Episode 259: Watch Out
January 22nd, 2024
Kristen Zaza
[Eerie Theme Music.]
[Your Narrator:]
I wonder what it’s like, where you are
I wonder how it is you spend your days
There are so many ways, so many possibilities, some true for some of you, others true for others of you, it’s really just so vast
I think about all of the ways you could spend all of your days
Some in work, others in play, some in rest, others in stress
Cold, warm, light, dark, loud, quiet
Where could you be, I wonder?
I spend so much of my time in an interior castle of my own perpetually changing design
I spend much of my time in a dangerous and spiritual forest
I spend some of it trapped in small dark rooms with only my voice for company
I spend some of it, however, in cities, in towns, in places familiar to the material world that we associate with waking life
Sometimes
Sometimes no
I find myself here now
Can’t tell really
Can’t tell if it’s a busy city like the one I’m the most familiar with, with its tall bland buildings and its impersonal oblivious streets
Polite to see but angry to hear
Perhaps you work in such a city
Perhaps you drive or bike or walk to a place where you have to focus on certain things only
I understand, I know someone like that, someone very very very close to me, just like that
Travelling, arriving, focusing, working, leaving, returning, resting
The Travelling, Returning and Resting is a blending of universes, an in-between experience where worlds collide, you are only travelling, so it doesn’t really always matter if you are seen, right? Driving, biking, walking, you are merely travelling, not stopping, not working, not resting
What goes on between your ears, behind your eyes, in those moments?
I really can’t tell, as I see you moving from one place to another
I watch as a silent shadow, I watch the travelling souls who aren’t sure quite which material world they’ve found themselves in, nor are they really stopping to look
I can only guess at who is going to work or school or home or elsewhere
It doesn’t really concern me
I’m just fascinated at the type of being these souls become when travelling
Or perhaps it is a smaller town, I know many of those too
And the travelling is much quieter, much more sparse, perhaps souls are kept company by trees and wildlife, isn’t that quite nice?
But that has its doldrums, its melancholy, its loneliness, too
Nature is beautiful but if you haven’t got the time to stop and enjoy it, if you are heading towards work rather than rest, stress rather than peace, grief rather than joy, I suppose it has a different effect
The travelling, arriving, focusing, working, leaving, returning and resting still occurs, only the images projected on the screen change
Or perhaps you don’t really travel very far, perhaps work is at home, in another room or even just seat, that is well too, there are no wrong answers
Work doesn’t mean the same to everyone, it is all very different, isn’t it? It could be caring for others or moving to a computer or a kitchen or throughout a home or building of a different kind
But the travelling is still the same, the liminal space between rest and busy-ness, isn’t it, in a way? We have to prepare, warm-up to a different world, or at least that’s how it feels for me
Or you know, one part of me
The part of me that isn’t out here just watching
[Music; a reverberating, pulsing chord progression, simple and digital]
Not a part of me
Maybe another me
I can’t lock down this difference, I have trouble keeping them all separate these days, oh all right fine it’s not that I have trouble, but rather unwillingness. A deliberate rebellion against compartmentalizing the different selves for different worlds
Who said I can’t have claws and fangs and sprouts and flowers and ghosts and spirits and glasses and computers all at once, right?
Am I right?
Is this thing on?
No really, can you hear me?
More importantly, can you see me?
Can you imagine that you are finishing whatever you consider to be your work, the thing you spend an awful lot of time on and perhaps the thing that you look forward to finishing so that you can return to a place of rest,
Or is it thought,
Or is it freedom,
Or is it desire,
Or is it
Nevermind nevermind, what you do and feel in your spare time is your own business
Imagine, anyway, that you are finishing what you consider to be your work, if you can.
Where are you?
What is around you?
Who is around you, if anyone?
What is your process? Do you have a ritual?
Does it involve cleaning up, changing footwear or gear of some kind? Do you leave a building, or a room? Do you enter a vehicle of some kind, walk down roads, sidewalks, paths? Are there others around you in that vehicle or on that journey, or are you alone?
Do you see me, seeing you, on it?
I don’t think you do
I don’t just haunt her anymore, the funny and tired musical one with glasses
I can haunt you too, if I like, if you like
Would that help?
