In the Blink of an Eye (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Today, I'm going to tell you three stories that are about how just one moment of being distracted can lead to catastrophe. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, please invite the follow button to join you at your huge tailgating event for the football game. Give them directions to the wrong parking lot. Okay, let's get into our first story called The Runaway Chicken. On the morning of July 31st, 1995, in a small village in Egypt, an 18-year-old man named Ahmed carried a bag of grain as he opened the gate to the pen where his family's chickens were kept. Ahmed's family had been farming here for generations. It was their entire livelihood. And so because of that, Ahmed and his three siblings were expected to work on the farm. And they would take turns doing the many chores that kept it running. And today, it was Ahmed's turn to feed the chickens. And so Ahmed, after going through the gate, he began pouring the grain onto the ground. Immediately, the two dozen or so chickens came rushing out to eat this grain. And Ahmed, he watched as these chickens came running over and one of the chickens bolted past the grain, ran right by Ahmed and ran out the gate because Ahmed had forgot to shut the gate behind him when he came in. And now he's watching as this chicken is running off to freedom. More specifically, it was running towards the family's water well, which was not too far away just as well, sitting out in the middle of a yard. And so Ahmed, he just dropped the bag of grain on the ground, a bunch more spilled out. All the chickens are pecking away at it. And he turned and he ran out the gate, shut it and closed it behind him to keep them inside. And then he sprinted over towards this chicken, who by now had actually hopped up on the wall of the well. And it was kind of like jumping around the well. And so Ahmed, he runs over and he literally lunges to grab the chicken and right as he does, the chicken jumps off the side and falls into the well. And then a second later, Ahmed's listening and he hears the sound of the splash as the chicken clearly hit the water, 60 feet down, and Ahmed's like, oh no, the chicken's going to be dead from the fall. But then a second later, he hears the sound of wings flapping against the water, like clearly the chicken has survived the fall. And so in a way, this was, you know, obviously a huge relief, you know, okay, I've contained the problem, there's a chicken down in the well and the rest of the chickens are locked in their pen, okay, like this is this controlled, but now it's like, what do you do? His family's going to think he was so reckless if he goes to them and says, hey, by the way, I was in charge of the chickens today. And there's one in the well because I let it get out, like they're just going to be upset with him. And then what are they going to do? They're going to try to get it out of the well. And so he's like, I might as well, you know, try to get it out now and save myself from being chastised for being so reckless. And so the first thing Ahmed does is he just lowers the bucket that was connected to a rope in a little pulley system. You could lower the bucket all the way down to the water, you know, get water and pull it back up, you know, 60 feet and you get water from the well. And so the first thing he did is he just lowered the bucket all the way down so it was touching the water. And he just kind of hoped that the chicken would hop in the bucket and he could pull it back up again. But no matter how many times he snapped and like clicked to the chicken, it did not get in the bucket. So he pulled the bucket back up and then he went and got some grain and he put some grain in the bucket. You know, maybe I'll lower it in that way, lower it back down, chicken still does not get in the bucket. And now it's like, all right, this is taking quite a bit of time. I've got to do this before somebody sees that I've lost this chicken. And so this time he leaves the rope in the bucket all the way down and he anchors the rope so it won't spool out any more. And then he, Ahmed, climbs over the wall, grabs the rope and begins climbing down into the well. He's going to get that chicken by hand and carry it back up. At the same time that Ahmed decided he was going to literally climb into the well, inside the nearby house, the family home, Ahmed's older brother, who was 20 years old, he looked out the window and he saw Ahmed literally climbing over the well wall and then, you know, lowering himself down into the well like he disappeared from view. And Ahmed's older brother, I mean, he was stunned. He couldn't believe Ahmed would do something so stupid. It was summer, so the well water was very shallow, so there wasn't really a way for Ahmed to drown if he, you know, went down there for whatever reason like it wasn't deep. But still, you're climbing into a well and it's a very deep well. There was so many ways to get hurt, to get stuck or to fall. And so, immediately, the older brother ran and found his two other brothers, two teenage siblings, were also in the house and he told them what he had just seen. And then together, they all rushed out to make sure Ahmed was okay. And so, once outside, Ahmed's oldest brother, he led his siblings over to the well. But when they looked down into it, they couldn't see anything. And when he shouted Ahmed's name, there was no response. And he actually didn't even hear any water splashing or any sort of movement or any sign of life in the well. It was almost like there was nothing in the well. And so, Ahmed's siblings, they kept calling out for Ahmed, but there still was nothing like no sound until they heard a chicken clucking down at the bottom of the well. And so, now, Ahmed's oldest brother, he really started to panic because unlike the other two siblings, the