Episode 254: My Candelabra
November 27th, 2023
Kristen Zaza
[Eerie Theme Music.]
[Kristen:]
How did I get out here?
Out on the balcony?
One moment I was recording, working on an episode, as I usually frantically am around this time of week, and I felt my eyes growing heavy but that's a good thing in my line of work, right? I thought I heard a door open, and next thing I knew
Blackness
Where dreams hid away
Something about going away on a trip, trying to get from one place to another, but getting distracted along the way, having others jump in my path and try to keep me away from the thing, the big thing, the trip, the only trip, but I wasn't quite me, I was a little different, and ready to fly away somewhere.
It felt like dreams, though, you know what I mean? so I wasn't too worried about it, you know?
But then
I was here
And I know this isn't a dream
I think
The sun hasn't come up yet
Good thing I woke before that, it would be pretty embarrassing
I guess I went sleepwalking
Opened the door
And just stood here
Good thing I didn't try to jump on the railing or anything, that would be really scary to wake up to.
It's cold out here, very cold
But very peaceful
Last night, I felt sure that someone was watching me. I wonder if I said anything about it in last week's episode.
Wait, that doesn't make any sense. Last night, last week, Nevermind.
But you know, I'm not so worried about having sleepwalked out to the balcony tonight. I can't really say why. I don't think I was in danger, though.
That's the beauty of feeling like you're being watched. A positive side of it. We like to assume that when we have that distinct and eerie feeling, we are being watched by something that means us harm. That is an interesting assumption.
I should go back inside any moment now. I will.
It's just that, as I stand out here and the world is so quiet in the darkest hours of the morning, and it's a Sunday, no less, the road is never ever as quiet as this
It's just that it's so quiet that I can pretend I'm her.
[Music; longing and familiar on guitar, bass and piano]
On the parapets of the castle, overlooking a forest
On cloudy nights you can't even see the city beyond those trees outside my balcony, it's like looking at a forest anyway
I can imagine that I am any version of her whatsoever
Which do I feel like, today?
It's silly.
I have to wake up and do other real work tomorrow. Better get back inside.
That stuff is the priority, you know.
No, I don't know. Why?
This feels like the priority right now
Well, I better think of a story, at least.
I think it's time for one.
Okay. What will it be?
Sometimes I think the best writing comes from the monsters inside of you, the little things that lurk in your mind and keep you from focusing on things like the peace of the dark, early morning.
The thing that beckons you to think of that person you're not talking to right now and have an imagined argument with them
The thing that keeps you from telling the truth to those who mean the most to you
The thing that makes you feel jealousy when someone else approaches happiness in the way you'd like to
The thing that puts up walls around your heart and demands you scream whatever you need out into the world to protect yourself
These are the real demons, the ones to watch the most vigilantly for.
I felt a little demon stirring in my heart.
Very faintly and very quickly, but it was there.
I wanted to catch it in a little jar and then make that a story
But I let it go instead.
That's the problem.
I start to love silence too much, but I work in sound.
Music feels overwhelming.
Speech feels laborious.
Words feel arbitrary.
I used to love words so much.
But silence is so easily interrupted
usually by me
But while it lasts it's nice.
One moment, I think I'm living in the moment, feeling the silence and seeing the sky as though for the first time, my heart singing a song of worship for these moments
And the next I'm on my phone watching a video about nothing and checking my emails again and scrolling social media with envy and disdain in my heart
Lamenting the ticking clock, the speed at which time passes by in the city, Wishing I could be on Forest Time or Castle Time instead
And then I wake up on the balcony
And I remember again.
The world is designed to make us forget, to make us stop listening
But the body, the earth, the moon, the heart and the soul, will make us all to remember, and to pay attention.
(There are some in this world who by circumstance alone have no time to listen, only time to run and hide and cry out.
We cannot betray them by pretending we don't hear.)
[A long pause]
It's not that I don't know what to write.
I mean I had ideas for stories. They weren't bad, either. In fact I was surprised at how much I enjoyed them as much as I played them out in my own imagination for myself and Your Narrator and the handsome dark winged thing that haunts my closed eyes.
But they felt wrong.
Why do they feel wrong?
Because there is something else happening, something permeating the storytelling dimension, all these big budget action adventure movies like to talk about realities crossing over into one another but it's just a cheap way to get out of writing a real story, isn't it?
Anyway believe me I had real stories, but I couldn't help but keep wondering
Who is watching me from the trees?
Who is witnessing all of this remembering and forgetting, creating and destroying, hearing and speaking?
Who is listening to me across the internet?
I write it into my computer between jaunts around the apartment
I focus on the feeling of peace but jealousy, anger, despair, regret, shame, confusion, pride, fear more than anything else, truly, come into view
But it doesn't really matter as much and they pass on by
That's what's important
That they keep on going
So you can return to listening.
For what?
I bring myself inside, back to my bed, where the curtains are pulled aside so I can see the trees but more importantly the stars and they can see me.
With the lights off in here, the sky seems brighter. On a clear night when the moon is full, the light shines in so brightly you can see its rays. There is a full moon tonight but the skies are stormy. All the same, the night is brighter than my room.
And then suddenly, blackout.
Electronics, yes, the little lights on in the kitchen and from hidden things that are always on, those all shut off
I know, because I reach over to my nightstand to try and turn a lamp on but the switch has no effect
I've had this nightmare before
But not only that, the skies outside; the source of soft ambient light that gave me something beautiful to look at as I drift off to sleep
That's all black, too
I don't think it's my eyes, if I focus just enough I can almost make out the outline of the window
It's just that there's only darkness beyond it.
[Music again]
There's something I can begin to see
on the ground
Red and soft
It's a carpet
But it goes on so far that I wonder if I am dreaming again, because it's too long to fit into my apartment
It's a long and deep hallway
Though I can't see anything else, nothing else other than that carpet
It's so dark
Oh look, a candle, thank goodness.
If I were writing this story, I would say that last week she came to visit me in my home; this week, I am going to visit her in her home.
But I'm not writing this
I'm just repeating this
Anyway, I take the candle; I see it's settled in a lovely carved candelabra. How beautiful it is. It has shapes carved into it - I like it very much. It has roses and stars and moons and strange, monstrously handsome creatures and sweet little cats and round, juicy tomatoes. It sounds like too much but it's not, it's just perfect. I don't know who made it or why, or what these images have to do with one another, but I like it very much. I wonder if I can keep it.
As I walk down the hall I think I see a shadow on the ceiling walking in step with me, but every time I look up, there's no one there. No body, no face, nothing. Yet I feel some kind of presence there. Just like I did last week's episode about last night, with the souls in the trees. I know someone's up there, walking along that high ceiling that has its own blood red carpet up above me. I just can't see them.
My journey falls on a screen, a dark background with white writing over it, it's NightMode in yet another realm, isn't it
On a whim, I change the writing to red, just so that I can see the carpet of the castle a little more clearly
It falls out of my fingers to the keys as I take step after step with no idea where I am going
And the soul without a body walks along her ceiling as well
I am not afraid
She thinks I'm her friend, I keep hearing the word, anyway, I keep hearing someone call me "My Friend, My Friend" so I am not afraid of being haunted by her
What we really need is a mirror
Speak of the devil, there it is
Shaped like an egg, its frame just barely visible on the dark wall, light from my candle glinting off the curling edges of the gilded details surrounding the glass.
I see myself in it
I feel a ghost seek its reflection in the mirror and fail to find one
I want to tell her not to worry, it's an illusion, don't get caught up in reflections, but I see a handprint on the mirror where my face is begin to form. I think she will feel how she feels and I must allow for that.
There's a full moon tonight
I think we should see it.
A huge window forms on the wall opposite the mirror
It's identically shaped; a large egg, the glass framed by a delicately curling gilded frame
And through the glass, beyond, there is
A stormy night
A sky so dark the moon cannot shine through
Trees that are staring right back
City lights that you can barely see through the fog of the oncoming storm.
I am sad that I cannot see the Moon
But just because you cannot see something does not mean that there is nothing there.
I see a handprint form on the glass of the window as well. Two handprints here, in fact, and another two on the mirror.
Two souls are with me, on either side of me
Between moonlight and reflection
A disguised moon, reflected somewhere in an imaginary mirror
The hands begin to bang against them now.
One set of hands, larger and stronger, the other with longer fingernails and a more musical beat
They are not seeking to break the glass
But they are delivering a message
[The same music again, and soonsinging - one voice on the right, one on the left. The one on the left is unsettlingly deep. It's a song we've heard before. From lifetimes ago. Words by Shakespeare. Melody by Her.]
Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip's bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
That song
I know that melody
I wrote that melody.
I studied those words in a different world, someone else's words
Those words made me think of how nighttime feels
How I want to live
How I want to fly
Can I stay here? Just for a little while, maybe? Is there room in this castle for me?
My Narrator, my sweet and lovely one, longing for a reflection yet infinitely more gorgeous without it
And my Stranger, my frightening and romantic one, sneaking roses and moonlight and transformation into my life,
Longing for Nothing but complete surrender and adoration
I will be your reflection
I will surrender
I will give you everything you want, spirits, you needn't haunt me several times on a holiday to teach me a lesson, The lesson is ongoing, I don't know what the damned lesson is, I don't know what way is up or down but I know two things - first, we've got to break all the mirrors and walls and screens and glass things that serve only to separate and it will be a lifelong journey that I will fail at every day but try harder and harder with even so
And second
I need to sing with you
Can I please sing with you?
Can I stay here? Just for a little while, maybe?
[Kristen joins in and the three of them sing once more, together.]
Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip's bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
There are stories yet to be told
Fun stories about pirates and adventure and sea monsters and stormy skies
Melancholy tales of ghosts and manor-houses and chandeliers and candelabras
Frightening yarns about beasts and conversations with old gods and circuses and markets and festivals and banquets
But I'm looking for something else this time
The mirror shatters first
The window, next
The light streams in, the sky is clear, the full moon is out and it shines directly on me
Not through a window
Not in the reflection of a mirror
It reaches through the hole in the castle hallway and on me
And the two shadowy silhouettes on either side of me pull themselves towards each other and become one great one that falls to the red carpet behind me, trailing behind my feet
Depending on the angle of the moonlight, sometimes they are one, sometimes they are two.
I feel them trail behind me as I walk the now moonlight hallway
Following the carpet with my candelabra before me, of course
At the end of the hallway there is my bed
A little orange cat sleeping peacefully on it
Sounds from the outside world; cars, music, shouts, laughter, weeping, screaming, wind, birds, wolves, my own voice, all of it, all of it, echo a little closer and closer
I find my way into the covers
My shadows do not, they linger at the foot of the bed watching me
I feel them watching me
And it feels not like a threat, but loving protection
Sing me a lullabye
As I wake up and see the sunrise from my windows
It's morning
I have work to do
I have to wake up and record all this stuff that's happened to me, put it in my voice
Have to do a full moon tarot reading for the Patreon page
Have to go to work
Upload it
Edit the files
Have to try to have it all done by the evening
And if I'm lucky
Maybe I will find myself walking in my sleep again to some different hallway.
The pink/orange sunrise on the dark purple sky makes something on my nightstand sparkle
It's my candelabra
the same one from the castle
I lie in bed on my side, it's too early to wake up, but I don't want to draw the curtains, I want to watch the sunrise as I get just a little more sleep before my busy day.
It's important to sleep well during a full moon.
You never know what you'll learn in your dreams.
My eyelids grow heavy as I analyze every detail on my candelabra
I should blow the candle out, I think
And that's when a shadowy hand with long fingers and claws reaches into my view and drags the candle towards the edge of the nightstand
And I hear someone inhale through their nose
Breathe out sharply
And blow it out.
Sweet dreams.
[Eerie theme music]
(Host speaks as Kristen:)
Hello everyone, this is Kristen Zaza, the writer, Narrator, shadowy thing, composer, podcaster etc behind On a Dark, Cold Night. I hope you're well out there, wherever you are and whoever you are. if you find yourself frightened, overwhelmed, threatened, confused, or full of any feelings that are especially difficult or painful, I wish for you to have every opportunity you need to rest, to create, to care for yourself, to breathe and not worry about anything else, even if only for a short time. I wish that from the bottom of my heart.
I'd like to thank every patron of the show who's pledged a monthly amount in support of On a Dark, Cold Night through Patreon - I'm honoured, grateful, and moved every day that you're out there and you value what I do. Thank you. Every supporter of $1 or more a month US gets access to my complete soundtrack, while every supporter of $5 or more US a month gets that, a weekly bonus "Quick Moment" meditation episode, and a monthly tarot reading uploaded every full moon. If you're listening to it this week there's one coming out on Monday, so it's a great time to join in. You can learn more at patreon.com/darkcoldnight. You can also support one-time only without any perks by donating via ko-fi.com at ko-fi.com/darkcoldnight. YOu can also support by subscribing to the Sonar+ Apple podcast channel for $3.99 a month, where you'll get access to my quick moment bonus meditations and lots of other great bonus content from the Sonar Network - visit my iTunes show page to subscribe. And as always, we have t-shirts and hoodies for sale at bonfire.com/on-a-dark-cold-night.
I would also appreciate if you left a rating or a review wherever you can, like Spotify, iTunes, Podchaser, Facebook, anywhere else you like to do so. You can follow me on social media; I'm on Facebook and YouTube under the name On a Dark, Cold Night, instagram at darkcoldnightpodcast, Bluesky and Tiktok at kristenzaza, and Twitter @ADarkColdNight. I'd love to hear from you there.
Thank you so much for listening.
I know I might be going on a strange path right now, but I'm trying to listen to my heart and not my mind so much. Maybe there will be a learning curve. But I'm also excited about it. I hope you don't mind. And I'm grateful to you for coming with me on this one.
Wishing you love and light as the days grow colder and darker.
Wishing we can spread that love and light as far as we can.
Goodnight, dear friends, and take care.
[Eerie theme music]
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