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Book Club: Revenge · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is any and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I never told you, but I can have iHeart Radio.
0:18
Speaker 1: So as your listeners know, if you've been listening to
0:21
Speaker 1: our episodes recently, we are all in on this Halloween season.
0:26
Speaker 1: We have just been picking all of our topics based
0:30
Speaker 1: around some spooky things, almost all of our topics and
0:33
Speaker 1: quite all of them. So for our October book Club pick,
0:37
Speaker 1: we went with Revenge eleven Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa.
0:42
Speaker 1: It was originally published in Japan and translated and published
0:46
Speaker 1: in the US. In it has been really well reviewed
0:50
Speaker 1: and received. Um it went on to when several awards.
0:54
Speaker 1: It came up on a bunch of lists I was
0:56
Speaker 1: looking at. So these eleven short stories are Afternoon at
1:01
Speaker 1: the Bakery, Fruit Juice, Old Mrs Ja, The Little Dustman,
1:05
Speaker 1: Lab Coats, Sewing for the Heart, Welcome to the Museum
1:08
Speaker 1: of Torture, The Man who Sold Braces, the Last Hour
1:11
Speaker 1: of the Bengal Tiger, Tomatoes in the Full Moon, and
1:14
Speaker 1: Poison Plants. So that's, you know, a real hodgepodge of
1:19
Speaker 1: the titles. And these stories are in parts bizarre, unsettling,
1:26
Speaker 1: meta fictional, and they are connected Ogawa's writing is descriptive
1:32
Speaker 1: but sparse, like she can really paint a picture and
1:35
Speaker 1: build dread by crafting only a few sentences together. She's
1:38
Speaker 1: just very fast and communicating what's going on. She's able
1:42
Speaker 1: to do a lot with a little and I thought
1:44
Speaker 1: the whole thing was really textual, like she'll describe sounds
1:48
Speaker 1: that are, you know, often associated with horror, like a
1:51
Speaker 1: violin screech or or something like, just really messling with
1:55
Speaker 1: all of your senses. And it does make you question
1:59
Speaker 1: the reality of the stories reading, the reliability of the narrator,
2:03
Speaker 1: so that you're in a constant state of uncertainty because
2:05
Speaker 1: every story is told from the viewpoint of a narrator.
2:07
Speaker 1: Sometimes you realize who it is later, Oftentimes Julia, I
2:12
Speaker 1: don't know who this is, right, there's no gender given
2:15
Speaker 1: as just the narrator. And I thought it was really cool.
2:18
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it because their instances, especially in the beginning,
2:21
Speaker 1: when you read something, I think, oh, that's a red
2:23
Speaker 1: herring or just a minor detail, but then it shows
2:26
Speaker 1: up in a later story. It's disorienting as well, because
2:30
Speaker 1: the narrator shifts and you're never quite sure, yeah, who
2:33
Speaker 1: it is. If these stories are going to connect. If
2:35
Speaker 1: they're not going to connect, some of the stories become
2:38
Speaker 1: more horrifying or disturbing only after you've read the next story,
2:43
Speaker 1: and that gives this layer of foreboding and dread throughout
2:46
Speaker 1: where you might read something you're like, oh, no, I'm
2:47
Speaker 1: pretty sure that's worse than I think it is, and
2:50
Speaker 1: I'm going to find out why later. At the same time,
2:53
Speaker 1: it's kind of fun and scary to try to pick
2:56
Speaker 1: up on the random details that maybe integral to the
3:00
Speaker 1: future stories. I was like, oh, I bet that's going
3:02
Speaker 1: to show up. I could almost never guess how, but
3:04
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's that's something. Yeah, I think it is interesting.