oldest brother had seen Ahmed climb into the well. He knew he had gone in there. And yes, in theory, in the time it took for him to go round up his other two siblings and go outside, Ahmed could have maybe climbed back out of the well. And maybe he was somewhere else in the property. But now that he's heard this chicken down there, he's thinking, okay, clearly Ahmed went down there to get the chicken. I don't know how this happened, but I bet he's down there and he's not making any sound. Like, I gotta go down there and make sure he's okay. And so, Ahmed's oldest brother, he turned to the siblings and he said, I'm going in. About 20 minutes later, at a house up the road from Ahmed's farm, a man named Mahmoud was getting ready to go outside and do some chores when there was an octopus door. He went over, he opened it up, and he saw his very elderly neighbor standing outside looking completely frantic. The elderly neighbor told Mahmoud that he had just watched all four kids from the farm next door climb into their well, one after the other. And he'd rushed over there after he'd seen the fourth one go in. But he couldn't actually see down into the well and none of the kids had responded to him when he had called out for help. So, he was afraid that something had happened to them. And so, Mahmoud and his neighbor, they immediately ran over to Ahmed's family's farm. They went right over to the well and they both looked down inside and they started yelling out for the kids. No answer. And so, eventually, sensing that there really could be a problem here, the elderly neighbor said he'd go down first, he would go down there and he'd pull them up, you know, one by one, Mahmoud, you stay up here, you'll help me hoist them out, like we're going to get them out right now. And so, Mahmoud, he's like, okay, I got it, I'll be right here. And so, Mahmoud watched as the older guy, he climbs in, he grabs the rope, down he goes, and then silence. Now at first, Mahmoud just kind of paced around the outside of the well and just expected that at any moment, his neighbor would call back up and say, you know, I found them or I didn't, but like some sort of progress report would come out of the well. But no, there was nothing. All Mahmoud could hear was a chicken, clucking in the well somewhere, or that's all he thought he could hear. And so, after a little while, he began calling out for his neighbor, like, hey, are you okay down there? Like, what's going on? And he's looking down into this well and again, it's just a, it's a dark chasm, it's 2D, you can't see the bottom. He hears no people, but he definitely hears a clucking chicken, that's it. And so at this point, Mahmoud's thinking like, something's off here, there's a problem for sure. I don't know what it is, but something's going on in this well. And for a second, he thought about going off and getting the police, but then he's like, I just got to go in there myself, like clearly there's a crisis right now, it's right in front of me. I just got to go in there and get these guys out of there, like it's up to me. And so Mahmoud, you know, after, you know, stealing his reserve, he climbed over the wall, grabbed the rope, and down he went. A few hours later, a police officer and a few members of his team, hurried over to the well on Ahmed's family's farm. They've been called out here on a very bizarre report from a passerby who claimed to have seen multiple people climbing into this particular well, and none of them had come out again. And so the main officer and his team, they walk over to the well and they look down inside of it and it's just a dark hole, they can't see the bottom, you know, it's 60 foot deep. They can hear at the bottom, something's moving around and it sounds like a chicken clucking down there, but when they, they called out, because anybody down there, there was no response. And so eventually, the main officer pulled out his high powered flashlight, clicked it on and shined it straight down the well. It would turn out this well on Ahmed's property was like a death trap. Basically the reason nobody was calling back out after going into the well is because within seconds of reaching the bottom of the well, they died. All of them, everybody who went in, they all died. Because the well, like many other wells in rural Egypt, at least at the time. time, they were very old and were not properly ventilated. And so over time, because of this lack of ventilation, it allows for dangerous levels of carbon dioxide and methane gas to build up at the bottom. And so basically, when Ahmed and his siblings and the neighbors, when they got to the bottom and inhaled, it was a combination of no oxygen and poison. And they passed out and died within seconds. And so when the police arrived and they shined their flashlight down into the well, what they saw at the bottom were six dead bodies and a chicken. Who was very much alive? Because birds don't require nearly as much oxygen as humans do, so that chicken was able to survive for hours without suffocating. Our next story is called Final Assignment. At 8.50pm on the night of March 4th, 2022, a 20-year-old college student named Kim Yoon-sa hurried out of a restaurant along a very busy street in Pohang, which is a city on South Korea's east coast. As she stepped onto the sidewalk, she was busy scrolling her phone, and then when she was out there, she sort of absent-mindedly began putting up her arm to hail a cap. So Kim had just been out to dinner at this restaurant with her friends when she had suddenly remembered that she still had a homework assignment that was due tomorrow that she had not done yet. So now she was basically rushing back to her dorm room at Haundong University to work on it. As the cab pulled up in front of her, Kim had found the syllabus for this assignment in one of her emails on her phone, and so she's sort of busy