories under the name simon simonian in creepypasta.com uh it will have the story linked below so if they want to read it they can do it they can do it they can do it they can do it you know post anymore so we'll have info there i'm not seeing probably because the simon simonian the author author has taken up all the web space online so i don't see anywhere else they're still posting and doing stuff but they have two short stories on creepypasta.com so and this one is pretty high highly rated supposedly yes yes uh what's the other one rated uh the other one is 8.4 out of 10 so still pretty good okay all right so with that uh he who wanders and you've pre-read this story right i did that was in the list uh semi recently but i don't remember everything and i'm trying to actively forget some more of it too okay cool perfect all right so with that he who wanders i miss the scorching wind of andalusia and andalusia is that a sad let's pronounce i guess i think so how is that a real that's gotta be a fictional place right uh am i careful um watch it watch it uh all right let's not call out a hole no it's uh it's a autonomous community of spain in the southern most area of spain that's a made-up rainbow popcorn that's a fake name that's where that's where the furbies come from right anastasia or so yeah oh what are you gonna tell me next siberia is real okay okay yeah yeah there's a place called estonia sure what is there oh yeah they make stones big whoop uh yeah that was that was a stupid americanism stepping in wait real fast you know what good good for spain okay since this can i tell a real quick story because this morning i got pulled over um and i was i was at the light about to turn left the cop the cop was next to me but they were in the right lane about to go straight and i was like checking discord on my phone um as you do and then i looked i set it down i looked over and i saw him sitting there and i was like okay like i know they're on their phones all the time i hope they don't pull me over for this light turns green i start turning left i'm not even halfway through the intersection he hits his lights pulls me over and i'm i'm like dude if you're gonna be like i saw you on your phone at the light i'm gonna be so mad anyway my tags were expired but he comes up to me and he's like hey can i see your uh insurance and your license i gave him an insurance he's like oh hey by the way your insurance can expire at the end of the year i'm like thank you i handed my uh license for context we've said before you know i'm with hunter i'm out here in kansas city uh i'm originally from california i still have california id i hand it to him and he goes whoa what are you doing out here and i say uh just for work and he's like okay and then he goes um welcome to america and i say thank you i don't understand like they don't see a lot of them here because every time i've presented like the bar or something everyone's like oh and they're like take an extra 30 seconds to find where my date of birth is because it's different um like uh layout wise but i do not and he did there was no smirk there was no malice he was a very young that was a very young squirrely officer because you're asian yes yes i know how i look i understand but it was so funny for me to be like i'm from i'm here for work as many people are and he looks at my california id and then just goes welcome to america it's like what thank you like welcome to america he he probably again he kind of came up a little squirrely he said his like rigmarole really fast at the beginning he probably meant to say like welcome to like missouri but he straight up said straight face welcome to america very like maybe and i was like where do you think okay not to be a well let's check the body cam first kind of guy or anything yeah um but i normally when i hear i'm here for work it normally is someone foreign yeah people don't say that from state to state i completely understand why you said it because it's a different state id from pretty far away yes um so maybe that's where his brain was where it's like oh they said that because they're not here but then if someone was from out of country why would they have a california driver's yeah that was the one thing and i was trying to think because some some license are kind of crazy and i don't know if they're going to have a california driver's license Um, but I don't think the California one looks like, I don't know. like i was spinning i was trying to give him so many like like benefits of the doubt i was like well i guess the california id kind of does look like yen or something like the you know all the multi-color like canadian dollars or something so i don't know like but yeah i get it i did but it's funny because like to america i was like oh thank you so much and then it was really funny because he was like oh what do you do and i was like i work on a podcast and he's like oh what kind of podcast is it i was like scary stories podcast and he kind of didn't know what to do with that and he was like okay and he's like hang out for a second and then he went to his car and like put in my information um but yeah i don't know you just saying he's like an asian guy with a scary story podcast this has got to be a chinese spy yeah he's like he might want to watch their radio radio in headquarters it's like we need to get beijing on the line and he speaks english really well so like he's been through like he's probably done a lot of spy programs this guy's a pro either that or he was like you know good luck with that buddy you came all the way out from guandong china to be in missouri and do a scary stories podcast good luck with that buddy that's why your tags that's why i even paid for your tags in two years anyway i just scary story podcast that'll never work yeah okay yeah who's listening to that uh there's probably like two or three sisters that would that would be a good thing oh my gosh you you getting discriminated against not only for being asian that's true i didn't think of it that way but i was definitely i was kind of like okay um well it's funny because welcome to america dude i just like you said oh it's my big dumb american thing and that's immediately popped my brain i was like oh i kind of meant to mention that earlier and i was like i have to tell you this now again i'm not mad about it i know how i look i'm very racially ambiguous i've told this many people like once they finally like get kind of close with me or become friends with me the first thing they ask and they like can't it's like falls out of my mouth they like fall over themselves to be like what are you and first of all i'm like okay maybe don't which one don't yeah which point on this map here and i'm like maybe don't leave with that with other people i don't care but like i understand it's very very confusing um but uh yeah i was just like what do you like it's so funny because he walked up and i was like hey how's it going i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh like i don't know i just i don't think like i was i was giving very uh very foreign uh vibes off but he he was not sure where i was coming or where i was going and what kind of what what the bearings of a spooky stories podcast could even mean um and then you know it's really funny i'll make this really short but i was at dinner at a mediterranean restaurant last night and um i just kind of started getting used to like people kind of notice me out in the world which is still weird everyone who says hi is very very lovely and nice um and then i paid and then i she brought my card back and then she was like so sorry like excuse me sorry are you and i was getting ready to be like yes hi like nice to meet you like you know everything and she's like are you german and then i was like what because she's like i saw your last name and that's the same exact last name that my german teacher had and i was like oh yeah because my last name is lutz or lutz if you want to be uh particular and i was like uh yeah kind of and um but then anyway she turns out she was german and then we got to speak german too with her but it was funny on the other side of it i thought i was getting noticed for something and then she was like do you do you speak german and which i told her i did and then we got to talk in german that's very nice but