TRANSCRIPT - Episode 227: Hand-Me-Downs

March 27th, 2023

Kristen Zaza

[Eerie theme music plays]

[Your Narrator:]

Welcome!

Quick, let's go to the story room!

Why?

Oh, I have a story. That's why.

What about?

Hm.

Well.

Have you ever had a pain, a suffering, a guilt, or something within you that loomed so large, that it told you there was no room for anything else?

It's kind of about that.

I don't know. I have to tell it, and decide.

It's still brewing

But it won't be fully formed until I tell it to you.

That's the beautiful thing about stories.

I want to get right to it.

Get settled on the couch by the fire.

Sit across from me.

Nestle in under a blanket, make sure you're comfortable.

And remember - even the most painful, frightful, dreadful parts

Will pass

And there will be a new part of the story.

So don't be afraid.

We'll find our way through it together.

Ready?

Once upon a time, there was a very sad and angry man.

He was sad and angry, because much of what he had built his life around had crumbled, and he felt it was all his fault.

If you know me, then you know I never really enjoy spending too much time on this part of my stories.

Largely because the facts, if we can even call them that, do not really matter. Not nearly as much as the feelings, I suppose. The facts are only there to lend validity to the feelings; to make you feel that there is some kind of structure here, a character you can lose yourself in. Forget about yourself. Worry about them.

I'm kind of sick of that, really

Because they're all our feelings. The feelings are the things we can all relate to; the facts, the details, those are the things that separate us.

It's funny when readers or writers say that those are what make the story more believable.

I don't think I agree with that.

If you told me that there was once a very sad and angry man, who was sad and angry because much of what he had built his life around had crumbled, and he felt it was all his fault,

I would believe that.

I think we all can believe that.

I think we all have lived that, to one extent or another, at some point or another.

and furthermore, I do not want you to lose yourself in this character.

On the contrary. I wonder if you can remember yourself in him.

I wonder.

Anyway, I will tell you a little.

He had had a family. He had had friends. He had had a career.

But he lost them all. They left him, or he pushed them away, or he let them slip through his fingers.

It didn't happen all at once, though.

First, one thing happened. One thing he deemed to be terrible, humiliating, unfair, unjust.

And it sunk him into a dark depression where he would not allow love or light or joy or beauty to touch him. Because "The Thing" - the awful First thing that happened - took up so much of his energy and his mind and his heart, that he left no room for anything else to come in.

The embrace of his love did not comfort him. The laughter of his children did not cheer him. The voice of a friend did not soothe him.

Well, they could have. He just didn't let them.

In fact, not only did he not let them, but he chided them for trying. His darkness turned to anger towards those who tried to take away his pain. The Big Thing that happened to him held sway in his mind - and it was because he elected it. He put it there, on that throne. And it explained every terrible, humiliating, unfair and unjust thing. It gave a rational, reasonable, and definitive reason for why he was not allowed to feel love or light or joy or beauty. It would not be right to feel such frivolous feelings as those. Not when The Big Thing held court, which it always, always did.

Well, after that, more Big Things happened.

His love left.

His children left.

His friends left.

And he knew he was the cause.

And so he was very angry and very sad, indeed.

But something good happened to him, even if he did not think of it as such.

He inherited a home.

A large manor house outside of the city.

It had belonged to his great-grandfather, then a great aunt, then an aunt and uncle of his, and then a cousin he had never met

And that cousin passed without an heir

And so it fell to our sad and angry man as the last of the family line.

It was a blessing, especially for someone who hadn't much left in the world.

Now he had a home. A home full of magnificent things he could sell if he needed to. A home with a garden and apple trees and a vineyard and a well of clean water. Plenty of wood for fire. Plenty of space.

He didn't see it as fortunate. He saw it as work. He saw it as a burden. Of course he did; if he saw it as a gift, he'd have to understand that he was allowed to receive a gift in the first place. And the Big Thing on the throne in his heart told him to spit in the face of all gifts, for he wasn't worthy of them.

But he had no choice but to accept this one.

When he arrived, he scoffed at the size of the place and rolled his eyes at the amount of work it would take.

He glared at the dust on the mantlepiece and the broken pieces of crystal in the chandelier.

He scowled at the portraits of his long gone family as he passed them by, cursing them for not leaving him in his comfortable and dark little home he had been close to being evicted from.