looking at what she's going to have to do that night as she's climbing into the cab. And when she got into the cab in the back seat, she could see her driver was an elderly man who seemed perfectly nice, and she kind of quickly told him that she was headed to Haundong University just a few blocks away, and then she went back to her phone. A moment later, the cab took off from the curb, and as it did, Kim, she's like completely glued to her phone. She's reading the syllabus and preparing herself for whatever she's going to have to do that night to complete this final assignment. So she's reading every little detail, and as she's doing this, she notices out of a peripheral vision that the driver has turned around as they're moving, and he's looking at her, and he's trying to say something to her. And you know, she couldn't really tell what he was saying. She wasn't really paying attention. She's just focused on this. This is a short cab ride here. It's a couple of blocks. She's thinking, you know, maybe he's just like saying, how are you? Or something sort of just like a nice city or whatever. He's this very non-threatening older guy. And so just for a second, she kind of looks up from a phone, and she's like, yep. All right. Thank you. Kind of dismissing him in some ways, because she really wants to focus on this. And the man like he sees her and sees her saying, thank you, and he just nods, and he turns back and keeps on driving. A few minutes later, Kim had just finished reading the entire syllabus, and so she's thinking, okay, like I got to handle on things. And she put her phone down for a second, like right as she's looking up and seeing that her school, where she's going to get dropped off, is right up ahead. So she puts her phone away, and she gets her stuff, and she gets ready to, you know, step out of the cap. But the driver, instead of going to the school, turned off the road they were on, and then a few seconds later, he merged onto the expressway. Kim immediately thought, like, is this guy like confused? Does he not understand? Like the school's right there. Like what is he doing? And so she as politely as she could, but as forcefully as she could, told him, like, hey, you're going the wrong way. You know, please go back. My school's right over there. But the old man, instead of apologizing or in any way recognizing what she had said, he just completely ignored her. And actually, he began to speed up to cut through traffic. And so at this point, Kim, she leaned forward, and again, she said, please, like, turn around, like my school's back there. I don't know what you're doing. And so at this point, she's hoping that this guy will in some way acknowledge that, like, a mistake's been made here, like, show me that you understand this is not right. But the guy just kept on driving, kept on going faster and faster down the expressway. And at one point, he even looked in the rear view mirror at Kim, and there was just, like, no emotion on his face. It was, like, he was on some sort of mission that she didn't understand. And at this point, like, Kim, she started to get scared, like, what is this guy doing? What? What's his angle? Why is this happening? People let her phone, and she starts texting her boyfriend, being like, I think I'm in danger. This guy's like kidnapping me. I don't know what's going on. And all the while, as she's doing this, she's begging the driver, like, please, just stop. Let me get out here. Oh, walk from here. I don't care. Just, like, let me out. But the driver just, no reaction, just kept on driving, kept on speeding up. And she's just, like, in full panic mode. But then after sending a flurry of text to her boyfriend, inexplicably, the driver slows down, and pulls off the expressway. And immediately Kim's like, "Few." I don't know what's going on with this guy, but thank goodness, like, we're pulling into anywhere but the highway. That's good. I can at least get out wherever we are and figure it out. And so they pull off the expressway and the driver, you know, Kim's waiting to see, again, some acknowledgment that mistakes have been made here, but still the driver, despite having exited the highway. He's like, still on a mission. And he eventually turns on to a side street in this desolate town, and he's not slowing down. He's clearly driving somewhere in particular. He's maneuvering like he knows where he's going, and he's going down this road that it's like she's looking out. And she's like, "I really am being kidnapped. I can't believe it. I can't believe this is happening." And she's thinking, like, "What do I do?" She checks her phone. Her boyfriend hasn't written back. She's begged some more for this guy to stop. He's clearly not listening to her that much is clearly confirmed. She thinks about calling the police, but she's like, "I don't know. I don't really know if I'm overreacting or not. I don't really even know where I am." We're also moving, so as soon as I tell them I'm here, I'm going to be somewhere else. Like the whole thing was just like, "What do I do?" And they weren't moving that quickly. They're driving down the road, like not speeding, but they're moving with a purpose. And she's thinking, like, "What if I just jump out of the car?" Like she saw the door next to her was unlocked. She could open the door. And she thought, "What if I just, like, jump out of the car?" It's crazy, but it'll get me out of here, and I'll figure it out from there. I can run away, and I can hide from the sky, and I can figure it out. And so Kim, she put her phone away. She looked to the guy one more time and said, "Please, just stop the car. Let me out. I won't tell anyone." But the guy just kept on driving, not paying attention to her. And so she opened up the door, and she jumped out. And immediately she hit the ground, and even though the car was going pretty slow, it's still a moving