um i've just been all my my id just keeps getting me in trouble man is essentially what i'm trying to get that girl is the most like level-headed because she's like oh this guy has a german last name cool i'm gonna go off of that rather than just his appearance versus the cop who's like this guy's not from here i don't know long hair definitely chinese definitely not from here it says california but they're making really really good fakes these days so i don't know yeah you're you're pulled over on the southern road like four other cop cars and a swat truck pull up actually i really do hope that he was thinking i was doing something dicey on the low because i now i love it's so true but i love that my cover story was i'm in america i.e kansas city to do a podcast yeah okay we're gonna let's tail him and see where he goes i think he's going to the fireworks factory and buying gunpowder later for like another just horrible act a lot of a lot of rental trucks and fertilizer that's suspicious how many trips to the uh ace hardware store does he need to go to for nails and they're like well when he turns around he kind of looks like a lesbian so maybe he's doing hardware projects for friends i just i think there's something sinister here oh my gosh that's perfect well thank you for sharing that yes well i just you know like i you felt like a stupid american right there but i always wanted to let you know there were others more stupid americans out there so thank you i appreciate that i like being less stupider yeah but andalusia is a real place we both found that out together though in truth i didn't fully know that where where it was okay so that's a that's a learning experience so to the people of spain my bad yes we just lost like some the spain sector our entire spanish audience which is can't be that big i don't think well well not after that common isaiah well no not anymore creepcast or specifically wendigoon has declared war against the people of is creepcast against spain question i've had it too good for too long yeah i'm sick of it well they all got over all that invading stuff pretty quick they just take naps in the middle of the day what is this well you think you're just gonna sit around that's gonna get that's so terrible sit around that's gonna that's gonna haunt you more than the golden orb weaver the golden orb weaver picture for a long time you know what spain bring it on what's the worst they can do okay well now you went from like sorry we kind of shafted you accidentally but now you're just what i mean what can they do they don't have boats anymore england got rid of all those so guys i was not as a part of this i want to say harry and isaiah mostly harry to clear morgan's people of spain write it down as someone that looks ethnic ethnically ambiguous i want to say i am i have no i am not calling out the country of spain i think they're lovely he's calling out the country of spain before the podcast you said you better get the spain dig in there somewhere and that's true i did i did have an itemized list and at the top was please find a way to work spain in and how much you hate them yes exactly we do have one editor he's always trying to put that in the episode notes and you don't read them and that's why when i said when it's me and you we're you know we're gonna do it we're gonna shout out the patreon and we're gonna make sure to follow spotify and then i said we are going to come for spain so we found the pocket yeah uh what what were you about to say one of our editors what oh one of our editors is uh is based in spain so shout out to them yeah for now yeah yeah that's weird i the the second i get off on this podcast i'm gonna get an email just with their like uh i'm quitting the resignation well they do turns out he was Spanish quit early in the middle of the day got him alright welcome us back to America Isaiah yeah he who wanders yes yes yes amidst the scorching winds of Andalusia how poor sunlight onto your face toying with eyelashes patches flattening dry sand against cheeks and milling around your hair. I miss the smell of the valley and that ripening softness of muscat fluff glistening in the afternoon breeze. From up here, I can see the house where I grew up. I see white chapels tucked into grape orchards, like ponds scattered on a chessboard. I can see patches of asphalt on El Yardenito Road, hailing from the old town through the dappled rocks, then waning behind the horizon with erratic headlights of beat-up trucks cruising along. One of the pit stops along El Yardanito, where truck drivers stop to relieve themselves, marks the starting point to this wavy trail. All covered in blotches of spindly grass stalks and flaxen sand, the trail is barely noticeable at first. Truth is, no one even cares to notice it. Why would truckers taking a blitz leak care to check on a mucky trail leading to God knows where. But I do. This is how I got up here, to the top of this hill where I'm standing now. I've climbed all the way up here, so I can finally end it all. All these years of vagrancy and fugue, exile and fear. This is where it's all going to come to an end. But for now, I'm enjoying the view of the valley unfolding below. I'm sipping the air of what could be my final memories. he'll show up soon he always does like a shadow he's been following me right on my footsteps always there behind me and there he is his limping figure appears behind the sharp bend of el yardanito he looks up and he sees me then stops for a moment to catch his breath and leans on his cane as if assessing the remaining trajectory for his final stretch then resumes his walk or should I say resumed? his agonizing drudging. Years of endless chase took a toll on his body. No wonder. How long has he been chasing me? Ten? Twenty? Thirty years? He's slow. Methodically slow. But for once, I will not run. I will wait. Right here, behind this rock. I will finally come face to face with him. This sharp Swiss knife blade I am holding in my hand will soon lance right through his neckbone. Yes, that's what I'm going to do. This ends here, at the dead end of this sandy trail atop the hill overlooking the valley with its white chapels and muscat orchards. Funny. After all these years, I still don't know the real name of my chaser. I always called him what Master Borgias called him. He Who Wonders. He Who Wonders. Listen, I will kill you. So initially, I thought this was going to be like, like he's coming up here to end his own life. But no, there is a supernatural follower that has been behind him for decades. So much more fun approach. Yeah, he's fine. I'm sure he's fine. I'll be okay. Sorry. I just, it was while you were reading, I had this funny thought of like, this is the actual reason. Why I'm on camera today is to prove to the local police department that I, in fact, am here to work a job. Just in case this ever comes up in court, I just want to be known. I am present. This is my face in a podcast that as the host stated, I am a part of regularly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Borgias. The Borgias. I idolized him when I was in college. Many did, but I was different. It was 1960. I was an average lazy learner at the Universidad Laboral de Cordoba, floating around one semester to another with barely passable grades. I had very few friends and almost no interests. One can say that I had an early form of an identity crisis. Besides chugging Aniciado, my only other passion was literature, Latin American literature. Borgias and Neruda were at the forefront. One could only imagine my excitement. When I saw a pamphlet hanging on the wall of the literature faculty. Spaces were limited, but who cared? It was the man himself, Jorge Luis Borgias, coming to give a lecture followed by an open panel of questions. Like a maniac, I rushed to the auditorium hours before the lecture. I was the first in line. When the doors opened, I got the front row seat. The auditorium was packed with drooling chins of young self-proclaimed prodigies. Awaiting the arrival of the Great One. And there he was. The blind lord of literature. Walking upright onto the stage with a cane and his loyal assistant right by his side. Standing ovation. He nodded and made a thank you, please be seated gesture. Then he began. The lecture was dedicated to Spanish writers. I cannot distinctly