TRANSCRIPT - Episode 149:  Timelessness

June 23rd, 2021

Kristen Zaza

[Eerie theme music plays]

Hello.

Listeners.

I'm trying something a little different today.

Different from the way I've done things before.

Maybe.

I'm trying to do it a little differently.

This is your Writer, your Host, your Narrator, your friend, your soundtrack, your imaginary Forest,

Kristen.

(it loses its novelty after I do it a few times, doesn't it? Hearing from me, suddenly. I understand. I never did it for shock. Yet here I am again.)

I would say that I'll do away with flowery language for one episode,

But I can't, really

Because I'm scripting this ahead of time, because I have issues with control that I'm trying to work through, but I won't in this way, because I think I speak better with my fingers anyway

[the sound of typing]

See?

Anyway, because I'm scripting this ahead of time, I cannot help but be flowery with my language, because I cannot grow flowers in my apartment, and so I shall grow them in my Forest.

This is the problem. I'm not going to say that it's a lie that it's a fiction that it's false because it is most certainly not.

But then it's like I'm being dishonest with you

But bear in mind that in my real life, I talk about this stuff too

But I don't need you to know about that.

Let me walk you through a day with me

I wake up

Sometimes I have work, sometimes I do not, I am nebulously self-employed but I'm trying.

I usually stay inside all day

Some days I sit on the balcony

Some days I have a reason to go out or see someone and it's a blessing that I'm able to do this more often now

I have someone I love who will either be home with me or out at work.

I try to imagine I'm somewhere else as I meditate or practice yoga, and then remember that that's not the point of either of those things, so I start to notice how beautiful this place is

How beautiful it can be if you pretend that it was carefully crafted by someone for an animated movie, or a still-life painting, something like that

The strange artificial wooden slats on the floor

The sun streaming in through the window

The dust and the cat hair floating through those streaks of light

I think I should sweep the floor

I think I should organize my paperwork

I think I should try to make more money

I think I should work out more

I think I should eat healthier

I think I should drink more water

I think I should go to therapy

I think I should call my mother

I think I should text my friends

You know this list, you know it I know it we all know this list

This "I think I should" list

But instead of doing all of those things

I just breathe

And that might be all I can do right now

But that's okay.

I can do a damned good job of that, at least.

Once a week, I sit down with a box of magic, my tiny little altar that I can pack up and hide away to protect it should I ever need to, and I withdraw the Tarot deck

The one I've had since I was fifteen

Maybe fourteen

Was it thirteen? Twelve?

I don't remember. I do remember that they got confiscated at summer camp by my counselor who said it was wrong to turn to cards for answers instead of

(Something Else)

I didn't know enough to tell her that that's not what they're for

I already have all the answers

The cards just help me hear them.

Apparently that's not the right answer either though, so it doesn't matter.

The very same deck.

The one I ignored for several years as I worried more about those other things like money, like friends, like relationships, like what people thought of me, like what I ought to be doing with my life instead of playing with cards

But the cards were tucked away

Hidden in a satchel with old herbs, with old spells for love and for confidence and for peaceful sleep, clumsy spells of a child who didn't really know what magic was or where it came from.

Wrapped in fabric that looks like a black and purple starry sky

Cut from a dress my Sister wore

A bag of forgotten magic.

I have other Tarot decks.

But this one

This one has been with me the longest.

I apologized to it last year

And introduced it to my podcast.

And every week it gives me the card I must listen to in order to tell a story.

But more than that -

It gives me a card, and I've only noticed now that my week follows suit indeed.

I drew the Five of Pentacles last week. I experienced it shortly after.

This week, for the podcast, I asked the deck:

"What have I not already told you?"

"You" is "You". My friends.

Of course, there's a lot I haven't told you. There's a lot I choose not to tell you. But this is still good guidance nonetheless.

I drew Death.

Good card. Good, healthy card, representing change, rebirth, cycles.

We fear death because we do not want to think in cycles.

We want to think in straight lines

And we just hope our line is on an upward angle.

Nothing in nature works like that. So it's futile to think like that.

You should try to make things better. You should try to change what is wrong. You should of course try.

But you should also not wait to have "Won" Life in order to start enjoying it.

There are no winners here

Only animals. 

Some peaceful

Some dangerous

Some sweet

And some fierce

Just like in my forest.

Ghosts and animals are beyond competition. They know that life isn't for "Winning", but for "Living". Ghosts maybe learn it too late, but maybe that's why they were given a second chance. How many of them realize it, I wonder?

Death  is primarily about change

So that is why I thought I'd tell you a little bit about me

About your writer, Kristen,

Since you haven't heard from me in awhile

Since I feel like I'm pretty much my Forest Girl anyway

(Except that I do not live in the forest and do not as easily change form)

(But I kind of do both of those things if you really think about it, so)

I will still tell you a story.

Perhaps by the end of it

I will change back into a figment of your imagination

Let's try.

I have told you that Death is different for everyone. This is why I have told you so many different stories about so many different kinds of death. But I always make it Beautiful, because we want to be afraid of it and I won't have us being afraid of something that is inevitable. I won't have it.

I thought that my Gentleman Stranger was Death, maybe, but no. He was an Angel of Death. There is a difference.

An Angel of Death works in service of Death.

Death itself is

something within all of us

Steady decay that is already happening.

It's already within us.

It is us.

It's everything breathing and growing.

In fact, is growing just a part of dying?

Is it all the same thing, then?

You see how it's a bit complicated.

How can we be so afraid of something within us?

How can we be so afraid of something we're already doing?

I won't have it.

The last time I drew the Death card, I spoke of Unknowable Wonders.

And I spoke of a time when I went out to meet Death at a party.

And I did.

Do you remember?

It doesn't matter if you don't, because she's so absolutely splendid that I need to describe her a second time, anyway, and like the rest of us, Death can change.

I'm going to imagine a different place and a different time with a different me in it. Who can say if I'm much older, or if I'm any wiser, who's to say. But I will be there, once again, perhaps in a bar or a cafe, hopefully surrounded by people (I would really love that again, my goodness I would).

I would be sitting, saying something silly probably, and laughing at my own joke,

And I would notice too late the hush fall over the rest of the room as someone enters.

[Lilting broken chords on a synthesized 12 string sound]

I can see clearly who She Is.

She is a shining skeleton, bones like opals gleaming in the setting sunlight.

A little more tasteful than last time, she is not wearing quite so many jewels,

And she wears black silk this time

(Because it's a little cold in here.)

But to another customer here,

Death is a tall and handsome dandy, drinking a deadly brew from a crystal cup.

And to another,

Death is an old crone, weaving with knitting needles a gruesome death shroud.

And to another,

Death is a lovely black horse with no saddle and no reins.

But as Death passes each of the other customers by, in this made-up time and place hopefully very far from now,

it looks only at Me

(Whoever I am in whatever time and place this is)

And every other customer sighs in relief and quickly resumes their meal.

Though I like to think that a few of them might keep an eye on me just to make sure I'm all right.

"May I sit?" She asks.

I nod, and gesture at the seat across from me.

(I am hopeful that I am not dining alone; but I think that if my dinner guest knows me well, they would understand that Having a Drink With Death is an offer that cannot be overlooked by someone such as I. Whoever I am.)

Death orders a coffee from the server. She removes her silk gloves very casually, revealing bony fingers with gold rings on them. Still a little flare for drama, I think to myself, but do not share. She seems tired. I can tell that she looks at me over her gold glasses. 

"This is a very strange game," She says. "Are you scared?"

"Yes and No. Always and Never. So it doesn't matter." I answer. Because that's how I hope I'll talk one day.

She taps her fingers against the table. "You know that I can't tell you what happens after. You know that, right?"

"Oh, believe me, we all know," I answer, rolling my eyes and sipping my tea. "We're all much more stunningly aware of that then you realize. For all that we can rationalize and guess, we can't really know for sure. That's why I called your story Unknowable Wonders. Remember?"

"All right, calm down," She answers, and though she doesn't have eyes, she probably rolled them a bit too (since she is the embodiment of all my potential, recall, so we're really not that much different, she and I).

"Just don't- " [a sigh] "- Just don't take me away from here."

She freezes and looks at me, and it comes pouring out and I do not stop it because though we don't have to be afraid of death, we can still grieve.

"Just don't take me away from this world. I love this place so much. And I know I'll never get to love it enough in one lifetime. Tell me that I can stay here."

[The music returns, this time joined with wordless nonsense-voices]

She smiles a little, a gentle smile - as gentle as a skull can possibly smile - and she opens her mouth as though she's about to say something, and I'm certain that she's about to say the thing that I want to hear from her.

So of course, she stops. She sighs, "You know I can't tell you anything. You know I don't know."

And the customers at the cafe do me the kindness of pretending not to hear what she just said.

But I know that it hit some of them, maybe all of them.

But at least we're all here together.

Death sips her coffee and I sip my tea, and we sit quietly, not silently, enjoying being in this particular place, which could be any other place, really, and we'd still enjoy it.

I study her face for a long time.

I notice as she sits there that she begins to change a little

Starting with her teeth.

Her canines are growing sharper and longer.

Not all her teeth, just a little sharpness now, remember.

Her nails are growing longer, too, and I swear they seem to be a dark, deep purple.

And from inside her ribcage

First green, then pink, then red, then orange flowers begin to grow there.

She smiles and raises a hand to wave goodbye (for now) to me

As I'm pulled out of this story outside of my own time, as if by a rope tied around my waist, and brought back

Into

My

Forest.

[The music finishes.]

Ah, see? I was right.

I am back to normal again

Fangs

Claws

Stained Purple with

Nature

and Magic

Alike.

There is the warmth of a fire behind me, I can feel it

And there he is.

He is different

Though he's on fire, he's not burning anymore

He is calm

He is not afraid of his own fire

His skin cannot burn, you see, nor can his eyes, nor his hair, nor his clothes

None of it

Because he is fire.

It's all just fire.

No matter how he returns - what he returns as, what he wear,s, what he looks like - he is always fire

And no matter how far up in the sky I go,

And no matter how deep in the ocean I fall,

Whether summer, autumn, winter, spring, or summer, or autumn, or winter, or spring...

I am always Earth.

He smiles, and the fire all around him smiles with him

As he notices before I do that, at my feet, flowers grow

And they grow, and they grow and they grow, no matter how badly burnt the earth is, no matter how dry and cracked and hurt it seems,

This circle of green grass and bright flowers in shades of red, purple, yellow, orange, pink, this circle keeps growing, radiating out and away from me.

It cannot help but come from me.

And snaking under my feet and in the ground beneath me, coiling and writhing, though it might take them some time to grow - yet there is no such thing as Time, so it doesn't really matter - underneath me, there are the thick roots of new trees beginning to grow.

One day, perhaps, I shall sit underneath them.

And with that happy, distant and fantastical thought:

I think I will go to sleep now.

Goodnight, my friends.

Thank you.

[Eerie theme music]

(Host speaks as Kristen:)

Thank you so much for listening in with both sides of me tonight, my friends. More and more, I am trying not separate them, since I think they're stronger together. Aren't they? This is - me. Kristen Zaza. Creator and imaginary creature, team of one, all two of me, for On a Dark, Cold Night. Thank you again for being with me this week. And thank you most of all for your patience and your willingness to change along with me. I am grateful.

I'm also grateful this week for a lovely and generous listener who supported the show via Ko-fi.com - The Antler-Headed Ghost. Thank you for your kind message and for helping me create this forest. If you'd like to make a one-time donation to the show like The Antler-Headed Ghost, you can learn more at ko-fi.com/darkcoldnight. Another great way of supporting the podcast is to become a monthly patron through Patreon, where any monthly pledge of $1 or more gives you access to the ever-growing soundtrack. You can find out more at patreon.com/darkcoldnight.  And as always, we have t-shirts and hoodies for purchase through bonfire.com/on-a-dark-cold-night.

I also would like to take a moment to thank  iTunes listener Ellie Holly from the US, who left us a beautiful 5 star review this week. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, Ellie Holly - I'm honoured you're enjoying my work. If you'd like to support the show in this way, please head on over to iTunes and leave us a review - I'd really appreciate it. You can also follow me on social media - I'm on Twitter @ADarkColdNight, instagram at darkcoldnightpodcast, or my Facebook and YouTube pages, just called "On a Dark, Cold Night".

Thank you very much, my friends.

There's something in the air, isn't there?

It feels like everyone collectively opening their arms

And hoping they don't get hurt.

Our responsibility to try and keep that from happening, I think.

With that as my last thought for you:

Goodnight

My friends.

Sweet dreams.

[Eerie theme music]

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