car. And so she hits the pavement hard, knocks the wind out of her. She rolls a bunch of times, like this hurt a lot. But, you know, amazingly, she sat up, and she's like, "Okay, like, I did it." And you know, the kidnapper has driven off at this point, not even clear if he even knew she jumped out. But then, before Kim could do much of anything, she turned and saw bright lights bearing down on her. The following day, a detective, whose name was Han Ji-man, walked into an interview room at the Po Hong City Police Department. Over the night, he had been put in charge of investigating the death of a college student whose name was Kim Yoon-so. She apparently had jumped out of a moving cab, and then was promptly hit and killed by a passing SUV. And now, Detective Han was sitting down across from Kim's taxi driver, the older man, his name was Joe Young-min. And right away, Detective Han could see that Joe looked very upset. But Han assumed this was all a big act, because he had already talked to Kim's boyfriend, who had printed out Kim's text messages that showed she thought she was in danger. She was being kidnapped by Joe. And so, as Joe is sitting there, sort of like acting like he's a wreck from this horrible tragedy, the detective slid the printouts of the text messages that Kim sent while she was in his cab the night before, in front of Joe, so we could see, like, look, you know, we know what was going on, you kidnapped her. And so, the detective, he watched as Joe, he looked down and he began reading these text messages, you know, between Kim and her boyfriend. And then after Joe read them all, he looked up and he had these wide eyes. And he told the detective that this is all wrong. It would turn out, Joe, the cab driver, was basically deaf. He literally did not hear Kim. Usually, when Joe's passengers first got into his cab, he would turn around and he would actually look back at his passengers, and he would just get them to confirm where they wanted to go. And so he'd, with a little bit of hearing he had, he would sort of hear what they said, but more than anything, he'd be reading their lips, he'd see their answer. And that had been enough for him. He'd been doing this a long time, and it was always, you know, what he needed to figure out where they wanted to go. At the night before, he said when Kim got into his cab, she had quickly said where she wanted to go, Hongdaung University. And he thought he heard something like University, but he couldn't really be sure. And so when he turned around and tried to get her to confirm that you want to go to this university over here, she was sort of engrossed in her phone. And so he said eventually she did look up from her phone and she was like, yeah, thank you. And Joe said he had taken that as confirmation of where she wanted to go. The problem was, Joe thought she said a different university name than the one she actually wanted to go to. And it was much farther away and it was sort of off the beaten path. And so Joe was just dutifully driving her to where he thought she wanted to go, this other university. But because he was basically deaf, he didn't hear her complaining about how this isn't the right one And so eventually she, Kim, convinced herself that he's kidnapping her and that he's gonna go kill her or whatever And so she jumps out of the car, survives the jump, hit by an oncoming car, and dies. In the end, both the cab driver, Joe, and The driver of the SUV that ultimately hit Kim and killed her, they were both charged with involuntary manslaughter But both were later acquitted Our next and final story of today's episode is called "Afternoon Now" On the morning of July 18, 1901, a 35-year-old man named Grant Wilkins Waded through a gigantic swampy forest in southeastern Virginia. He stopped in front of this this huge tall cedar tree And then he raised the axe he was carrying and swung at hard into the tree's trunk So the area that Grant was in was called the great dismal swamp And Grant thought that the name was fitting because this place was making him absolutely miserable. It was so hot that sweat was dripping down his face and his neck and the extreme humidity made it like really hard to breathe And he kept getting bit by mosquitoes and he had to stay on high alert for ticks and also venomous snakes and even bears Because he knew there were a lot of them in this area But he was here to work and so he pulled his axe out of the tree and then he swung it again and again and again And the whole time he was doing this in addition to feeling physically really uncomfortable He also was just feeling really mad and frustrated that he was having to do this at all So before Grant found himself cutting down trees in a swamp Grant used to be a very well-paid longshoreman which is someone who helps load and unload cargo ships at ports and really Grant in addition to being paid well. He just really liked the job But earlier that year hundreds of longshoremen in Virginia, including Grant, had gone on this unpaid strike Now at first Grant had been fully in favor of the strike But the strike just dragged it didn't really have any effect Like the leadership didn't seem to really do anything despite the fact you have all these longshoremen not working And so for Grant it was like wait a minute like we got to go back to work. I need to get paid But he couldn't because he was on strike like there wasn't a way to like fix the thing he had done And by now he had burned through all his savings and he really kind of needed to find another way to make ends meet So he'd begun coming out to this horrible swamp and Chopping down cedar trees for lumber he would take the lumber back home He would cut it into smaller pieces that he could use as like roof shingles and other things and then he would sell them Now the money was fine like it did help pay the bills, but it was just a lot of