recall if it was Cervantes or Deva. Uh. De Vega? It truly made no difference. Somehow, I managed to sit through his entire lecture, which lasted over three hours, and remember nothing. He talked slowly and methodically, pouring honey into our ears like Segovia's guitar, with his absent eyesight fixed on the ceiling. And then it happened. Something that caught me completely off guard. Before closing the day, Borges was about to take questions from the audience. Of course, I raised my hand, and so did about hundreds of other students. One of Borges's assistants whispered something into his ear, which made him smile. It's an honor for me to be in front of an audience of young people, but our time is not infinite. He said, with blind eyes still pinned on the far corner of the wall of the hall. For that reason, I will randomly pick questions. I will randomly pick questions from five of you. Not Slytherin. Not Slytherin. I have never won any prizes or lotteries in my life. When I played poker or blackjack, I lost far more than I won. I knew my limitations, and that turned me into an average, apathetic person, rarely trying to outdo oneself. And so, sitting still with little ambition, I got used to that. Until that moment, when I saw Borges pointing his finger in my direction, that came as nothing short of a shock. Me? Yes, young man. Senior Borges picked you. Step forward and introduce yourself. I did not know what to ask, so I quietly mumbled my full name. Borges shifted his gray-shaded pupils in my direction, as if reacting to a sudden buzzing of a fruit fly. Fernandez Agustin Navarro. Navarro, haven't I met you once before, young man? He asked. No, señor Borges. I never had the honor. But you will. We will meet again. No, señor Navarro. You and I will meet again. But for right now, what is your question? The rest of the day was foggy. I don't even remember what question I asked. It must have been about him winning the Prix Internationale. Not sure. And maybe not important. No, not important at all. The greatest writer in the history of mankind called me by name, and then that bizarre, unreal thing he said about us meeting again? When? So do you think this guy that's following him is the form of Borges? This guy, meaning. The old man following him, do you think that's like the figure of señor Borges? I don't think it's the figure, but I think that is what he's potentially trying to warn him about. Right? Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. So I was going to pose the question to you. First of all, who is the person that you would hastily buy the first ticket, scamper to the front, sit in the very front row to see? It doesn't have to be someone who's giving a talk necessarily, but who is someone like that's your top of the top? Gerard Way. I was going to say, I know you're a big MCR fan, but okay. Okay, so you're buying front, front, front row tickets to see them. Yeah, which I have, and we'll do it again. Yes, and don't worry, we'll be doing that again. If he just pointed out to you in the crowd, it was like, ominously, it was like, we've met before, right? With that part, it's not that weird being nice. And you say no, and you're like, but we will. I will see you again. Like, what are you supposed to take from that? I'd be like, really? Me? I'd be so ecstatic. I'm trying to make this scary, and you're like, please, yes, I'm free whenever. We can move stuff around. I could call Hunter. You can come to my house. I don't have to record tomorrow. You can sleep in my wife's bed. Yeah. I don't have to. I have nothing else to do. Now, I understand because it's kind of like, for me, I love Gerard Way so much because not only his music, but I love his writing and kind of his approach when it comes to making art and layering and storytelling. And stuff like that. So I would just like to have a conversation with him. This seems much more like you're seeing a Titan, you know, like, yeah, okay, let's go ahead and frame it like a Mark Twain at the end of his career or like a or at the end of his life or like this would be more similar to me seeing Cormac McCarthy, right, where it's like, man, this guy's like framed so much of modern storytelling and stuff like that. I don't even know what I would say in front of him, but I don't really know if like when he was alive, if I could have that much of a conversation with him. Yeah. Because I would feel so out of my depth. Whereas if he was like, oh, we'll meet again, that would be foreboding. That would be kind of like, well, what is that supposed to mean? Yeah. You know, do what? Yeah. Yeah. He's like, I want you to plug my new book, Isaiah. Done. Easy. Oh, okay. Well, then we could just like record a video for it to make it sound really cool. Oh, yeah, of course. All right. I feel like that. I thought it was going to be harder. You want to get like Chick-fil-A? Yeah, that sounds great. If Cormac McCarthy's like agency reached out to me to cover the passenger before he died, I would have done it for free. Of course. Yeah. Are you reading anything right now? Currently? Yeah. I'm reading between two fires. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Interesting. Okay. How's that? I'm reading. I'm reading. I'm really enjoying it. I'm like a quarter, like a third of the way through it. And I really love the setup. It's like Berserk, like the Japanese series Berserk. but catholic that's cool yeah that that feels like you're you're a lot of people's vein but that feels even specifically more like that's definitely like your lane right there what's what i really like about it thus far because a lot of the time i'll you know as a christian i'll read stories where like god or christianity is like an element of it and it'll typically be pretty paint by numbers or boring where it's like oh god doesn't care about us or um god hates us or something like that but i really appreciate when stories will use like religion as sort of like a backbone for a lot of characters or stuff you know similar to the real world like god will be present in the story but it's not like he is a direct protagonist or villain to the things happening uh and between two fires is very explicit in that the name of god and like the crucifix and symbols of god do have a supernatural power but it's man who is giving it the good or bad outcome yes yeah yeah and i think that's a really cool element that it's capturing very well thus far um but yeah that's but i'm pretty fired up by that are you reading anything right now um that is a good question i just actually i just finished this really short collection of three short stories called uh so late in the day by claire keegan i believe she's like an irish author i just finished reading that and uh the last story is really really good um even the first story is pretty good too but i just recently read that and then um i've been reading at night uh finishing rereading like a book of kind of collection of just like interviews that david foster wallace has done because i think um some of the way he has thought and uh talked about stuff has been really interesting so it's it's fun kind of listening to to that so that's kind of open and reading right now um but yeah have you read any of the three authors that have been outlined so far in this borges naruta or um forget the third one that was mentioned i haven't i was trying to think i don't think i've read a bunch of spanish authors i've read a lot of japanese authors i'm pretty sure pablo naruta is chilean um but yeah he's really i'm pretty sure i because i have a collection of he does poetry but he also has done novels but i just have a big really tome like heavy book of his poetry that i've read so i'm pretty sure i've read a lot of japanese authors i've read some of um but that's that's all that i've really engaged with so far of the people mentioned here because again we're we're anti-spain this podcast has shown its hand uh now i've read i've read some a bunch of european authors uh some asian authors uh so i don't think a lot of like i think i've read any spanish authors probably short stories and stuff like that but i don't think a lot of like i don't think a lot of like i don't think a lot of but no like novel length works that i can think of which i'm pretty a lot of that comes down to i'm pretty predetermined when i like when i sit down to