May 14, 2019
[STATIC AND THE SOUND OF RADIO STATIONS BEING FLIPPED THROUGH- FADES AS NARRATOR BEGINS TO SPEAK]
Welcome to This Is Cheaper Than Therapy, I am The Narrator and you are not alone. This is a space to say the things you feel like you can’t, and to talk about the things you regret ever having said. This is a place for confessions. For warnings. For apologies and declarations. For pulling that internal monologue from clenched teeth and watching incisors fly across the room like shooting stars. For forgotten things, lost things, and those oh so quiet moments you think no one notices. I do, listeners; I notice them all. This Is Cheaper Than Therapy.
[TAPE WHIRS]
To live is, in itself, an act of futile rebellion; the cells of your body destined to one day become no more than particles of dust, your life- just an afterthought- in an empty room. So...
[STATIC]
Be the biggest rebel you can be! Dare to live! Stare up at an unflinching god and finger-snap your leather jacketed heart out, listeners! All you need is a little self-confidence and anything is possible. Take Debbie Plymouth for instance, a Florida native and small Etsy store owner, who tonight is trying desperately to block out the moon by throwing heaped buckets of paint at the sky.
“I don’t trust it, looking down at me with its weird silver eyes.” She’s saying to onlookers, “Think I’m going to let it keep laying its grey peepers on my house? Nuh-uh. No more. Night sun, get outta here.”
So far she has covered four sedans and a hatchback in a truly striking shade of poppy orange. When an owner of one of the vehicles was asked for their thoughts on the situation they replied that their car was now the brightest thing they had seen in months and they had forgotten colours could have so much life in them.
“It’s fine,” they said, “Really, I get it.”
You need more friends like Debbie, they’d be a good influence on you.
[FOOTSTEPS]
[TRAIN DOOR SLIDING OPEN]
Taking our eyes away from the skies and to something a little closer to home-
[TRAIN DOOR SLIDING CLOSED]
we go now to Cul-De-Sac Chapters, where Andrew Perez has just boarded a train.
[FOOTSTEPS STOP]
[FABRIC RUSTLING AS ANDREW SITS DOWN]
There are no other passengers tonight. Few people take this route.
[MECHANICAL NOISES OF TRAIN INCREASE AS IT TAKES OFF]
That’s okay, he needs space for this; one mistake could ruin everything. Sitting in line with the windows, his back to the driver, he begins an inventory of the items stuffed into his grey, woollen overcoat.
[FABRIC RUSTLING]
He hopes he has his back to the driver, at least; the water he’d poured on the subway tiles before he’d boarded ran east and he prayed the liquid had been drawn to ‘The Damp’. He begins to place the objects onto the seat before him. A brush, teeth chewing on long strands of strawberry blonde hair- Check.
[CLUNK]
A photograph of him rubbing sunscreen into her skin- a day at the beach. Isn’t that sweet.
[QUIET THUMP]
Check.
A small, yet tasteful, bouquet of daisies adorned with ivory ribbon.
[RUSTLE OF FLOWERS]
Check.
A wishbone, wrapped in red string, one end left loose- that he is now tying around his right pinkie finger.
[CLINK]
Check.
Sliding his hand into his pocket he thumbs at the coins he deposited there earlier, and slowly, takes one out into the stale carriage air. Green eyes roaming the train car he balances the coin on top of his thumbnail, index finger pressing against it.
[DEEP INHALE AND EXHALE]
He takes a deep breath and holding the hairbrush and photograph to his chest with his other hand, flowers pushed against the wishbone nestled securely in his palm-
[CLINK]
[METALIC SPINNING STARTS]
he flicks the coin into the air! Shadows seep down through the windows, the rusted metal doors, spreading like spilt ink and worm their way across the floor curling around bench legs.
[MECHANICAL NOISE OF TRAIN INCREASES]
[HEAVY FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING]
The coin still spinning, never landing- shadows creeping ever closer, winding slivers of smoke around his throat beginning to constrict- he feels the blood vessels underneath his eye socket burst.
[QUIET POP]
There is a let’s say large entity approaching young Andrew; their skin is grey with small circular patches where it has flaked away- perhaps a better word is moulted. The figure’s long white beard is wrapped around their body, up and through the legs, in a sort of robe- or toga. Their beard, listeners is dripping wet.
[FOOTSTEPS STOP]
They are reaching out an impossibly long hand, the bones constantly shifting underneath the skin, and plucking the coin from the air, holding it between two mottled fingernails and nestling it into one of the folds of a braid.
[MECHANICAL NOISES DECREASE]
The shadows recede. The payment was accepted.
It seems, our boy has reached his stop.
[DOOR OPENING]
[FOOTSTEPS]
Slowly rising from his chair, Andrew makes his way through the metal doors, which appear taller somehow as if the train is drifting into pieces; and into the subway station, dress shoes singing out against the cracked floor.
[DOOR CLOSING]
[MECHANICAL WHIR AS TRAIN DEPARTS]
There are…no stairs…or indeed exits in this station, listeners, just a long alley of smooth tiles curving from ceiling to floor; the tracks and the tunnel they run through severing their cavern of ceramic mint green. Groups of fireflies are buzzing overhead, about every ten feet, where they are huddled around glinting wristwatches which have been hung from steel rods protruding through the ceiling like teeth. It’s all very Art Deco.
Hmmm, Andrew is prying his shaking fingers from the items previously clutched to his breast and laying them on the ground either side of him, the brush on the right and the photograph on the left.
[THUMP]
[CLUNK]
He is still holding the flowers. He is-
[MATERIAL SHIFTING]
sitting down between them.
[WET MATERIAL DRAGGING]
[THUMP]
[TINY BONES RUBBING AGAINST EACH OTHER]
The darkness of the tunnel seems to be…moving. Wriggling. There is something…shining, coming further into view. It is….the bone white socket of a shoulder, blood long ago freed from the body.
[WET MATERIAL DRAGGING]
[THUMP]
[TINY BONES RUBBING AGAINST EACH OTHER]
The shoulder is attached to a head of long, matted strawberry-blonde hair, neck bent at an inquisitive 45-degree angle. The torso is pulling itself along the tracks by a single arm, legs having rotted away. They are coming- for Andrew, who is sitting perfectly still.
[WET MATERIAL DRAGGING]
[THUMP]
[TINY BONES RUBBING AGAINST EACH OTHER]
He is terrified. This never gets any easier. They have almost reached his shoes…they are wrapping their remaining bony fingers around his shin....and pulling themselves up his body- both sets of green eyes staring into each other. He is wrapping his arms around them …and smiling through silent tears.
[WET MATERIAL DRAGGING BECOME LOUDER]
[THUMPING BECOMES LOUDER]
[TINY BONES RUBBING AGAINST EACH OTHER BECOMES LOUDER]
He is opening his mouth and saying…“Happy Anniversary, Mum.”
[THUMPING, DRAGGING, AND RUBBING STOPS]
There are few days where the living can interact with the dead, listeners- you know this- and it is important to celebrate them however you can. He is helping her onto the ground next to him and……and he is handing her the bouquet of flowers, her favourite. Well, you know, isn’t that something.
[COARSE BRUSHING]
He begins to brush her hair, being careful not to rip out any from the base, there are already so many patches where her skull shines through. She is…eating the flowers, yellow petals sliding through spit slicked teeth, dribbling onto the tracks beneath them. Oh, Andrew.
[SHAKY INHALE AND EXHALE]
Her hair no longer matted floats around her shoulders, twinkling in the light of the fireflies.
[WET MATERIAL DRAGGING-MULTIPLE]
[THUMP-MULTIPLE]
[BONES BREAKING]
Just a few more minutes, he thinks...just….. a few… more….
[WET MATERIAL DRAGGING-MULTIPLE]
[THUMP-MULTIPLE]
[BONES BREAKING]
Picking up the photograph he runs his knuckles over the outline of her face on its glossed surface before holding it in front of her eye-line where, crooked fingers curl around it, pulling it into her mouth- and she begins, to gnaw on the edges.
[WET MATERIAL DRAGGING-MULTIPLE BECOMES LOUDER]
[THUMP-MULTIPLE BECOMING LOUDER]
[BONES BREAKING BECOMES LOUDER]
Twisted limbs are slowly making their way out of the dark tunnel, crawling on top of each other and falling in viscous waves. Oh, no- there are- there are so many more since last year…Those poor things. Broken bodies crawl across the tracks and with a kiss placed on the top of his mother’s head Andrew wraps his pinkies around either side of the wishbone and pulls.
[SNAP]
He has a train to catch.
[MECHANICAL WHIR OF TRAIN APPRAOCHING]
The train approaching does not knock the bodies against the walls, it does not rip bone from the socket with a wet pop; not this time, not this train- this driver would never hurt the dead. The train, simply, passes through like a shadow.
[DOORS SLIDING OPEN]
Andrew stands and with a wave to his mother,
[FOOTSTEPS]
boards the train, careful to sit with his back to the driver.
[DOORS CLOSING]
He wraps his arms around himself and slides his hands inside his pockets, his left thumb running up and down the ridges of his remaining coin and begins the train ride home.
[MECHANICAL WHIR OF TRAIN FADES OUT]
[TAPE CLICKS]
There are many things you will miss in this world, and even more in the next. Loss, it seems, is a guillotine; you are always on one side or the other. You, listener, cannot be someone’s everything-but, you can be their one good thing; a respite in the 24-hour news cycle of life. You can weave a safe moment for them to crawl into and rest their feet, just for a little while. One good thing. One small act of kindness. That’s not too hard, is it?
[CHIMES]
Feeling weighed down? Tired of going to work just to buy gluten-free muesli bars that taste like dirt? Bored of monotonous watercooler talk and pretending you understand how the internet works? Why not burn all of your possessions today!
[INTERFERENCE]
Burn everything you own and just start walking, venture out of your city or town until all monuments of civilisation fade into a distant horizon. Wander aimlessly through bushland -the sun beating down upon you until your entire body becomes a single giant blister; horrifying- and beautiful as you realise this is the most unified your frail form has felt since birth. Turn your face upwards to a crimson sky as a long elated screech escapes your mewling mouth; earthworm-like and buzzing. The descent of a murder of crows blocking out the sun with sleekly muscled wings, tearing your wreathing form to pieces and swallowing you down into their warm gullets. As they absorb you and make you a part of a something bigger than yourself you finally feel the calming sense of community- the knowledge of serving a higher purpose that you have spent so much of your life trying to find.
This message has been paid for by the crows. Find your piece of community and blister in the sun with happiness today.
[CHIMES]
[STATIC]
At This Is Cheaper Than Therapy we want to help you unburden yourself. We want you to be light as a feather. We want to help you shake loose those pesky worries fluttering around your pretty little head. We want you to be free. It is time, listeners. It is time to let it all out. It’s time; to confess.
Tonight’s confession comes from a girl with no name, who at this moment is tracing an exacto knife around the edge of her jaw. Sweat rolls in fat droplets down her forehead and lands on the kitchen table. Almost…almost…there! Peeling her right ear apart from the beige wallpaper she places it in a pile with the others. It has taken her all night but she has removed herself from the last photo in her family home. They’ll never know she was here. They’ll never know she was anything, at all. It’s for the best, really. She is not….…easy…..listeners, and when you are someone who is not easy…well….you make things difficult. They’ll be better off. She is sure they’ll be better off.
She gathers the photos in her hands and makes her way to the kitchen sink where she lets them fall. A Johnny Red brand match flickers to life and she holds it over the photographs watching her face bubble, the shrinking and expanding of burnt hands. She listens to the sizzle. Maroon and indigo smoke twists together and saunters upwards from the flames, licking at the ceiling, batting at the light fixtures. Thick, white slick oozes down the metal drain, slug-like, from a charred eye socket until finally- there is nothing left to burn. The smoke drifts out an open window to play keep away with the moon and the girl is alone.
Walking back to the kitchen table she feels…lighter as if a great weight has been lifted from her. It is the closest to happy she has felt in years. Slipping her hand underneath the strap of her duffel bag, crumpled across a chair, she goes to take the first few steps of a new life, a slate washed clean of resentment and past mistakes- but her hand- her hand passes through the strap. Her hand passes through everything. It seems our girl has made a fatal miscalculation, listeners. She’d only intended for her family to forget her, for them to live easier lives but…they were the only ones who knew she existed in the first place. All of her friends, who she hadn’t seen in years, had already forgotten her.
The front door creaks open and her parents who seem both brighter and out of focus look around at the broken photo frames, the shards of glass covering the carpeted floor and the dozens of photographs littering the table. She has made them feel afraid in their own home. Her father picks up one of the photographs with shaky hands and wonders why someone has cut a strange shape out of the left side- there’s no one missing, there can’t be; his family is all there. The girl with no name tries to touch him, to scream- but no noise comes out of her mouth…her father shivers.
Not all ghosts are dead, listeners. There are many things that can haunt you; mistakes, photographs, apologies we can never give nor receive. Rest assured, even if you forget these things, they will never forget you.
From This Is Cheaper Than Therapy, tonight’s goodnight goes out to a florist looking at a sea of flowers and wishing for happy homes. Goodnight.
[STATIC AND THE SOUND OF RADIO STATIONS BEING FLIPPED THROUGH]
This Is Cheaper Than Therapy is written and mixed by Eloise Archer, and edited by Paul Grealish who also voices The Narrator. Both are producers. Like the show? Follow us on Twitter @ThisIsCTT for transcripts, extras not in the show, and more. From both of us here at This Is Cheaper Than Therapy, it’s gonna be okay.
©Eloise Archer