#the wrong turn

[static, radio tuning]

[Traveling Sales Rep: Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back, after these short messages.] [static, radio tuning]

[click]

Hello and welcome to Thin Places Radio. I’m your host,

and it is the middle of the night. But don’t worry. You’re not alone.

[Thin Places theme] 

[wind blowing] [wood creaking] [clock ticking]

I’m coming to you… from my studio, which is what I like to call this rickety chapel, closed up for the week, waiting for Sunday. I can hear the wind whistling in the cracks of the old wood, feel the whole frame shudder. There’s stained glass in the windows, but I can’t tell what color any of it is. Does God stay behind in the places we’ve carved out for him, when no one’s left? Does anything else? 

So… what is Thin Places Radio? Well, you can call in about anything strange that you’ve got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.

Are you retracing your steps, even when you can’t remember where you’ve been? 

Are you lost in your own hometown?

Are you reaching out for something you can’t experience? 

Call in, get it off your chest. Lines are open.

[click] [voicemail:]

Never done anything like this before, but I figured that you might understand? I have a amazing sense of direction, I’ve - I drive somewhere once and I know how to get there, I never get lost. The other day last summer, I was headed to the post office by my house, and I'm driving down the road and I - I'm not recognizing any of the landmarks. And I’m like, well, that’s weird, I must’ve just passed it. So I turn around and I drive back, I’m driving further, and I'm passing the intersection, I’m like, well I must’ve passed it again. 

I drove up and down that road three times before I finally had to pull into a parking lot. And I pulled up my phone and my map and - I was on the opposite side of town? I wasn't anywhere near my house or near the post office and I have no clue how I got there. I was so freaked out that I went straight home and I put it in my GPS even though I knew how to get there, I just - just to double check. I thought that was kind of weird. And you know, if you're still looking for a name, Host, you know, hopefully you find yours, but maybe Jade would work in the intro? Just a thought. Bye. 

[click] 

I do. I understand. Out of all of the things I have experienced, this is the most frightening: a lapse inside of my own world, or inside of my own mind. [eerie, curious music] Sometimes when you’ve lived somewhere for years, you wake up one day and its familiarity makes you feel sick to your stomach. You think, why? Why am I here? What is my purpose? The same misery, every day, on its own reliable schedule? You get in your car after work and you begin to drive home. But you miss your exit. And you think, I could - I could keep driving. I could keep driving all night, until I don’t recognize anything. Until I don't - 

[music stops]

I’m sorry, that's... not what you were talking about. I don’t know why I said that. Let me try again, caller.

You were pulled into something wrong, on your way to that post office - something uncanny, unfamiliar when it should have been understandable. Transported, or perhaps transformed. It’s terrifying to look up and not understand how you got there. [searching music] To not recognize the shape of your own life.

I think that there are two things you can do when you get to that parking lot: one, you can take advantage of that strangeness your life has become and say, I’m somewhere new now. I didn’t expect to be here, but I’m going to explore it. Or two, you can do what you've already done: look around at this unfamiliar new place and say, no, no, no, I can’t be here. I have to find my way back home. 

Thank you for the name, caller. Jade. Carveable into a thousand different shapes but not easily broken. Resilient. It’s a good name. I wish it was mine. 

And, just in case - as always - say it with me - please check your home for carbon monoxide. 

[click] [clock ticking]

Something strange, listeners. There is a type of deep-sea squat lobster that eats wood. It is called Munidopsis andamanica. It waits there, in the abyss, for trees and shipwrecks, gifts from the waking world that fall slowly into the darkness of the water. It was made to subsist something it will never see - something that does not exist where it exists. The sea provides.

This is beautiful. I know that it is beautiful. It lives, despite all odds. It finds sustenance, despite all odds. [clock ticks louder] But I think it must be lonely. I wonder if it craves other food. I wonder if it is happy down so deep, or if it thinks of the surface. If it wants to see the sun. 

No, probably not. It’s a crustacean. It doesn’t know any of this. It doesn’t know how improbable it is - that it’s either a freak or a miracle, or both. It eats what it was meant to eat until it dies. However long that is. How are you supposed to keep track of something that’s down so deep? 

[click] [wind whistling] [wood creaking]

I am going to be honest, listeners, in this empty place. I am going to say it to the wind that's tearing apart this chapel and to you. I wish I'd never remembered that there was something to forget. I wish there was someone who could hear me where I am and not just over the radio. I’m lost. I’m lonely. I want to talk to somebody face to face. I want to see the surface. [eerie, curious music]

I don’t think I can get any of that back. But I have to find out what happened. I’m going back for what I lost, even if I lose it all over again. 

[click]

Thank you for listening, callers, and thank you for calling, listeners. I hope you feel a little bit lighter. [heavy pause] I know I do. As always, our number is 717.382.8093. That’s 717.382.8093. Until next time. I’ll be here.

[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the - diner just off -] [Various Garbled Voices: the - road - provides - the - road - provides -]

Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of Your Host is Kristen O’Neal.

Tonight’s voicemail was left for us by a mystery caller. Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music tracks you heard in tonight’s episode are: the Thin Places theme and Unearthed, by Miles Morkri, and Umeed by RANA. If you have a question to ask, a story to tell, or a suggestion for the host, give us a call at ‪(717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.

[Thin Places Theme outro]