3:08
Speaker 1: It's one of those that you read through once and
3:10
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I did go back because I think
3:11
Speaker 1: I missed something that connects to this part and I
3:13
Speaker 1: didn't realize it. And to the point that I also
3:15
Speaker 1: feel like I may have like skimmed over something or
3:18
Speaker 1: you know, missed something like I don't remember was that
3:21
Speaker 1: a part of this, like because it would be a
3:23
Speaker 1: retailer of the original story or the first story or
3:26
Speaker 1: the third story, and I'm like, what what, Yeah, I
3:29
Speaker 1: mean it connects way back like the tent story might
3:34
Speaker 1: connect to the second story, is so, and it might
3:37
Speaker 1: connect also to the sixth one and the fifth one,
3:39
Speaker 1: like a bunch of them. Towards the end, it gets
3:42
Speaker 1: wilder and wilder, like wait what whoa wait what? Right?
3:46
Speaker 1: She does a really good job of making it circular though,
3:49
Speaker 1: like almost an infinite you can start anywhere and it
3:52
Speaker 1: just kind of all connects. Yes, yeah, I agree, And
3:56
Speaker 1: it's also very like the first story in the last
3:58
Speaker 1: story are symmetrical. It's interesting. It's interesting. We'll talk about it.
4:05
Speaker 1: And in Samantha and I were discussing before we started recording,
4:07
Speaker 1: I do wonder how much was lost in translation or
4:11
Speaker 1: that I missed in cultural differences. It wasn't that I
4:13
Speaker 1: felt like something was missing. I just always wonder about
4:16
Speaker 1: that when I'm consuming entertainment that has been translated or
4:20
Speaker 1: from different cultures. And um, we're both big friends fans
4:23
Speaker 1: of Japanese horror, and there have been plenty of Japanese
4:26
Speaker 1: horror movies. I've watched him. Like, I don't get that,
4:29
Speaker 1: Like I get it's a big deal, but because it's
4:32
Speaker 1: a different culture, I don't understand the impact and full
4:35
Speaker 1: meaning of this right as In fact, one of the
4:38
Speaker 1: articles that I read did say that the translator stated
4:41
Speaker 1: about the title alone wasn't an exact translation and that
4:46
Speaker 1: there was something lost to that. I think they did
4:48
Speaker 1: he did the best he could, and what it was,
4:50
Speaker 1: it's kind of like how we were talking about and
4:52
Speaker 1: I've never seen this, and this is very much gonna
4:54
Speaker 1: date me. So if y'all listen to this, like four
4:56
Speaker 1: years in the future, she'll be like, what the squid
4:58
Speaker 1: game and the fact that it is in Korean and
5:01
Speaker 1: everybody loves it, but a lot of the Korean speakers
5:04
Speaker 1: are like, you're missing so much because you don't know
5:06
Speaker 1: the language, and instead of the same way with these
5:09
Speaker 1: types of books. And we also know, like Japanese culture,
5:12
Speaker 1: Asian cultures in itself, there is like a loss of
5:15
Speaker 1: words here and explanations of things. So of course we're
5:19
Speaker 1: trying to like not dumb it down, but it does
5:22
Speaker 1: change it fairly significantly, but still very enjoyable. Obviously still
5:28
Speaker 1: getting a lot of accolades for her storytelling. But yeah,
5:31
Speaker 1: some of the comparisons that they do to other Japanese authors,
5:34
Speaker 1: You're like, I have a feeling that's just because it's
5:36
Speaker 1: a Japanese author. Yeah, and and again like I really
5:43
Speaker 1: enjoyed this book. It wasn't like there were moments that
5:46
Speaker 1: I was confused or thought I was missing something. I
5:49
Speaker 1: just feel like there might have been some like symbolism
5:54
Speaker 1: that I might have missed. Are things like that. I
5:56
Speaker 1: think she does things to purposefully and maybe this is
5:59
Speaker 1: me just projecting my own way of like this is
6:01
Speaker 1: how I write things, like she doesn't want you to
6:04
Speaker 1: quite know. She wants to make it mysterious so that
6:06
Speaker 1: you can come back with a but wait was she
6:08
Speaker 1: saying this? Do she mean it this way? And like
6:12
Speaker 1: purposely making you guess and kind of go back to
6:14
Speaker 1: the hindsight and being like, yeah, that's one of the