[A dark and moody theme begins to play on piano]

There was great-grandfather, who had been a cruel and unyielding man by all reports, especially after his run for mayor of the nearby township proved unsuccessful and he turned all of his desire for power and failure to attain it into a furious dictatorship of his own household and family.

There was his great aunt, who had broken her hip as a young woman, and never quite recovered correctly, and the look and pain of it turned her bitter and she could not bear the sound of laughter in her presence as she always somehow felt it was directed at her.

There was his aunt and uncle, who had lost a child in an accident, and so they could not look at each other without feeling hatred and blame in their hearts until the days they each died, locked in a loveless marriage and a loveless house.

There was his cousin, who had hoped to be a famous artist, but never managed to sell even one painting, and so even their self-portrait was full of loathing and hatred as it hung in the hall, and they never created any more works of art after that.

Each with a pain they had allowed to become bigger than the mansion itself

Each with a Big Thing on a Big Throne in their mind.

You know the drill

I've told stories like this before

He spent a dull evening making himself a dull dinner by a little fire and put himself to bed.

And in the middle of the night

Do you know what happened?

He heard something.

[Wailing, sobbing, sighing, in the distance]

Weeping. Wailing. Sobbing. Sighing, in the distance.

He rose from his bed with a start, heart pounding - for the only thing that can supplant bitterness of such size is fear.

It is just an animal, locked in a room by accident. Or it is the wind blowing through a broken window somewhere.

He tried to go back to sleep, but the noise was too loud and his fear too great.

He wanted to solve the problem, to find the source, but his fear kept him in his bed, under the covers, shaking and wide awake for the whole night.

When dawn came and the horrible sound stopped, he - trembling - made himself a little cup of tea

And decided to investigate.

Room after room, he found no hint of anything. no animals nesting or hiding or dead or lurking. No windows broken or open. No doors to the outside left ajar. He searched and he searched and he searched

And finally, the only room left was the attic.

He opened the door with his skeleton key,

and the only thing out of the ordinary he noticed

Were the piles of clothing strewn messily around the room.

Evening gowns from long ago.

Jackets and vests and slacks.

Shoes covered in a layer of dust.

Lace discoloured from years of lying in wait.

Why would anyone leave the attic like this?

Was his cousin so careless as to never check?

What had happened?

He hung up the clothes, remarking here and there which seemed to correspond with which family member, the faces in the portraits haunting his memory still. He put things away with a violent kind of annoyance; he did not care to be gentle with the old garments. He found the smells repellant rather than nostalgic. Why they had saddled him with so much baggage, he didn't know; they should have left him to rot in his little home in the city. Or so the Thing on the Throne in his Mind told him as he touched each little thing.

He shut the door, not seeing the need to lock it, and descended, feeling foolish and weak for being so afraid the night before.

An uneventful day full of pain and anger and sorrow. He turned to all the vices that attracted him the most; the things that he felt he was entitled to after so much bad ha happened in his life. After all, he had no partner, no children, no friends to hate him for it anymore; why not indulge? At least he couldn't hurt anybody else here. Only himself. And wasn't he used to that?

He kept discovering things. Half-finished paintings, sketchbooks, sculptures, some of which were scratched out or deliberately broken. Toys for children of different ages that were never played with. Canes, ointments and doctor's notes from his great aunt. Fliers and newspaper articles about an election never won. At every turn, reminders of hopes gone unfulfilled. Dreams turned nightmares. Possibility that had become pain.

[Weeping, wailing, moaning and groaning.]

The second night, he was woken again by the sound of weeping, wailing, moaning and groaning.

Louder than the night before. Terrible and painful.

Emboldened from having investigated the house and finding no intrusion, he rose from his bed and followed the sound.

The closer and closer he came to it, the more he trembled, the more fear usurped that corrupt anger on that imaginary throne I keep speaking of. It sounded so human. So full of agony. He didn't know what he would see.

As he determined the sound to be coming from the attic, he turned pale with the thought of going there in the middle of the night.

But he wouldn't have to.

Because you see, he'd left the door unlocked.

So as soon as he turned the corner of the little hallway that led to the little stairwell that went up to that horrible little room,

He saw them.

[One voice at a time rings out in pain now, as each “outfit” is introduced]

A pale grey evening gown floating there, full and fitted with nothing, as though an invisible someone was wearing it.

Two arms raised over where the person's head would be, leaning against the wall.

The arms beat against the wall in some kind of awful suffering.

The dress breathed huge, starting breaths, almost drowning in sadness, as the wailing continued, most certainly loud enough for our angry and sad hero to know that it was coming from within that gown

From within the invisible spirit wearing that gown.

A suitjacket and slacks were sitting on the stairs, still and slumped as though resigned to whatever their fate was.

A bottle rested on the knee of the pants - also stretched and full as though an unseen pair of legs inhabited them - and suddenly, the bottle raised up with a move of the right arm of the jacket, and it went flying across the hallway, shattering against the wall where the evening gown wept. The evening gown screamed and ran in the opposite direction, down a dark corridor

from which a smoking jacket emerged, turning the corner, slouching, stumbling, moping. As it passed paintings and portraits on the walls, it raised its sleeves and knocked them over with an invisible hand, or spun them upside-down, or maybe picked them up, looked at it with unseeable eyes for a moment, then dashed it to the floor.

Our sad and angry man watched this strange pantomime, this puppet show, in horror, all blood drained from his face. He took a step backward, and bumped into someone.

Turning around, he saw a nightgown; a little arched and angled, twisting at the hip, holding a cane.

She screamed and raised the cane, shaking it, threatening to strike.

He screamed in return and ran.

Ran down the hall, away from the attic.

His hands clumsily found the doorknob to the nursery, where he quickly entered and locked himself in.

Safe.

[Soft weeping]

He turned around and, to his horror, saw a man's shirt with several buttons undone, cravate loose. Slacks sat on the bed.

He wept quietly as he held a little toy dog in his hands.

"where are you? Where are you?" the spirit cried over and over.

And the sad and angry man wept in terror.

The ghost on the bed did not take notice.

They stayed in the room until morning, both weeping, one in terror and one in grief.

And when the sun rose, he watched as the clothes crumpled on the little bed, nothing but clothes now. With a little

toy dog sitting on top of them.

The man carefully crept out of the nursery

And saw, throughout the halls, different pieces of clothing scattered again, just lying there, inanimate, uninhabited, empty.

I must find a way to get them to leave me alone, he thought to himself. If I don't have a good night's sleep, I shall go insane. Not that it matters anymore.

He pored over journals, diaries, letters, looking for clues, for ideas, inspiration.

He hung up the cousin's paintings in fresh new frames, even pretending to admire them.

He put the aunt and uncle's clothes in the nursery, laid out the toys, hoping that reuniting them might make them happy.

He straightened out the nightgown and burned the cane.

He removed all of the bottles of anything other than soda or juice from the household.

He wandered into town and convinced a local priest to come in and bless the place.

He brought certain items to be memorialized in the town's historic centre.

He gave some of the toys to the orphanage down the road.

He sold a lovely little painting to an art gallery for a reasonable amount.

He did everything he supposed was the right thing to do.

But oh, dear listener, hear this: each thing he did, he did with irritation, obligation, and reluctance in his heart.

Because you see, he did not think he deserved to be happy

He did not think they deserved to be happy

He just did things because he thought he had to.

And that matters.

It is as I said before, my friends - the feelings, the intentions, the motivations within us matter.

Having done everything he thought he had to do, he went home and went to bed.

He hoped that tonight would be uneventful.

And then tomorrow, everything could return to normal.

He could go on hating himself

He could go on hating everyone

And only have to deal with that for the rest of his life.

[Weeping, wailing, sighing]

He woke in the middle of the night to the loudest sounds of grief, pain, rage, bitterness, regret, that he'd heard yet.

He went to his door and opened it a crack -

his eyes went wide as dinner plates as he saw the antique suit hurtling towards him, the evening gown throwing itself against the walls, and a nightgown on the floor, crawling, reaching, cursing him. A smoking jacket peeked around the corner of the door, its sleeve trying to reach its way in. He slammed the door shut, the sleeve stuck within it, writhing and wriggling like a worm.

He backed away from it slowly, tears in his eyes, holding his head in his hands, desperate for sleep but fearing now that he'd never have another wink ever again.

They were still here

And they were waiting for him.

He heard something - a thud against his window pane.

He turned, but saw nothing. He kept watching the window

and something else hit it - it was small and soft.

Another thing; plush, small, colourful

They were toys

stuffed animals

The ones he'd donated.

Someone had brought them back.

He heard roaring below, and he looked down at the yard beneath the window

And the buttoned shirt and pants stood there, a pile of toys at its feet, and it looked up at him, and the arms were so tense and flexed and eager for battle that our sad and angry man could see ghostly muscles pulling at the fabric , as the phantom threw its arms behind it, arched its body backwards towards the sliver of moon in the night sky, and it let out a horrible, distressed howl.

The man considered drawing the curtains.

He considered barricading the doors.

He considered burning the place down and jumping out the window and running as fast and as far as he could.

But why?

Would he be happy anywhere else?

Would they be happy with him gone?

He sat on the floor, exasperated, exhausted

too much so to even be afraid anymore.

The howling, the crying, the roaring continued

He closed his eyes against it

He took a deep breath

And another

And another.

He saw the decades, centuries, even, of pain. Of anger. Of sadness.

in his family

Though it began to seem that that didn't matter, either.

He had felt it in the orphanage that day.

He had felt it in his lover's eyes when they'd left him.

He had felt it in each of his friends who had finally allowed him to leave them.

He had felt it in strangers in the street.

Pain.

Not just his.

All of it.

Just pain.

And he saw the pain in his heart, the pain he'd put on a throne, disguised as the Big, Bad Thing that he had elected to be there.

He began to see that there was no difference.

The clothes that were screaming and howling all around him were stuck in their own iteration of it

Just as he was stuck in his

He saw the years that he'd lost to his commitment to that pain

The relationships he'd let escape him.

The joy he'd passed up

Because he didn't believe he had room for it in his soul.

He didn't believe he was allowed to have it.

As long as there was suffering and darkness and guilt

he'd condemned himself to a life without joy, too.

The thing on the throne in his mind wore his face

And commanded him to suffer, only.

He saw himself speaking to that tyrant.

"it's all right," he said softly.

"You can be free.

I can be free.

I am allowed to be free.

I am so tired. I have let you rule long enough.

I deserve happiness.

I deserve love."

The thing that wore his face grimaced and showed him all the memories he told himself to be ashamed of. All the time he'd told himself he'd wasted. All the people he told himself he'd failed.

But his real self only smiled.

"Maybe so. But I still deserve happiness. I still deserve love."

The thing that wore his face in his mind kept trying to convince him, hold on to this, hold on to that, hold on to this, hold on to that.

He only shook his head.

"I cannot carry it anymore. What need have I to carry it anymore?"

The thing that wore his face in his mind began to rant and rail, showing him how hideous he truly was, how he must never forget that. There was no way forward. There was only this - THE BIG THING - the pain - the anger - the mistakes - the past.

And, strangely,

And the thing took on the face of his cousin

The face of his aunt, his uncle

His great aunt

His great-grandfather

And he felt suddenly a great compassion for it.

He opened his eyes and found himself looking in the mirror in his bedroom and he saw himself

Tears streaming down his face

eyes sunken and tired from having not slept in three days

Face grey with fear.

So sad, so scared, so stuck.

And he felt a sudden and intense urge to run and embrace himself

To

Embrace, and be Embraced.

Only then did he realize the house was silent.

He opened the door to his room and saw the evening gown, the suit, the smoking jacket, the nightgown, standing

Peaceful

Waiting.

He walked down the hall past them.

He went to the main hall, where the front door was open, the shirt and slacks standing there, facing him.

He felt no fear, no anger, no annoyance, even - not anymore.

He saw, instead of their pain, instead of the Thing that they had all enthroned in their hearts, the suffering they'd clung to so greatly that it survived even their physical deaths

instead of seeing just that, he saw souls wearing clothes

Kind of like him, really

Who had more to them than even they had realized.

[A little voice sings a little song and laughs]

A little laugh was heard upstairs

From the nursery

[The voice is joined by a  music box; same song as before, only in a major key - much  lovelier, as it’s meant to sound - and on a music box]

And a little music - music that sounded as though it came from a little music box or a wind-up toy

And all of the spirits within the clothes, our previously sad and angry man included, turned to look up the stairs, inhaling in sharply in surprise at the unusual sound

And the clothes all crumpled to the ground.

He went to bed.

He thought about investigating, but it didn't seem right

And he needed the sleep. He knew he would be ill, in pain, suffering more, if he did not sleep.

So he allowed himself to sleep.

The next day, he opened the windows and cleaned the mansion. He brought the toys back to the orphanage, and gave them freely with an open heart and the wish to make others happy.

He visited the town and introduced himself to others warmly.

He bought himself a little dinner he found enticing.

He wrote a few letters to people he felt he needed to say something to, with the intention in his heart of forgiving himself and wishing them only love.

He went home.

And that night, he was woken up

Not by screaming, weeping, howling, groaning or moaning.

But to the sound of music

and he saw the sight of clothes - evening gowns, suits, jackets, nightgowns, shirts and slacks

Dancing a merry waltz

And a little child's nightgown danced in the centre of them

There were many more than before

There were spirits who'd long left the place, considering it cursed

But sometimes it just takes one person

One spell

One ritual

One intention

To break the chain

To shatter the illusion

To dethrone the Big Thing

That tells you that you do not deserve to dance.

All you need to do

Is dance.

[Eerie theme music]

(Host speaks as Kristen:)

Hello my friends, and thanks so much for joining me for Episode 227 of On a Dark, Cold Night. This is your host, writer, composer, narrator, podcaster, etcetera, behind the show, Kristen Zaza. Has spring sprung where you are? I don't want to jinx it, but it feels a little bit like the world is waking back up again here, anyway. For me that usually comes with a little bit of dread and then a lot of joy, for whatever reason, so I'm heading into the joyful part of that, which is nice.

I have a few thank-you's this week from supporters who donated to the show via Ko-fi.com! First off, thank you so much to Kelly for your coffee donation and your lovely message, and my apologies for delaying your on-air thank-you until now - thank you so much, my friend. And another big thank-you going out to juanbob, who also supported the show on Ko-fi.com - I'm so grateful for your donation as well, and also for your very kind words in support of my work. Thanks so much, my friends. Ko-fi.com is a great way to support the show through a one-time donation in the gift of metaphorical coffee - if you'd like to help out in this way, you can visit my page at ko-fi.com/darkcoldnight.

Another fantastic way to help out the show is to become a monthly supporter on Patreon. Every monthly supporter of $1 or more US a month receives access to over 200 musical tracks making up my complete and ever-growing soundtrack; supporters of $5 or more US a month get that, access to a monthly tarot reading video, and access to a weekly bonus meditation I release every Thursday. To learn more, visit patreon.com/darkcoldnight. Another way to access the bonus meditations is through a subscription to the Sonar+ channel on Apple podcasts; learn more by visiting my Apple podcast page for On a Dark, Cold Night, looking up the Sonar Network on Apple, or visiting thesonarnetwork.com. For 3.99 a month you can get those meditations and access to lots of other great bonus and ad-free content from canadian podcasters who are a part of the Sonar family. Finally, you can also by a t-shirt or hoodie through bonfire.com/on-a-dark-cold-night.

In some interesting news, I'm going to release 17 musical tracks as part of an album I've decided to call "Favourite Little Songs from On a Dark, Cold Night". This is coming out on Tuesday, and will be accessible on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon music, YouTube Music, lots of other music streaming platforms. Even TikTok, I think? You'll hear the 3 theme song variations (including everybody's favourite, the Season 1 theme with all the whistling!); and 14 of my favourite songs from across the 226 episodes I've released. I'm excited and a little scared, so be nice! and if you'd like to check those out, keep an eye on my social media accounts and wherevevvr you like to stream music from.

Sending thanks to Emma L. also, who left a really kind recommendation for On a Dark, Cold Night on our Facebook page! Leaving a rating and/or review wherever you can is a great way to help the show for free; you can do so on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Facebook, or wherever else you would like. You can follow me on social media; I'm on Twitter @ADarkColdNight, instagram at darkcoldnightpodcast, facebook and youtube under "ON a Dark, Cold Night" or on tiktok at kristenzaza; all great ways to reach out to me if you have a question you'd like me to address in an upcoming story.

Well, I think that's everything for this week - thank you so much for listening and joining me

Thank you for finding some peace and stillness with me this week

Thank you for taking the time to rest and be gentle with yourself.

Keep doing it.

Lots of love.

[Eerie theme music]

This podcast has been brought to you by the Sonar Network.