read a book uh it's an author i know of and like have read before so i kind of stay in my lane like i'm working through all of core mcmccarthy stuff um and things like that so i think a lot of that's because i haven't done a great job at like expanding my horizons but every now and then someone will be like oh you've got to check out this foreign author they wrote blah blah blah and it's normally really good which is a lot of like japanese literature because you know it started with like ojumji ito and stuff like that um but then it became like other different authors in that scene and stuff like that so no it sounds like you need to be better at it sounds like you're reading some fun stuff uh i'm more of like an old russian literature guy like dostoevsky is like my favorite author um but the two books that i've had to put down in spots and still finish and still work are blood meridian and this novel called like 2066 i think which i think is a south american author but it has so much to do with juarez and uh drug and and human trafficking and it's just similar to blood meridian where it's just like paints this tableau of just incessant death and stinking in the and blood caking in the hot sun 2066 which no one really knows why it's called blood meridian but it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just called that um is this giant book that is just just unending like constantly descriptions of like well we found this woman like dead in a uh like in the um i keep wanting to say trash heap but we're like where all the trash goes um because they were because they were taking them basically from the laundromats uh laundry houses that they're working on and it was all you know traced back to the the cartels and stuff and it's just a lot a lot of just like really brutal death um that you're just like okay i'm gonna set this down for a little bit that's enough for right now take a break take a cleanser and i'm done for now yeah and that is going to be a break for me but i've certainly had moments like that reading stories where it's like i need to step away house of leaves was like that a lot for me not because of like disturbing content but i just needed to digest it in segments yes i can see that people's one of the only books that i but also had to put down kind of story kind of like yeah digest and boil it down yeah also like a lot of people just jumped up in their seats uh because they hit their bingo card because you mentioned house of leaves so thank you for your contribution well you know you're welcome i guess all right i'm in a different outfit because um when we were recording the rest of the episode my daughter had a breakdown so i went in took care of that um and now we're back so anyway i just shit my pants so then i had to just change the whole outfit so that's why that's why i'm in this i was gonna ask not to derail immediately but i was gonna ask as my producer brain i was gonna ask you if you because i can't see you if you were wearing the same outfit as you were yesterday because i was going to try to wear it and i was like he's probably not and then i ended up spilling coffee on my shirt yesterday and i'm like no we're just gonna there was far too much drool and yeah other leavings on my outfit yeah okay well welcome back to us yeah um anyway so from there nine years later in 1970 there i was a somewhat promising journalist in one of london's somewhat scandalous tabloid newspapers every week my name was featured on the second page alongside with celebrity chronicles and vile rumors my paycheck was decent enough for a small studio flat by manchester square after years of having been pent up by directionless studies you could say i became something more than an average or at least that's what i believed that day it was early october arguably the best season in london began as usual i ate my chic breakfast consisting of two scrambled eggs ham toast and dark roast coffee barrymore's diner and was ready for a pleasant walk to the office it was shortly after 8 00 a.m and i was in no hurry my route was the same as it was every day past the square right turn on george street left turn on thayer another ride on marylebone my thoughts that morning were all preoccupied with the piece i was working on so i was slowly making my way through the square and something caught my eye or rather someone at first not pay much attention to him no more than i did to anybody else who idled at the square that morning hippie rascals with their soiled hair playing guitar on every corner of the square was a common theme in those days and londontown was certainly no exception so here was another one of those misunderstood love proclaimers sitting right behind the gated area of the square striped worn out jacket heavy cap sandals with clots of woolen socks sticking out a common hippie bum as anyone may have thought i thought so too except this one had something that made my intestines churn i didn't know what it was but once i saw him i felt the irresistible urge to instantly walk away and never see him again the way he looked at me that gloomy frown that made me think of a line from oscar wilde that fellow's got a swing there certainly was something outer worldly about that fellow his eyes as if carved from a rock below his forehead were mercilessly drilling thousands of tiny holes through me i had a pace as i turned back one last time i noticed him slowly walking towards me past the gates of the square onto the street paying no attention to screeching tires of honking cars walking right towards me it's just a bum no he's not just another one of those unwashed hippies no no run run run george street was empty like in post-war bombed quarters i could hear my brisk footsteps or was it the drubbing of my order against my chest he was catching up run don't be silly yes run first slowly as if you're trying not to show your chaser that you're scared no not scared but more like in a hurry why am i running i can take him out with one punch but it really wasn't about that it was my first experience of that feeling which i can only describe as some sort of primordial sense of fear panic dread unexplained sense of looming doom arching above you like a dark figure with a scythe. I ran. I ran faster than my feet could move. As I turned the corner on Thayer, I paused and looked behind, fearing to see him right behind. Scrambled eggs, toast, and dark roast coffee were about to make their way back up through my esophagus. Wiping the sweat off my palms onto my pants, I bent forward in a protective position and looked around. Empty windows of George Street were checking me out like a toddler witnessing parents in a cowardly act. Whoever that man was that incensed me into this uncontrollable panic, he was now gone. Shame on you, Fernandez Augustin. I repeated to myself, while making futile attempts to enthrall palpitation to subside, shame on you. I mumbled, repeating that word. Mumbling turned into whistling. That song by Magic Lanterns. Shame, shame, I whistled, acting calm and self-composed. I sang without knowing words. Only to convert my mind to something else. I sang so others wouldn't notice me shaking. I climbed the stairs of my office building. Three at a time, third floor. The familiar smell of typography oils calmed me down. Safe heaven. Shame on you, Fernandez Augustin Navarro. Interesting, so the first time he sees this guy, it's just like a guttural instinct to run away, even though it's seemingly just a guy. It's just like a kind of bum. Even now, I question myself whether my journey to madness began on that day, or was it underway for many years? Madness that creeps in and recedes in tidal waves, is that how it usually happens? All I know is that an hour later, I was laughing at my little moment of weaknesses. Preposterous and rubbish, my thick and delusion twang, not real, spoke to me. And the idea of being full of myself. Fully checked out by a specialist did cross my mind, and I immediately thought of Dr. Patel in Camden Town. He'd given me a comfortable medical diagnosis, like a panic attack, and prescribed some white pills, I thought. Little did I know that the day had more surprises in store. The unnerving script development continued in a more eerie fashion when my boss marched to my desk with a pack of printed paper. No, Navarro, you are not going to see this. You are not going to see Dr. Patel in Camden Town, who will make a judgement call on your insanity. Instead, you are going to do an article on Jorge Luis Borges' new book. He is making his presentation today at London Public Library, and blah blah blah. I forget about the panic attack. The thrill of seeing Master Borges again nine years later was surreal. Moments later, I was sitting in a cab on my way to the London Public Library, scribbling all possible questions I should be asking him. "El informe de Brody?" "Other books?" Forget it. I knew very well what I would ask. I paid the cab and galloped up the marble stairs leading to the hallway where the master was about to hold his new book presentation. I elbowed myself through the crowd of journalists to occupy the coveted front row spot. Quick inventory check, wallet, JSAC, along with the omnipresent Swiss knife. Seconds ticked leisurely on my wristwatch. Four more minutes. Forget this morning's sickness. Forget Dr. Patel. Collect yourself, Fernandez Agustin. I think that's interesting. I like the idea of, because I thought the guy that was following him was in the form of Borges, but I guess this writer has also experienced what now our writer is going through. Mm-hmm. Yeah. At least that's what it's being supposed. He's being able to, "Okay, I'm dealing with this." For some whatever reason, either the guy marked him or was like, "You see it, too, and it's coming for you." Yeah. And then, yeah, it is really funny how he's like, "Oh, I'm going to get myself checked out," and then he gets the literary assignment to go see him again nine years later. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Navarro. That's your last name? Yes. Yes, Senor Borges. But how do you- Nine years ago, in Cordoba. I told you we would meet again. Do you remember? I nodded, rapidly, completely forgetting he couldn't see me. Stupid. Perhaps it would be more prudent for us to speak privately after the conference. I invite you to have coffee with me. You like Colombian coffee, Mr. Navarro? again do you remember i nodded rapidly completely forgetting he couldn't see me stupid perhaps Yes. It would be more prudent for us to speak privately after the conference. Navarro. I shall see you precisely at six o'clock at the address that my assistant will provide. His blind eyes were still affixed at the top far corner of the hallway, far above all the congested, sharp-penciled critics and arduous followers of his divine writing. The attention was now all on me. as revealed by hundreds of photo flashes from behind. I thought of all the explaining that I would have to do tomorrow. How does Porges know you? Are you friends? You were raised in Cordova. Are you his illegitimate son? Back then, I did not know. Answers came later. I'm liking the tone. I'm liking the mystery here and stuff like that. Yeah, I was hoping you would like this kind of slow unveiling. This is perfect, too, because Hunter would not like this. Rest in peace, rest in peace, by the way. Rest in peace. Prayers up, prayers up, doves, tombstones. Yes, if we're being peeked behind the curtain-y, that was the other reason. I was like, me and you could read this. I do think it's worth reading, but maybe, you know, that's fine. We can read this, yeah. We'll let the pony death and the, you know, other stuff happen when, when I'm not around, but yeah, we can do this. We can keep doing this. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. I was just going to say, shout out having Colombian coffee at 6 PM, by the way. Yeah. This man's in the thick of it. That is very Spanish of him though. It is. Yeah. And then he's just, God, his, he's already spinning out, just anxious pacing his house, talking himself in not only in the third person but just saying his full name and now he's just gonna go have colombian coffee at 6 p.m dear lord his heart memory is a tricky animal as i gaze over the valley and satiate my lungs with familiar smells i cannot think of anything specific vague and elusive memories of my childhood home in these orchards these white chapels in the old town itself. Nothing but an incomprehensible sensation somewhere down there, below the chest cage. I close my eyes and let the sun twirl around with tinted specks of mosaic light. I'm trying to focus without looking. Alas, nothing comes to mind. I've been robbed of my memory. You! I cast my eyes at the trail again. He's closing in. It's hard for him to walk upward, And yet I see that determination in his eyes, and his tight grip of that wobbly walking stick, and the way he periodically stops to catch his breath and eyeball the remaining distance. I'm not going anywhere. Five? Ten more minutes? Come and take me, old man. If you can. I almost see his facial expression, under the heavily pronounced frontal lobe. It's a grin. It's an expression that says, We shall see. once i read an interview in the morning times in it borges was portrayed as extremely humble and minimalistic his house was depicted as a perfectly organized space with easy access to everything books on the shelves judging from the admiration of the columnists there were lots of them were organized by theme and by title dictionaries and encyclopedias were grouped together on the same rack so he could find them easily in another article dated 1966 i read that when borges travels and whose and those travels were quite extensive he carries a whole rack of books along some of which may not even be read when i entered his hotel room that very book rack was the first thing that caught my eye i stood perplexed at the multitude of titles most unknown to me when i when i heard the door swing wide open and there he was entering through the doorway with a leisurely swinging cane ah senior navarro how kind of you to visit this old man i took a step towards him and produced some gibberish like pleasure is all of mine he half smiled and pointed his hand to the chair i know you will quite enjoy the taste of colombian dark roast this man has a stake and and if you use my code you get 10 borges you get 10 off a bag of beans uh borges sat down and leaned slightly backwards without releasing his cane do you know the biggest advantage of being blind blind don't need light so my utility bills are way lower he laughed at his own joke only to be interrupted by his assistant carrying a tray of aromatic coffee poured into two small porcelain cups. Amazing how very idea of drinking coffee instantly changes your mood before you even take your first sip. As I was readying to go on a pre-scripted monologue of expressing my gratitude and honor, Borges jumped right into the action. "I'll get right to it, Sr. Navarro. About you being here and about me remembering you. I know you have many questions, and I will attempt to answer some. Some, but not all. When you leave this hotel, there will still be some questions you will have to find answers to, on your own." He gently picked his cup of coffee, and with hands somewhat shaking, took an artistic sip. Yes, I had questions. So many that my brain membranes were buzzing in bewilderment and disbelief. Here I was, sitting in the room with one of the greatest writers, who I thought would mysteriously know my name. "Have you, by any chance, read my 'The Book of Imaginary Beings'?" I have. Many times. I read it in Spanish, when it just came out. Very recently, I bought the English translation in some shabby bookstore off Oxford Circus. I read that book far too many times, but never in its entirety, mostly starting on a random page. Just as Borges had intended. I read it in Spanish, but never in its entirety, just as Borges had intended. I read it in Spanish, but never in its entirety, mostly starting on a random page, just as Borges had intended. It had intended it to be consumed by his readers. You see, Sr. Navarro, that book was, and perhaps still is, a never-ending work in progress as human imagination has no boundaries. I've included what I had researched over ten years ago, then recently expanded and republished with more figments of collective human imagination. But the book is merely a small subset. In a way, the book writes itself. In some form, it's a labyrinth, an endless one, a living one, where every corridor and every room is never the same. What I had always wanted is the book to reflect the labyrinth in our