6:18
Speaker 1: things I felt the most reading this was like uncertainty
6:22
Speaker 1: but purposeful, like it was meant to be, Like oh wait,
6:26
Speaker 1: oh that just happened. Like I love how suddenly you'd
6:30
Speaker 1: be reading something and you're like, oh, this is nice,
6:32
Speaker 1: and then the one sentence it's like, oh my god,
6:35
Speaker 1: it changes right it literally like oh oh my god, Okay,
6:41
Speaker 1: what the last story? I got me? At one point
6:44
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, did that happen yet? We'll talk
6:48
Speaker 1: about it. But yeah, I was like, wait, huh. So
6:51
Speaker 1: let's let's do a quick overview of these stories, and
6:54
Speaker 1: we'll start with the first one, which is called Afternoon
6:56
Speaker 1: at the Bakery. Right. So, the story follows a woman
7:00
Speaker 1: on her quest to a bakery to buy two strawberry shortcakes,
7:04
Speaker 1: and her description of it made me really want a
7:06
Speaker 1: strawberry shortcake. I don't know, I'm like, oh, I want
7:08
Speaker 1: one of those. And the tension builds slowly with several
7:12
Speaker 1: things that just seem off. The baker isn't there though
7:15
Speaker 1: she normally is. There aren't any customers, so the other patron,
7:19
Speaker 1: who also provides the spices for the bakery, has an
7:22
Speaker 1: odd smell and immediately says something about how there's nothing
7:25
Speaker 1: funny in the baked goods. Then it turns out that
7:28
Speaker 1: the shortcake the woman is after is for her dead
7:32
Speaker 1: son Um. He had died twelve years earlier after suffocating
7:36
Speaker 1: in a refrigerator in a vacant lot. When the woman
7:39
Speaker 1: found him, she refused to believe he was dead, bribing
7:42
Speaker 1: him to come home with strawberry shortcake for his birthday. Um.
7:46
Speaker 1: And the days after his death, the woman watched the
7:48
Speaker 1: cake rot and it was very descriptive to. It was
7:52
Speaker 1: quite descriptive, and here's a quote. I passed my days
7:56
Speaker 1: watching it rot. First the cream turned brown and separated
7:59
Speaker 1: from the fat, staining the cellophane wrapper. Then the strawberries
8:03
Speaker 1: dried out, wrinkling up like heads of deformed babies. The
8:06
Speaker 1: sponge cake hardened and crumbled, and finally a layer of
8:09
Speaker 1: mold appeared. Mold can be quite beautiful. I told my husband.
8:13
Speaker 1: The spots multiplied, covering the shortcake and delicate blotches of color.
8:17
Speaker 1: Get rid of it. My husband said, I could tell
8:19
Speaker 1: he was angry, but I did not understand why he
8:21
Speaker 1: would speak so harshly about her son's birthday cake. So
8:24
Speaker 1: I threw it in his face. Mold and crumbs covered
8:27
Speaker 1: his hair and his cheeks, and a terrible smell filled
8:30
Speaker 1: the room. It was like breathing in death. Right So,
8:33
Speaker 1: after her son's death, the woman starts collecting articles about
8:37
Speaker 1: tragic deaths children, reciting them like poems. She cleans out
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Speaker 1: her refrigerator and closes herself and determined to fill what
8:46
Speaker 1: her son felt, to go to him um and her husband,
8:50
Speaker 1: of course finds her, pulls her out and slaps her,
8:53
Speaker 1: trying to tell her snap out of it and then
8:55
Speaker 1: just has had enough and leaves her Yes, the woman
8:58
Speaker 1: realizes that baker is in the kitchen crying and that
9:02
Speaker 1: she is the sole witness of this, this grief, so
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Speaker 1: she hovers her a moment, thinking she could call out
9:07
Speaker 1: to the baker besides against it, waiting for her to
9:09
Speaker 1: collect herself half her moment of grief and re emerge
9:13
Speaker 1: before ordering the shortcakes. So this leaves us here. We're
9:17
Speaker 1: going to story number two, titled fruit Juice, and this
9:21
Speaker 1: one opens with a young woman nervously asking the narrator
9:24
Speaker 1: out to lunch at a library, and the narrator is confused,
9:30
Speaker 1: very confused because the two aren't close, but agrees apparently
9:33
Speaker 1: He's like, she's never even talked to me. We've never talked.