All right, good, because I can’t wait to do it. I have a very real and selfish want, and that is to haunt as many people as possible. I don’t need it but I waaaant it
Hungry ghost that I am sometimes
Where was I? oh yes
There you are.
Heading from work to rest
You are in such a daze, moving in a rhythm only you know, but one that every person has
Perhaps you are reading, perhaps you are listening to music
Maybe you’re listening to me Right Now, wouldn’t that be something? I should be so lucky as to have time work on my side for this little story conversation or whatever we want to call it
Travel, go on, you can keep your eyes down or on the road (actually please keep your eyes on the road or ahead of you, if you are travelling, you must be careful and safe)
But know that I see you
I’m not sure if you see me
I’m just shadow, now, maybe that cloaked figure from season one
Or maybe a forest-god disguised as a tree among many others in your view
Maybe I’m the invisible passenger in the backseat
Maybe I’m walking just a few feet behind you
Watching from outside or inside a window
You know what is fun, too?
I’m not alone
There are indeed ghosts everywhere
But they may not be what you think, either.
They may be remaining spirits of deceased people, it’s possible, but they may just be forces, clusters of energy, moving around you, perhaps causing you to notice another person with compassion where you might have otherwise ignored them, or maybe making you look up and avoid an unsafe situation when you otherwise might have just kept your head down and minded your business. A little voice in your ear calling you to pay attention to something you can’t quite put your finger on. An invisible something begging you to notice something remarkable in your world, something in need of honouring, helping, changing, or releasing
I can’t really see them, I’ve never been too good at seeing ghosts, though I am almost certain they are there. Can you see them?
Do you think they’re listening, too?
Can they hear in your headphones? Can they hear me in the microphone?
Oh where are my manners.
A witch once told me not to speak of ghosts as though they are not in the room with you, speak to them as you would consider polite to be spoken to.
So I will try again.
Hello, ghosts!
Are you listening along with us?
Can you hear my voice?
Are you travelling too? Or are you resting?
Is there something you would like us to know? To see? To hear?
I’ll give you the floor for a moment.
[Long pause]
Most interesting. Thank you.
[Music; theme from before but with more depth, more layers, sighing voices, soaring accompaniment]
If you stare closely enough at the shadows, you may find the monstrous things watching you. You may see their eyes in the darkness between buildings in the city streets. You may see their claws curling around tree trunks on your drive to or from work. You may hear their voices whispering on the wind, just behind the murmur of everything else in this noisy world of ours. But most likely, you won’t.
And they mourn that. They want so dearly to be observed, just for once to have the tables turned. Some of them are outright waving, trying to catch your attention. Like one man. There was a man with a busy life, centred only on work work work; traveling to it, staying there as long as he could, then traveling from it…and he couldn’t see the things that watched him
They tried to lay out traps for him, woven with their strong and poisonous hair
They tried to lure him with banquet tables full of the most sparkling, moist, toxic and tempting fruits and sweets from their home land
They tried to create the most beautiful disguise out of the loveliest silks and feathers from their vicious forests
But he wouldn’t look up from his paperwork on the subway
He wouldn’t remove his earbuds to hear their song
He wouldn’t distract himself from such a small aspect of only one of his planes of existence, he was so focused on this traveling, working, traveling, resting, traveling, working, traveling, resting, traveling, working, traveling, resting, over and over and over, that he never even imagined, never even tried to imagine, that there was anything else to watch out for
Even when he lost that job
His despair was so great, his anxiety so deep, his confusion so intense, he only fell deeper and deeper into that trap, that trap of such a small element of such a small dimension…
That the creatures, the ones with the pale green skin and the beautiful yellow eyes and the hair like poisonous forest ivy and the lips like rotten blackberries
The ones that wanted so badly for him to notice them, but he never did
They wanted him for their own because…
I don’t want to do it
Sorry. I don’t want to be here right now.
I started it thinking I did, sorry
But now I want to go back
Is that all right?
[A sigh, a gasp, a portal of sound]
There we are.
Back by the fire
On the soft armchairs
With these warm blankets
Perfect pillows
And embracing darkness.
The city lights were too much
I wanted firelight.
I wanted the story room
But the story is just…
I wanted to see the firelight dancing with the shadows.
I thought I could turn the story to reality
Make the travel-work-travel-rest story just a little more magical
By making myself believe that there are
Things
Watching
Waiting
There are things I want and I don’t know if I will have.
That’s all right.
It’s just one part of a very very very large
More like infinitely large
More like completely unquantifiable
Endless parade
Of happening. Wanting, having, not having, learning, gaining, losing, whatever
So if I don’t get something I want in one existence
It’s all right
It’s all right
I know it’s all right
But I still feel the loss of it.
I just want to be here wrapped up in this blanket right now.
My body might be flickering in and out of view in the firelight, like a ghost who can’t decide if she wants to be here or not, or on another plane
Splitting my awareness between the two, I just want to be warm and supported right now.
You can join me here if you like.
In your chair.
Or go back to the man who lost his job and lost himself in despair and worry
And, distracted by those, fell into an open sewer entrance
That had a poisonous net woven of the ivy hair of creatures from another place that wanted him for their own because when he was a child and before he knew about the whole travel-work-travel-rest trap, he played with them by a creek, they too were just little children, these poisonous things from another world, They crept into his world and he taught them hide-and-seek
They played for hours and hours and hours
Until his mother called for him and he ran home
And they would play it sometimes, whenever he could make it out
But then the man called father got a job in another place and they left
Work took him away from them, these lovely wanting things with yellow eyes and poison ivy hair and green skin
But they were determined to get him back
And take him to their home
And teach him to play again.
He fell in the net
And it poisoned his skin, turning his blood green as leaves and his lips black as rotten blackberries and his eyes sickly yellow
And as he slipped out of the world of buildings and paperwork, his old friends looked down on him with bright and eager eyes
They all whispered at once:
“Found you.”
[Music again; same as before, only no voice]
And he slipped into another world
One where children and grown-ups played hide and seek all day
They played hide and seek with the berries and seeds they found in the forest
They played hide and seek with the creatures they hunted and the creatures who hunted them
They played hide and seek with the diseases that inevitably caught up to some of them, but could not catch all of them
They played hide and seek with things they wanted, sometimes catching some and sometimes letting others be lost.
In a world of games, in a dimension of new and grown children who took everything as play, no matter how seemingly serious or frivolous, he found the hiding-seeking-chasing-catching-losing-running-resting-laughing much more rewarding
Surprising
And, ultimately, human.
[Eerie theme music]
(Host speaks as Kristen:)
Hello everyone, and thanks so much for listening to Episode 259 of On a Dark, Cold Night. This is host, writer, narrator, composer, etc, Kristen Zaza. Sorry I missed you last week but I needed a little time to stew on some things - not sure how the stew itself turned out but I thank you for trying it and for your patience.
Thank you as always to my patrons who support the show on a monthly basis on patreon.com - thank you so so much for your continued support, my friends. Every supporter of $1 or more a month US gets access to my complete soundtrack of the show, so over 250 downloadable tracks, and every supporter of $5 or more a month US gets that, a weekly bonus episode that’s a 5-10 minute long meditation known as my “Quick Moments”, and a monthly tarot reading video uploaded on the full moon. To learn more, visit patreon.com/darkcoldnight. You can also support by donating one-time only without any perks at ko-fi.com/darkcoldnight, or by buying a t-shirt or hoodie at bonfire.com/on-a-dark-cold-night. You can access the Quick Moment meditation episodes through apple by subscribing to the Sonar+ Apple podcast channel for 3.99 a month - search On a Dark, Cold Night on apple podcasts to check that out.
I’d also love if you left a rating or a review on Facebook, iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you like to do so, that would be amazing. You can follow me on instagram at darkcoldnightpodcast, Facebook and YouTube under ON a Dark, Cold Night, tiktok and Bluesky at kristenzaza, or on Twitter @ADarkColdNight.
Thank you so much for joining me, everyone.
I came up on my 6th anniverary of this podcast last week, I really can’t believe it’s been going on such a long time. I’m really grateful for that and for you listening and being with me on this journey. I’m not sure where it will go next, but I am grateful.
Lots of love to you, my friends. Rest well.
[Eerie theme music]
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