collective subconsciousness, the force that drives our minds to craft. For that reason, all the creatures in my book are strictly fictional, fictional, mythical. Am I not boring you? First of all, I really enjoy your Borges. I still can't see you, but every time you take that on, I feel your hair graying. Secondly, I'm going to invoke Hunter in this episode and say, "What the fuck are you talking about, dude?" What is this book? I know maybe you can glean some information because you've read House of Leaves and some of these other non-Euclidean, crazy maze-like stories, but what is he trying to say with this book? What is he doing? I think he's saying he has a book of effectively cryptids, or things that exist at the edge of reality. Right, because it is this collection of imaginary things, right? Yes. So I think what he's saying is as he begins to write it, more things reveal themselves to him. And it's like, as he's writing, he's kind of charting a map and the map keeps opening up, which is why the collection continues to grow. It's like, speaking of human subconscious, he's digging up things from Primordial Man that we've forgotten, but have always been there. Hmm. So it's like Tulpa Wikipedia. Yes, effectively. Like a Tulpa Pokédex. Yeah, a Tulpa Pokédex. I don't know if those two words have ever been said next to each other. No, that's a new phrase. Okay, cool. But yeah, I feel like that's pretty accurate. Okay, cool. Yeah. Hold on. I got to really dial in for this line read. Not at all. I understand, Senor Borges. He nodded and wiped a coffee grind off of his nose. That book, as its title implies, is all about imaginary beings. Tales, legends, folklore. But one thing that no one knows is that I had originally intended this book to include one more being. A being that goes by its Latin name, Quietus Est. It appeared and disappeared across many cultures, sometimes centuries apart. Very little is known of it, but what I found was indeed astonishing. First, this being is physically no different than an ordinary human. You may say it is human in many ways. As I studied this entity, I became more and more agitated. I could not stop. Like a madman, I was trying to learn more and more, but very soon the excitement turned into another feeling. Fear. Fear of what, Senor Borges? His eyesight shifted from the corner of the room straight on me, as if he could perfectly see me. Fear of what I had uncovered. The Quietus Est is not a myth at all. He attempted to take another sip, but his hands started shaking. So he had to put the cup down, spilling some of it on the floor. He said, wiping his mouth and forehead with a knitted handkerchief, "I raised a small cup and took a sip, disregarding the aromatic fumes of Colombian beans drifting down my internal gorges." "You are saying that the imaginary being called Quietus Est was not imaginary? Is that why you decided not to include him in your book of imaginary beings?" "Only in part. Fear came from the realization of what it would mean for mankind to know about his existence. You see, it is no secret that we are all well aware of our eventual demise. We all die. But imagine what would happen if we all stared right into the face of death every single day of our lives and knew the time that was left for us to die. Death not as a vague concept portrayed by middle-aged artists, not as a folklore tale of a grim reaper, but as a real, living entity that stalks you and walks around showing you a ticking clock counting down minutes and seconds, getting closer to you with every second, trying to grab your hand, running from death worse than death itself." He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "But I shall talk no more. Allow me to give you my scribbles from years ago. These are unedited and are in raw format, so please pardon the poor language. It's right there, in the drawer. You'll find a folder with a yellow piece of paper. Read it aloud while my ripe old body attempts to catch a breath." I open the drawer. "What is it?" I open the drawer, as he instructed, and found a yellow piece of cursive handwriting carved in Spanish with some Latin phrases. The scribbles were short, less than a page long with marks and scratches, but most of this was very much decipherable. He must have written this himself, half-blind, I thought. What caused him to do that and not dictate to his assistant? I unfolded the paper and began reading. "Quietus est. It is said that one shall not know about its own ways in times of demise. The imminent passing is only felt by those that are either terminally ill, and even so, they don't possess the knowledge of when and where were by death row inmates awaiting the exact day and time of their execution. Lack of such knowledge coerces us to exist. Sumerians believed in a certain deity. The word 'deity' was scratched and replaced with 'demon of death' embodied in human flesh and bones, which again was scratched and replaced with 'entity', whose sole role was to stalk its victims and inform them of how much time they have left to live. Per the ancient Book of the Dead, which was discovered as a set of clay tablets typically buried in corpses, only those that are luminous. In other words, those who are luminous can see the deity. Again, crossed out twice, replaced with 'demon', then with 'entity'. The luminous ones are thought to be either people with high spiritual powers or vice versa, the cursed ones condemned by priests. The reference briefly reappears in some Egyptian manuscripts, but in later writings is replaced by Anubis or, in rare occurrences, by Horus. The writings again depict this unnamed, being as an eternal human who never sleeps but always wanders. What's strange is that neither Sumerians nor Egyptians ever gave the entity a discrete name. However, the latter rare findings during dark ages refer to him as 'quietus est'. The only depiction of it was that of an ordinary human standing next to a sun clock, which was used to measure the time that the chosen one had left to live. From time to time, quietus est stalks the chosen one and, when cornered, moves hands of the clock forward to shorten the lifetime. If the chosen one cannot escape, then this time eventually runs out. The very last reference was found in. Enough! Mr. Navarro, you understand the idea. Now on to the main question. Why are you here? He drew closer, and a dull shadow from a lamp cut right through his elongated forehead. Quietest Est is an eternal wanderer who is always with us, the timekeeper who sits at the edge of the stage with a ticking watch on his wrist. The greatest gift given to mankind is its inability to see him. When I lost sight, I thought blindness was a blessing in disguise. But one does not require eyes to see the wanderer. What eyes cannot see, ears can hear and skin can feel. I hear him. I feel him. You are here, Mr. Navarro, because you and I are the loser. Hmm. Borgias paused and asked me with a trembling voice. Mr. Navarro, you saw him too, didn't you? Cold shivers that have been accumulating in my lower back rushed up my spinal cord in millions of explosions. Nausea formed a massive ball of air in my throat, and for a moment I struggled to breathe. Desperately trying to cease the thumping and fainting, I pushed the words out. "I saw him today." How do you get used to the notion of being a passerby on this earth? Ordinary humans do not have to get used to that. We have the built-in protection layer, that safety cork in our brain membranes that separates the realization of being mortal from flooding down upon us. It allows us to breathe the air. It lets us exhibit this extraordinary, yet sacred, carelessness. The mental block that denies the laws of life on a primitive, emotional level, even for the keenest scholars. The indecipherable tetragrammation is shown to us in every step we take, in every cup of Colombian coffee we sip, in every word of wisdom that we collect from books. Did you laugh at something? Oh, just the Colombian coffee part. The Colombian coffee once again getting plugged. I stretched for a second, and I thought you just added that in as a joke, and I laughed, and I just thought I was actually on the line. I was like, "I don't know what you're talking about." I was on the line. I was like, "Man, this guy does. " He definitely is getting that 10% plus. He's getting the kickback, yeah, 100%. Every second we bypass the sinister tick-tock and hear the name of the God being whispered into our ears, and yet we humans turn around and whistle shame, shame, deceiving our own self-cognizance. And that, Señor Borges called it, is the true blessing. Those who possess the name of the divine being are doomed. Knowledge is madness. Knowledge is in existence. Knowledge of death is worse than death. We sat in his hotel room until early morning, the two luminous and doomed souls. Our casual exchange of words was amplified by the ticking of the clock. It was dawn when I noticed Borges nodding in his sleep. His left hand was still resting on the cane, and his pupils were shuffling behind shut eyelids. Borges was dreaming. So must have I. As I was exiting the foyer of the hotel, I hid behind the column and looked around the street. It was empty. A bright light of street lamps drew strange crossbeams on pavements. Early October leaves were jarring in closed circles like witches around the fire. I was looking around, hoping to not see him. He wasn't there. But he was. I felt his presence, not very far from mine. Muscat orchards. They resonate inside like echoes of a guitar string heard from a deep alcove, but nothing particular comes to mind. I am trying to shift focus from one object to another, but my nomad memory is lost in endless labyrinths. You took my memories away from me, didn't you? Wait, mortal. Wait five more minutes, and you will know the answer I hear in my brain. Wait, mortal. He is talking to me now. I can see how long uphill walk is wearing him out. But what are pain and tiredness when you're crossing the finish line? As Borgias warned me, "Do not ever come close to him. Do not look him straight in the eyes. He will always be near. His watch will be ticking. If he attempts to catch on, run. But he will forever follow. In a way, he will be like a shadow of you." And I ran. And he wandered. I evaded. He followed. He came too close to me in my hotel room on the second day after my long night in Borgias' quarters. The fool in me still thought that escaping from him would be as easy as moving into a new flat or checking into a hotel. So I did just that, with some shabby hotel minutes from my work, where I decided to spend a few nights just to think things through. That evening, and I remember every minute of it, was my first face-to-face encounter with him. My room, B6, was on the basement level. As I stumbled through the dark hotel corridor, trying to find the key to my room, I felt his presence, but my ignorant foolishness dismissed all mental warnings and turned the keys. As the door hinge squeaked, I took my first step into the hotel room, a street level. The window was casting two thick yellow streaks of light on the floor carpet. I smelled dust and spider webs. He was in my room, sitting on the edge of the bed with a rope in his hand. A thin white blanket was covering his head like a shroud around a statue. I stood in a stupor like a paralyzed insect. An avalanche of sweat gushed from every pore of my body. With hand twisted behind my back, I was feverishly trying to twist the doorknob. He got up from the bed with a groan. He took a step towards me. Hand too sweaty to turn the knob. Open it. Open. He grabbed my wrist. Open. Run. The stretch corridor of the hotel basement flashed like random shots of a silent movie. Run. B5. B2. B1. Run. Staircase. Up. Exit. Run. "Your time is coming, Fernandez Augusta Navarro." A whisper crawled into my ears. "Coming. Coming." I ran until my legs gave in. I fell down somewhere in the outskirts of the town, passing out in an alley amidst rubbish until sunup. My madness has begun. In the days following my first face-to-face encounter with Quietus, Est, I've moved out of my London flat. I had some savings, enough to tramp town to town, continent to continent, doing temp jobs here and there, sometimes sleeping on streets. He was right behind me. Even if I didn't catch him for a month, I knew he would soon catch on. It would only be a matter of time for him to pop up somewhere, on the opposite side of the street, in the next car over, on the subway, or madly prying through shutters of windows in the house across. My attempts to speak to Borgias were futile. "How does the blind master live with this curse?" I wondered. "How does he manage to evade his sinister follower?" I had questions. Far more than I had anticipated. But Señor Borgias was already on the other side of the globe. I wrote him letters. He never replied. I tried calling hotels where he stayed. Unavailable. The books that he wrote, I bought all of them. In attempts to find hidden meanings. What if he had secret messages for me inside his writings? The Book of Sand. Dr. Brody's Report. I even searched his earlier writings. Analyzed every word. Pointless. Futile. Until 1983. Shakespeare's Memory. His final book, as it turned out to be. I was somewhere in Eastern Europe when I bought the book. Immediately, I began my scrupulous study. Letter by letter, page by page. Analyzing every space and every punctuation sign. And that's when I found it. The answer. The answer was the story itself. The story that did not require much study or decryption. All I had to do was read it. I knew I had come face to face with Quietus Est, like Borgias did. But not before having to go through the life of an exile. That's what Borgias had intended me to do. Such was his final and only message to me embodied within his last story. A story written for the public, but intended for my eyes only. The story was that the protagonist receives memories of Shakespeare. Memories that overwhelm him. Overpowering his own. He forgets modern-day cars and engines. Instead, remembering faces and names from some distant past. Memories he has never known. Memories that belong to another man. In a way, you will be like a shadow of you. Borges told me that night. Slowly but surely, my shadow was becoming me. That's why I can only vaguely remember you, my childhood home. Him or me. No more running. It ends here. All right, so this is really cool. And this shows how dumb I am when it comes to authors and stuff. I didn't know Borges was a real writer. And this is a real book he wrote. Ah, okay. I knew that he was a real writer, but I wasn't sure that this book in particular was referencing a real book. Yeah. That's super cool. Wow. So this is based off the real writer and like the history and the Shakespeare stuff. That's cool. Nice. Okay. That adds a layer to this, like a real fictional account of a real author. That's nice. A few more minutes, I say to myself as I look at the watch. There he is. He's out of breath. Beaten, tired, and bent by the weight of his own arid body. One last push, old man, and we will meet. I'm hiding behind the rock. His footsteps on gravel and sand. I can tell them from many other footsteps in the world. His breathing, wheezing, and crackling. I am counting to five. Knows where I am, but he's too tired to take that last step. Let me take that step for you. I'm staring at his face, wrinkled like leaves of an ancient scroll. Time's up, quiet assessed. I'm telling him. He's not fighting back. My Swiss blade finds a comfy spot below his Adam's apple. I'm going to finish him now. Popping sounds are coming out from his flabby throat. What are you trying to tell me, old man? Let me hear your last words. I'm easing the pressure to let him talk. But the sounds that come out are not words, but laughter. You are confused. You've got it all wrong. Let me. Let me help you understand. I'm letting him sit up. He's coughing blood. One wrong move and he's dead. He wipes the blood off his lips and nods in understanding. All my life I have followed you. It's a miracle I've come this far and lived this long. Ever since I left Cordoba, I was a ticking time bomb. I was diagnosed as suicidal. Doctor after doctor, therapies, specialists, prescription, yoga. I have tried them all. Some helped for a while and the disease subsided. But then trolled back with a new, stronger wave. It's this disease that nests here. Forcing me to look for a way to end my own life. It all began in London, on that morning when I was sitting on the bench in the middle of that square, feeling the disease gnawing on my brain. My first attempt was in that hotel, room B-6. I sat on the bed in that dark room for hours with a rope in my hand and a blanket over my head. Death opened the door and stood above me in the darkness of the room. I just couldn't believe it. I just couldn't breathe. Oh, how I wanted my pain to end. But it was not meant to be. Not then. Not there. I had to live on. Ever since that day, it was a cat and mouse game between us. I chased death. And death would always slip away. Until now. He pauses. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to live on. I chased death, and death would always slip away. Until now. He pauses, rubbing his flabby neck, then points his finger down the valley and continues: I was born in that house. I remember every moment of my childhood. My parents, my toys, my school. I remember playing hide and seek with my cousins in Muscat Gardens and dozing off to Sunday clergy in that white chapel. I remember Eastern rugs being washed on the street and the smell of grapes. My name is Fernandez August Navarro. I think it's Augustine, he forgot his own name. you have no true name but they call you quietus est the one who wanders oh that's fun it's like between the two he's the wanderer the other's the follower and stuff like that they're both lost in this that's so cool but the wanderer thinks he's yes right yeah so who is who's the original which one is the one that wonders and which one's the one that follows yeah whose memories are they stealing yeah filaments of scorching infernos have been ignited all over me the fire sets off inside my eyelids spreading over to all facial pores and trickling down my body lies imbecile lies look at me i am an old man and you still young and strong as you will always be you have not aged now think more what do you remember of your childhood shakespearean memories of random sounds and smells are all you have gained from me master borges knew you were here he cracked you and then he tricked you he made you think you were me that was his way of evading you by not revealing you the truth until his final breath final book final story you are the one who wanders and those memories you have those are my memories and now that i have told you who you really are you must finally finish me I have heard enough of his fibs. I'm throwing my knife away. I shall not require any blades to finish him. With hands clenched around his thin neck, I am strangling him. I hear him squeal as the grip tightens. I feel the crackling of neck bones between my thumbs. I see him gulping the air in warm convulsions. He looks peaceful. I sit on his chest and watch his last breath picked up by the wind carry down the valley to the gardens, passing by the white chapel and the house where he grew up. The scorching wind of Andalusia is pouring sunlight onto his face, toying with eyelashes, pounding on cheeks, and jarring through hair. He must have missed the smell of the valley and the ripening softness of muscat fluff glistening in the air. I'm rewinding my wristwatch and walking downhill along the wavy trail, my thumbs still sore from killing. I'm taking small steps sideways. Once I reach El Yardenito Road, I'll hop on the first bus. From there, I will travel west or north. Destination will never matter. Anywhere is where the road takes me. Me, the one who wanders. That's fun. I like that. I really, I like the idea that he it's like, he's so it's almost like symbolism for, he becomes so lost in this fear of what might be that he becomes the very monster and like whose memories are shared. Is this entity like more of a vector that's passed from one person to the other as the wonderer becomes the follower or is it always the wonderer? Why are people compelled to follow stuff like that? and like the idea of the author kind of pushing him off at near the end of his life and stuff what a fascinating concept and basing it around a real author too is so cool yeah yeah that's really fun and also yeah even if it is actually like we're following the pov or i guess it switches but we're following the pov uh of this entity who thinks it's this real person that's a really fun twist for it to then be like oh oh i guess i am this like encrypted entity thing and now he's just like okay yep that like that uh recalibrated my brain as he's bleeding out he's like haha psychic you actually uh yeah you dummy and he's just like this is a very uh very literary version of the snail that kills you although it's like the meme that was going around a while like there's an immortal snail that oh yeah that's heading yeah yeah yeah yeah it is it is but it's like uh it thinks it's a a person in a made-up place uh called andalusia and thinks he's like a literary very literary snob yeah a very not real place uh called andalusia um the snail who kills you that is true that is true um i do like it too how it's kind of like the entity itself is almost kind of like the you know the the lament of prometheus like knowing you're gonna die instead of not knowing how you're going to die, it's just when he catches you, like, and touches you, you're like biological, uh, clock speeds up and you're just like, like, um, degrading in real time and you're going to die faster. And he's just slowly like falling you throughout wherever you go and, and trying to like weigh you down until you eventually just give in. Yeah. Yeah. I think that was excellent. I really loved it. like all the twists and turns there uh this was a great story and i also agree this is a great story for you and i to read and not hunter yeah no no yeah it was it was that yeah that was that was the end of the story by the way um i had a really good time reading this the first story was great too um you know shout out to the tales from the creep author um that was a lot of that was a lot of fun bug mom was excellent i will be writing that dub for a while the bug mom call was insane and then once we like got into his house and there was mention of spider webs i was like oh no are we we're not going to somehow fall into double but like bug mom and bug author are we but yeah i'm glad that we were able to uh have some bug illusions in the second one but the bug mom in the in the first episode was or the first story was really really fun yeah i'm pretty stoked about that uh yeah these were two great picks harry excellent job and uh everyone uh say thank you to harry our new uh podcast co-host as once again hunter has passed away rest in peace rest in peace rest in peace prayers up tombstones up um but yeah no i thought this was fantastic uh and i really enjoyed it so hopefully you guys enjoyed um another round of applause for our man harry harry anything you'd like to say while you're on this side of the camera actually the last thing i wanted to say was well first of all thank you for having me on uh isaiah prayers up hunter uh hopefully you guys enjoyed this but i did want to say i am not uh the only person behind this uh the camera and the operation so i did want to take my last second to just shout out the team uh that works with us uh kahl nate our editors justin our sound engineer making us sound good putting in all the really fun like sound stings you've seen him mix with me at the live shows uh georgie who does all of our beautiful crazy uh backgrounds that he does on a who works on our patreon episodes and um everyone else i really really appreciate you guys for helping keep me sane keep us sounding good looking good and going up on time um it does mean the world and i appreciate you guys for sure absolutely you know what harry you've moved my heart so just for that they get an extra 30 minutes of sunlight today just for that and an extra snack of course well let's not get carried away okay sorry yeah but no that yeah thank you to everyone who makes this show possible and thank you to all you guys watching who make it possible uh every everyone involved is fantastic and it's a blessing to work here um and means a lot so i guess that should do it for now uh until next time stay creeped and now bye everyone now you have to be me and say something off the wall uh you know you'll see me at uh everyone go on creepcast.com now go on the uh what was he doing there prayers up for hunter we hope he makes it through the liposuction procedure if he does we will put some pictures up at the end cool perfect and also harry welcome to america ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