9:35
Speaker 1: I've never really noticed her. And I was like, okay,
9:38
Speaker 1: mod as well, And the narrator recalls the young woman
9:41
Speaker 1: as being discreet, silent, and easy to ignore, with no
9:45
Speaker 1: friends to speak of um and that she was apologetic
9:48
Speaker 1: when people noticed her. I will say the way he
9:50
Speaker 1: built up I thought was like, oh, this is gonna
9:53
Speaker 1: be bad. Anybody get killed or sacrifice. I don't know
9:58
Speaker 1: how I thought. You know, interesting enough, I have a
10:02
Speaker 1: really bad habit of doing this. But when I was
10:05
Speaker 1: reading this, I was taking notes as I was reading it,
10:07
Speaker 1: So some some of this I was like typing out,
10:11
Speaker 1: and then the whole thing changed, My whole viewpoint change.
10:15
Speaker 1: It was interesting experience to be like, oh, that's what mattered. Okay,
10:19
Speaker 1: that's where this was going. So the young woman reveals
10:23
Speaker 1: her mother has liver cancer and won't live much longer
10:27
Speaker 1: as the pairs on their way to this meal, and
10:29
Speaker 1: that the mother had given her daughter a business card
10:32
Speaker 1: with the information of a well known politician and told
10:34
Speaker 1: her to contact him if something were to happen to her. Also,
10:38
Speaker 1: the narrator vaguely remembers a rumor of the young woman
10:41
Speaker 1: being an illegitimate child, and then it just is like,
10:44
Speaker 1: yes she is. It doesn't. I remember being like, oh
10:48
Speaker 1: so she is. Okay, it didn't. There wasn't really a
10:50
Speaker 1: sentence or a confrontation or anything. It's just like, yeah, okay.
10:54
Speaker 1: But yet she is meeting this politician slash her father
10:57
Speaker 1: for the first time. That day, they arrived at a
10:59
Speaker 1: nine French restaurant that is primarily white, where the man
11:03
Speaker 1: is in a back room already drinking a dark red drink,
11:06
Speaker 1: So there's that color contrast. After an awkward, silent meal,
11:10
Speaker 1: the man attempts to make conversation with his daughter, but
11:13
Speaker 1: it's clear that they come from different backgrounds. She has
11:17
Speaker 1: some not so subtle digs that he hasn't provided for
11:20
Speaker 1: her while he was living his fancy life, that she
11:22
Speaker 1: loved music and wanted to pick up the violin but
11:24
Speaker 1: didn't have the money. Um, and then later reveals that
11:27
Speaker 1: her mother had wanted to go into music as well,
11:29
Speaker 1: but became a typist instead, And then you had that
11:32
Speaker 1: flashback of him watching her maybe stilling a violin. Yes,
11:38
Speaker 1: dot dot dot, that's one of the only interactions he
11:41
Speaker 1: remembers having with her. The narrator Yeah. So after the launch,
11:46
Speaker 1: the pair walks home and discovers an abandoned post office
11:50
Speaker 1: pet with Kiwi's and Kiwi's are all throughout. I thought
11:54
Speaker 1: that was an interesting fruit to use. They break in
11:57
Speaker 1: and the young woman eats Kiwi after Kiwi, the jew
12:00
Speaker 1: sticking to her hands and face. The air is sharp
12:02
Speaker 1: and chloe and sweet and sour like death. Don't don't
12:07
Speaker 1: don't yep. The pair returns to school the next day
12:11
Speaker 1: and go on as if nothing happened. Her mother died
12:14
Speaker 1: soon after, she ended up going to school for pastry making.
12:18
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. Several years passed before the narrator runs across
12:22
Speaker 1: an obituary for the man that they'd had lunch with
12:24
Speaker 1: at the French restaurant and he tracks down the woman's
12:26
Speaker 1: number at the bakery she now works at um and
12:29
Speaker 1: she finally allows herself this moment to cry, to grieve.