work. This is like backbreaking miserable work But Grant was out here. He's he's doing his work You know he kept on chopping at the cedar tree until finally he heard a a cracking sound and he stepped back and this huge cedar tree It fell over and the landed on the ground and so after that Grant was feeling really good Really exhausted too. I mean this had taken a lot of energy to cut this tree down And so he decided before he did any more work. He was just gonna take a break and have lunch And so a couple of minutes later Grant sat near the tree. He had just cut down and he leaned back against the trunk of another cedar tree And he pulled out the lunch that he had brought with him which was just a can of sardines and a bottle of beer Now this was not much of a lunch in fact Grant kind of hated this lunch You know it didn't taste good the beer was flat and the sardines were very fishy But it was all he could afford and so he snarfed down this horrible lunch And then afterwards he was gonna get up and continue to work But he's like, you know why let me just let me just Rest my head back against this tree for a second and just like relax for just a couple of minutes and What should have just been a couple of minutes quickly turned into a Full-blown nap because the combination of being physically exhausted from cutting the tree down to the beer He just he fell asleep and so before long he was just snoring away a few hours later a different lumberjack Began waiting through the great dismal swamp also on the lookout for good trees to cut down and so he's walking along Waiting through this gross swamp and at some point off in the distance He spots a cedar tree and in fact this particular cedar tree had already been cut down It was lying on its side and it looked like it just had not been claimed So either somebody had cut it down and left it or maybe it had fallen down on its own But either way the lumberjack's like great. I'm gonna. I'm gonna claim that tree And so he starts hustling over to this tree and when he gets close enough He realizes actually there is somebody else here There's another man who appears to be a lumberjack who is Sitting up against a tree nearby not not against the tree that was cut down He's he's propped up against another tree And he was sitting there of this other man and it was Grant and and he was sitting there and he was clearly asleep His heads up against the tree. He's just sitting there arms crossed legs crossed And his mouth was wide open and his tongue was hanging out And you know this other lumberjack he's looking at at Grant not knowing Grant And he's thinking like man that looks like a pretty uncomfortable way to sleep Like the way he's positioned on the tree and his mouth so wide open with his tongue out like that Like that doesn't look very comfortable like what's going on with this guy and for a second He thought about like calling out to him and you know waking him up to just make sure he was okay But then he saw Grant's tongue start to move And the lumberjack he took a few steps closer to to see what was going on with with this guy with Grant And he realized That wasn't Grant's tongue So after Grant ate his very fishy sardines and drank his flat beer He leaned up against that other tree and he closed his eyes intending to take a short nap But it turned into a full bore like long nap And while he was asleep against this tree he slept with his mouth open So he's like just laying there mouth open and he had just eaten those very fishy sardines And it attracted a very specific animal was drawn to the smell of the sardines coming out of his mouth And so Grant he's just laying there mouth open totally unaware sleeping away And this four and a half foot long jet black venomous snake began making its way towards Grant's mouth And eventually it reached Grant and it slithered up his body And into his mouth and down his throat All without Grant waking up The snake was literally going for the sardines inside of Grant's body And it eventually got into his stomach and was eating the sardines inside of Grant when Grant woke up But couldn't breathe because this huge snake is now blocking his airway And so Grant ultimately suffocated and died And so he was dead when that other lumberjack walked on the scene And what he thought was Grant's tongue was just the tail of that venomous snake The snake was ultimately pulled out of Grant and sort of unbelievably it was still alive And managed to escape and slither off into the swamp after having eaten all those sardines A quick note about our stories they are all based on true events But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved And some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes The Mr. Ballon podcast, Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me Mr. Ballon, our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Acasio This episode was written by Kate Gallagher, Aaron Lann, and by Harris Pash Cooper Story editing by Kate Murdock and Harris Pash Cooper Research and Fact Checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fassiano Research and Fact Checking Supervision by Steven Ear Audio editing and post-produced by Whitlacasio and Jordan Stitum Production support by Antonio Manada and Delana Corley Artwork by Jessica Clogston Keiner, Theme Song, Something Wicked by Ross Bugden Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballon podcast And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballon podcast You can also now watch on the Mr. Ballon YouTube channel that very same day And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballon If you want to listen to episodes one week early and add free You can subscribe to SiriusXM podcast plus on Apple podcasts Or visit SiriusXM.com/podcastplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice So, that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya