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SMNTY Fiction: Gone to Rot · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, Sanny and Samantha. I'm welcome stuff I never told
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: you production of My Heart Radio, and we are back
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: with another edition of Sminty Fiction, which is something that
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: we do about once a month. I think we're going
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: to take a break for the rest of the year
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: because they are more time consuming for Christina. We just
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: wrapped up the three part the trilogy of Terminus, so
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: if you want to go check that out, they're all
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: out now. If you're someone who likes to binge, this
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: is just a creepy little one shot for Halloween, and
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: yeah it is. It's got these sound effects that Christina
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: puts in there and makes it amazing. I really enjoyed
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: writing this. It's you know that Samantha and I love
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: like a good kind of story. I'm trying to really
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: get into the Halloween mood right now, and this was
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: a fun one to write. I do have a big
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: caveat that I'm going to put at the end, but
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: you have to wait till the end to hear it.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: But if you're listening to this when it comes out,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: it is Halloween. So well, Halloween, Happy Halloween, and let's
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: get into this fiction. It was hard to pinpoint when
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: her life fell apart when she let things fall apart,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: and the thing was by the time she realized it happened,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: it was too late. How far back did she have
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: to go to find where things went wrong? Was it
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: a series of multiple bad decisions? Was it a culmination
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of things outside of her control? The sensation of everything
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: being wrong seeped into her life slowly and then crashed
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: over her like a hurricane. As soon as she graduated college,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: she moved out of her small hometown and into a
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: small apartment in a big city. While the space was limited,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: it somehow felt larger than anywhere else she'd ever lived.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: It was hers to fill more room, to reinvent herself,
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  Speaker 1: to try new things, to just exist without every single
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: person whispering about it. Anonymity, freedom from the expectations of
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: who she was projected onto her by others that trapped
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: her in an internal performance. At first, it was very liberating,
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  Speaker 1: like removing an old, heavy, constricting coat, but she soon
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: found out she was putting on a new one, something
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: that felt lighter and less effocating until the days it
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: didn't until the days, the proverbial coat didn't offer the
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  Speaker 1: protection she wanted, and drew more danger than offered safety,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: closing around her neck like a noose. To be a
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: stranger in a new place, trying to figure out how
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  Speaker 1: to behave to keep herself safe, to find whoever she
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: was without all of the shared memories and histories that
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: informed her own opinion of herself was a weight that
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: grew increasingly heavier. Trying to make herself a home, or
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: at least a place to go to feel safe, a
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: task increasingly daunting. Over time, the armor it took to
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: go outside became exhausting, and she stayed in more and
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: more and more. While she couldn't know when things started
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: to go wrong, she didn't know when she started noticing things.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: The first instance that stood out in her mind was
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: that the sink would be clean when she went to
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  Speaker 1: sleep at night, a pristine white, and in the morning
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: sponged with black. Every morning she clinged it with a
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: tired but grim, detached determination. She purchased a water filter
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: and tried not to think about how long she'd been
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: drinking that water. Without question. She contacted her landlord and
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: was assured it was normal. So it just became a
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: piece of her life, a ritual in her mornings, something
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: to live with something to be erased. If she had
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: guessed nothing to worry about, nothing she couldn't handle. One day,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: her smoke detector went off for no reason, no smoke,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: fresh battery, and still it rang on like a clocksain
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  Speaker 1: until she detached the whole thing, and a cloud of
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: ash crashed into her face and into her mouth and nose.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: She couldn't stop herself from breathing it in. Her lungs
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  Speaker 1: caught and she toppled backwards off her step ladder, landing
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  Speaker 1: hard on the hardwood floor, pain lancing through her back
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  Speaker 1: and head, ears ringing, and blackness encroaching her vision. She
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: struggled to take a breath, coughing harshly, Dimly aware the
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  Speaker 1: alarm was still ringing, She blinked rapidly to rid her
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  Speaker 1: eyes of ash, sucking in air, and the alarm stopped.
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  Speaker 1: The air felt heavy and resulting silence sore, she pushed
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  Speaker 1: herself to her feet, stumbling to the bathroom to furiously
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  Speaker 1: scrub the ash off her face, gagging at the feel
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  Speaker 1: of it in her mouth. When she finally could open
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  Speaker 1: her eyes, her chest heaving and tight, the first thing
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  Speaker 1: she focused on was the black, curling and dotting from
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  Speaker 1: her sink, so she cleaned that too, just as she
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: had in the mornings over and over. Her mirror was
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  Speaker 1: dirty when she glanced up into it, she didn't care
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  Speaker 1: to clean it. As the weather got cooler, she started
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  Speaker 1: to notice a series of banging sound loud metallic clanks.
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  Speaker 1: They woke her in the night with their sudden demands
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  Speaker 1: for attention. In their newness to her used to her
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  Speaker 1: small town cicadas, the mysterious clangings made her feel small.
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  Speaker 1: Was this just something she didn't know about? Was this
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  Speaker 1: a normal part of living in a city and she
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  Speaker 1: was just ignorant? She lay awake, her skin crawling on edge,
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  Speaker 1: waiting for every unpredictable bang. Then a new sound came,
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  Speaker 1: a hissing sharp in the dark. She shot up in bed,
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  Speaker 1: breath catching in her throat trembling. She turned towards the source,
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  Speaker 1: and in the moonlight she could see swirling steam illuminated
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  Speaker 1: in the opening to the kitchen. The hissing got louder
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: and louder. Suddenly there was the sound of water spewing
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: out in hisses, steam billowing into the small space with
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  Speaker 1: frightening speed the air until she was coughing again until
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  Speaker 1: she felt like she was drowning in it. She careened
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  Speaker 1: out of the bed, the steam hot and sticking to
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  Speaker 1: her skin. Her hair grew heavy with dampness, and she
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  Speaker 1: was uncomfortably warm. The water collecting on her peeling towel
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  Speaker 1: floor made her toes curl. More water poured from the
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  Speaker 1: detached tradiator pipe in her kitchen. The water was black,
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  Speaker 1: with some kind of debris spilling across the checkered, white
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  Speaker 1: and black floor above her. The crack and the ceiling
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: split even further at the dampness. Panicked, she scrambled under
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  Speaker 1: the sink for a bucket and put it under the
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: spitting pipe bucket. After a bucket of hot, black water
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  Speaker 1: collected and poured into the sink, the smoke alarm went
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  Speaker 1: off again. She jerked, spilling hot water on herself, burning
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  Speaker 1: her skin. Staggering, she poured the water into the sink,
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  Speaker 1: the squealing from the pipe spiking into her brain a sharp, ringing,
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  Speaker 1: creshndoing sound until it all stopped. The alarm stopped blaring,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the whining, the banging, the hissing of the steam. Slowly,
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  Speaker 1: she realized the only sound she could hear was her
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  Speaker 1: own ragged breathing the slow drip of water from the pipe.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: She cleaned the floor, racing what had happened, but she
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: couldn't erase the burns on her hands and feet, nor
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: the memory from her mind. It lingered at night, keeping
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: her awake. Over the next few weeks, the radiator would
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: occasionally clang, the pipe would steam and drip. She was
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: assured it was normal. Every morning she cleaned the sink,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: and the nights came earlier and earlier. The air was cool,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the changing leaves rustling against her windows like fingers, something
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: trying to get in. Searching for normalcy, to create a
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: sense of home, she purchased a pumpkin. She had to
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: care mary it awkwardly on the walk to her apartment
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: because her car wouldn't start, another thing to add to
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  Speaker 1: her ever growing list of problems. With a strange sense
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: of dutiful detachment, she scooped out the pumpkin guts and
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: carved a face into it, a grim smile with menacing eyes.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: She studied the face staring back at her, wondering at
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  Speaker 1: how she felt just as empty as the pumpkin, This
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  Speaker 1: empty gourd held by this empty body, and this empty apartment.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Her silence was loud in her ears. Her breath fogged
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: in front of her face. The next morning, when she
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: stood by her car trying to diagnose why it wouldn't start,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: the door resisted. When she tried to open it, violent
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  Speaker 1: coughs erupted out of her throat. When she did so,
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  Speaker 1: a puff of dust billowed out, accompanied by the smell
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: of mildew. Blinking, she swiped at her eyes at the
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: back of her hand. The inside of her car was
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: coated in dust and gross that looked like some sort
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: of roots, veins branching off in all directions. Small blue
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  Speaker 1: mushrooms sprouted from the vents. Horrified, she slammed the door shut,
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  Speaker 1: the wind sending leaves swirling around her. What if she'd
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: breathed in spores? What if it was something toxic? Why
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  Speaker 1: was it growing in her car? She locked the door,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: resolving to deal with it later. Everything would be better later,
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  Speaker 1: She would have the strength to deal with it later.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: It was not soon after that she started noticing the bugs.
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  Speaker 1: Small cockroaches get her out of sight. Spiders gone as
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: soon as she saw them. Their numbers were enough to
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  Speaker 1: make her skin itch, keep her lying awake, keep her
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  Speaker 1: from turning on the lights at night for fear of
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  Speaker 1: what she would see. Her apartment getting smaller and smaller.
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  Speaker 1: The refrigerator stopped working, and all of her food rotted,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: filling the space with the sickeningly sweet scent, and a
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  Speaker 1: ray of multicolored molds grew along the walls of the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: once gleaming white innards of the fridge. Flies and maggots
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  Speaker 1: feasting on the rot. Her stomach roiled, her throat dry,
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  Speaker 1: her body heaving. She closed the door, promising to deal
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  Speaker 1: with this problem later. Over the days, the pumpkins slumped
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  Speaker 1: in on itself, its face collapsing slowly, inexorably. Black mold
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  Speaker 1: lined the cuts that she'd made, the eyes, the mouth,
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  Speaker 1: the nose, the teeth. The smell of rot permeated her apartment.
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  Speaker 1: Blue mushrooms, just like those in her car, started to
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  Speaker 1: grow from the pumpkins collapsed mall liquid leaked from it rancid.
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  Speaker 1: She cleaned it up like everything else, covered it up
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  Speaker 1: as best she could, But the pumpkins she kept. She
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  Speaker 1: couldn't find in herself to throw it away, even when
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  Speaker 1: dark black vines started to creep from it along the
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  Speaker 1: floors and along the walls. Deep purple flowers sprouted around
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  Speaker 1: the top, spouting spores into the small space She breathed
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  Speaker 1: them in. She drank the water, dark with mold. The
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: cracks in her walls and ceilings split apart, dark veins
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: spilling from them like a spider web. They cracked across
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  Speaker 1: her own skin, small blue mushrooms blooming along them. She
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: stared at the pumpkin, her skin melding into the wooden floor,
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  Speaker 1: too tired to move, long full with spores, she could
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  Speaker 1: imagine the mushrooms sprouting in her lungs, an entire colony,
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  Speaker 1: stealing all of her air. The vines wrapped around her calves,
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  Speaker 1: anchoring her to the floor. She could feel the mushrooms
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  Speaker 1: dotting her face, her eyes, her ears, the edges of
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  Speaker 1: her mouth. She could feel them in her heart, seeking
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: life and growth. At least she was no longer empty.
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  Speaker 1: She stared at the pumpkin, rotting and home to new life,
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  Speaker 1: and thought, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll let it get
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: so far. But nothing could convince her to move, nothing
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  Speaker 1: could convince her to fight her own rotting, her own
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  Speaker 1: consumption transformation. As the blue mushrooms pushed painfully out of
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: her skin. She breathed, and her breath caught in the
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: steam from the boiler so that she could see spores. Home,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: she thought, and then she didn't think anything anymore. And
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: that brings us to the end of this short fiction episode.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I really hope you enjoyed it. I have to say
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the caveat I brought up. This is not a cry
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: for help, I promise, but it is all based on
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: things that have happened in my apartments. Oh no, they
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: are exaggerated, hopefully obviously, but all of this comes from
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: something that did happen in my apartment. And I got
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: to thinking about how when you condense those things down,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: it does sound like a haunting. It sounds like something
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: is a miss. And my mom was staying with me
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: last night, and it was funny how many times she'd
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: be like, is it supposed to do that? Or be
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: like that? And I just would shrugg and I'm like, yeah,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: I think so. I've been living here for ten years.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know, uh, And I've thought that after staying
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: at your place, Samantha Ware. You know, sometimes you just
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: have these things that if it was through the frame
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: of a horror movie, everybody in the audience would be
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: screaming at you to get out. But when it's just
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: kind of your life and it's you know, your old
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: boilers acting up again, you don't. All you are is
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: annoyed that the broiler is acting up. It's just another
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: rat eating through my dishwasher exactly, which is a thing
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: that did happen to Cement. But you could see that
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: in a horror movie. Absolutely, as my dog's starting to
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: stare into the void, Yes, Peaches, she does have that
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: kind of haunted horror movie dog vibe too, And then
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: she she'll stare at something, she'll bark and there's nothing there. Yes,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: another thing. We've discussed this in recent and not so
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: recent episodes, horror episodes, but the thing about the mushrooms
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: is actually true. That did happen in both my car,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: my refrigerator, and actually a pumpkin. So I didn't I
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: exaggerated it a lot. This is not a cry for help,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: but that did happen. I like that caveat everybody's going
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: to be a get out of that apartment, right, Yes,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And I realized as we were recording this intro an outro,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I haven't named this yet. I will come up with
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: a name, but it is as of yet unnamed, but
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: you will know when it publishes what it is called. Hey, Samantha,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: you got this this? I already have a couple. I
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: have a couple of ideas. I just I and you
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: know we love a good title. I can't believe I
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: forgot this. I know I can't believe in it either. Actually,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: usually I start with the time. That's how I tell
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: them exactly the thought. It's like, I usually think of
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the title first. Yeah, I usually do too. I guess
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I was just I was doing something different anyway, Happy Halloween, Hallen. Yes, listeners,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: we would love to hear from you. If you're doing
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: anything fun or if you have any ideas for what
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: we can do with this fiction segment, please let us know.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: You can email us at Hello at stuff Onenever Told
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: You dot com. You can find us on Blue Skyite
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I Never Told You were also on YouTube. We have
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: some new merchandise at Cotton Bureau, and we have a
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: as always too, our super producer Christina Exeter, Prusino Maya
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: and a contributor Joey, thank you, and thanks to you
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: for listening. Stuff Never Told You is Prediction by heart Radio.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My heart Radio, you can check
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: out the heart Radio app, Apple podcast or if you
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows, Yes