12:33
Speaker 1: So it was the baker, and it was actually it
12:39
Speaker 1: was like a happy conversation, even though she's crying because
12:43
Speaker 1: she's thanking him because he was like, I'm so sorry
12:45
Speaker 1: I wasn't there. I just know that helps so much.
12:48
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah. So it was interesting too. A lot
12:51
Speaker 1: of these weren't scary, but I mean there were details
12:56
Speaker 1: in it that were like unsettling and put me on edge.
12:59
Speaker 1: And one was like, Okay, why are there are all
13:00
Speaker 1: these kiwis in this post office? Something that's very strange,
13:04
Speaker 1: But I didn't really think too much of it. I
13:06
Speaker 1: was just kind of like, that wasn't really that scary.
13:08
Speaker 1: And then you get to the next story, which is
13:12
Speaker 1: called Old Mrs j Um, and this one follows a
13:15
Speaker 1: narrator who has just moved into a new lovely sounding place. There.
13:20
Speaker 1: Landlord is old Mrs J, who keeps orchards of kiwi's
13:24
Speaker 1: so thick that quote. On moonlight nights, when the wind
13:27
Speaker 1: was blowing, the whole hillside would tremble as though covered
13:30
Speaker 1: with a swarm of dark green bats. At times I
13:32
Speaker 1: found myself thinking they might fly away at any moment.
13:36
Speaker 1: Then one day the narrator realizes that in the night
13:38
Speaker 1: a whole section of the kiwis had been harvested. The
13:41
Speaker 1: narrator a writer suspects they must have missed the workers
13:45
Speaker 1: picking them somehow, and only a few days passed before
13:48
Speaker 1: tiny fruits are growing on the trees. So from the
13:51
Speaker 1: limited interactions with Mrs J, the narrator observes that she
13:54
Speaker 1: must be quiet, a woman who lives a boring, monotonous
13:57
Speaker 1: life with the same schedule every day. And when she
14:01
Speaker 1: works in the garden, however, she's much more alive, almost
14:03
Speaker 1: a different woman. Yes, the narrator receives their first gift
14:07
Speaker 1: from Mrs Jay after coming to her aid, and when
14:09
Speaker 1: a stray cat is messing with her garden, she comes
14:13
Speaker 1: into the narrator's apartment for the first time. I admiring
14:15
Speaker 1: the books and the typewriter in there, while revealing her
14:18
Speaker 1: husband was a drunk who gambled her savings away and
14:21
Speaker 1: he went missing one day on the beach. She also
14:24
Speaker 1: reveals she's a masseuse and the narrator requests a massage
14:27
Speaker 1: when she has the time. The narrator witnesses Mrs Ja
14:31
Speaker 1: giving a middle aged man a massage, an act that
14:34
Speaker 1: looks really violent and strong despite her old age and
14:37
Speaker 1: general frail nature. She starts having tea with the narrator,
14:42
Speaker 1: chattering away and bringing them vegetables, including a carrot in
14:45
Speaker 1: the shape of a hand. She starts bringing the narrator
14:48
Speaker 1: their male including a package of scalops that it's spoiled
14:51
Speaker 1: because they had been in transit for two weeks m hmm.
14:57
Speaker 1: One windy night, as the narrator is reading over their
15:00
Speaker 1: a new script, they spot a figure in the orchards.
15:02
Speaker 1: It's Mrs j with a box, handling it with great
15:05
Speaker 1: skill and expertise. She takes it to the abandoned post
15:08
Speaker 1: office at the bottom of the hill. The narrator finally
15:11
Speaker 1: gets that massage. Mrs Jay holds them down with strength,
15:14
Speaker 1: her fingers described as like bones, like there's no skin
15:17
Speaker 1: on them. It was real intense. It was a real
15:20
Speaker 1: intense experience, and leaves lingering pain. More and more a
15:24
Speaker 1: handshaped carrots grow. Over the following days, reporters come out
15:28
Speaker 1: to photograph the carrot hands and story appears in the paper.
15:32
Speaker 1: So we cut two inspectors asking about Mrs Jay's missing
15:37
Speaker 1: husband and if the narrator ever noticed anything unusual. The
15:41
Speaker 1: narrator recounts the time they witnessed Mrs j Because to
15:43
Speaker 1: the abandoned post office in the middle of the night,
15:45
Speaker 1: and when the authorities investigated, they found a mountain of
15:48
Speaker 1: Kiwi's inside and the body of a cat underneath. But
15:51
Speaker 1: digging into the garden revealed a decomposing body of her
15:54
Speaker 1: husband who's been strangled, which, after you hear the description
15:58
Speaker 1: of how she gave the massage, you're like, oh okay.
16:02
Speaker 1: And his blood was bound on Mrs J's nightgown. His
16:05
Speaker 1: hands were missing from the corpse and never recovered. Brow Yeah,
16:12
Speaker 1: m hmm, but that changes like her eating the Kiwis
16:15
Speaker 1: even though it was just the cat, it was still
16:17
Speaker 1: dead guy in there though. The next story is called
16:35
Speaker 1: The Little dustmond Um, and it opens with the narrator
16:38
Speaker 1: being stuck on a train in a freak snow store,
16:40
Speaker 1: making him late for their stepmother's funeral, a death of
16:43
Speaker 1: narrator found out about through their girlfriend, who worked out
16:46
Speaker 1: a magazine. The stepmother had been a writer and for
16:50
Speaker 1: a brief two year period, had acted as the only
16:53
Speaker 1: mother the narrator ever knew. Their biological mother died when
16:57
Speaker 1: they were very young after a scratched him pool and
17:00
Speaker 1: her nose got infected, leading the narrator to have a
17:02
Speaker 1: fear of germs getting to his brain through his nose.
17:05
Speaker 1: Right so, the narrator remembers Mama as being really petite,
17:09
Speaker 1: even as a child, But he can't recall Mama's name,
17:13
Speaker 1: so she left after the divorce um. The marriage lasted
17:15
Speaker 1: only two years, and the narrator's father erased all evidence
17:19
Speaker 1: of her. The narrator couldn't even remember her name until
17:22
Speaker 1: he searched the house and bound dependent with her name
17:24
Speaker 1: engraved in it. He returned it to the drawer, relieved.
17:28
Speaker 1: When Mama had been alive, she had hit her writing
17:30
Speaker 1: from her husband, believing him to be a real artist,
17:34
Speaker 1: although apparently he wasn't a professional. He just did things.
17:37
Speaker 1: It's almost a hobby. Um, And then she would read
17:39
Speaker 1: what she wrote to the narrator as a child. Yes,
17:43
Speaker 1: and if you're kind of confused by like pronouns switching,
17:46
Speaker 1: it's because, like we said, you don't know the gender
17:49
Speaker 1: often at first and sometimes ever in these short stories,
17:52
Speaker 1: but sometimes you find out like halfway in or towards
17:55
Speaker 1: the end. So it turns out Mama had become a
17:59
Speaker 1: very paroid as a writer had written a story about
18:02
Speaker 1: an old woman who grew carrots shaped like hands, and
18:06
Speaker 1: the police eventually found the body of her husband in
18:08
Speaker 1: the garden. The narrator receives a clipping from a newspaper
18:12
Speaker 1: showing her standing next to an old woman with carrots
18:14
Speaker 1: shaped like hands or pendant disappeared, right, and in this
18:20
Speaker 1: story too that he talks about spending time with her.
18:22
Speaker 1: This is the zoo story, right, Yeah, she takes him
18:25
Speaker 1: to the zoo in the cold. Yea, so she takes
18:30
Speaker 1: him to the zoo. He remembers this one amazing day
18:34
Speaker 1: where they go and look at a zoo, but it's
18:36
Speaker 1: very cold, so no one was there and it's snowing,
18:39
Speaker 1: but still they went and they had a conversation about
18:42
Speaker 1: giraffes and how that was sad that this draft has
18:46
Speaker 1: such a long neck and was not quote unquote normal, right,
18:50
Speaker 1: which is a fun conversation. And then they go home
18:54
Speaker 1: and that does pop up later. But also in the
18:58
Speaker 1: first story, when the woman was remembering her son, she
19:04
Speaker 1: remembered that he like asked about drafts and like similar
19:10
Speaker 1: questions and so yeah, you're like, wait, what's going on here? Right?
19:16
Speaker 1: What's the connection is there? One? The next story is
19:19
Speaker 1: called lab Coats, and it follows the secretary at a
19:22
Speaker 1: hospital and their journey to the morgue um. The laundry
19:25
Speaker 1: room is right next to it. Part of the secretary's
19:27
Speaker 1: job is doing the laundry, which means checking lab coats
19:30
Speaker 1: to make sure there's nothing in the pockets. Another secretary
19:33
Speaker 1: complains to the narrator about her new boyfriend and how
19:36
Speaker 1: he was supposed to come see her the night before
19:38
Speaker 1: but claimed he got stuck on a train in a snowstorm.
19:42
Speaker 1: The secretary does not buy this excuse. The narrator thinks
19:45
Speaker 1: about how beautiful the other secretary is, how she knows
19:49
Speaker 1: exactly what she wants, but that when she's wrong, she'll
19:52
Speaker 1: blame others, including the narrator, but they let her get
19:55
Speaker 1: away with it. To keep up this image of her
19:57
Speaker 1: being perfect. Um. The narrator just seems to know a
20:00
Speaker 1: lot of details about her, including where she lives, seems
20:04
Speaker 1: to fantasize about her too. But then the secretary reveals
20:10
Speaker 1: after her boyfriend, who has been stringing her along promising
20:14
Speaker 1: a divorce, pressed her to wait a little bit longer,
20:16
Speaker 1: she killed him. The narrator says, she seems spotless and
20:20
Speaker 1: shakes out of the boyfriend's old lab coat a tongue.
20:23
Speaker 1: His tongue, we can presume, um, but that one was
20:25
Speaker 1: a real flip of expectations because it was building it
20:28
Speaker 1: as if like this was a stalker situation, right he
20:32
Speaker 1: or she whoever the narrator is, was going to do
20:34
Speaker 1: something to the secretary, and then it just it's like, well,
20:40
Speaker 1: there was also this narrative of the fact that she
20:42
Speaker 1: had taken a situation at work where she was supposed
20:45
Speaker 1: to be pristine and perfect and a leader and then
20:48
Speaker 1: she did something wrong, and so it just blamed it
20:50
Speaker 1: on her or on the other person who was helping
20:54
Speaker 1: but knew what they were doing. But because she loved
20:57
Speaker 1: her too much, the secretary that she didn't say anything,
21:00
Speaker 1: didn't stand up for herself, and still didn't think anything
21:02
Speaker 1: of it. It never faltered her at all. It could
21:05
Speaker 1: be like very much the conversation of her being real
21:07
Speaker 1: controlling and maybe a sociopath. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because
21:11
Speaker 1: she does come back later and you see her through
21:14
Speaker 1: someone else's point of view and they're like, oh, she
21:17
Speaker 1: can never do anything right. And it's just interesting to
21:20
Speaker 1: get those two different like takes on this same person.
21:24
Speaker 1: And then we have what I think maybe the most
21:27
Speaker 1: interesting story of the bunch. I don't. I mean, all
21:30
Speaker 1: of them are fairly interesting, but this one got me
21:31
Speaker 1: to be like, uh oh no oh, no all around,
21:35
Speaker 1: oh no oh in this title Sewing for the Heart. Yes,
21:39
Speaker 1: so this one also starts in a hospital, the same
21:42
Speaker 1: one actually, with a missing doctor of the respiratory medicine unit.
21:47
Speaker 1: The narrator is a bagmaker who lives alone in an
21:50
Speaker 1: apartment above their shop. And the narrator really really loves bags,
21:55
Speaker 1: like he knows all about them, goes into great detail
21:58
Speaker 1: about the types of bags, um making them, observing people
22:02
Speaker 1: with them, and their whole thing in general, literally like, oh,
22:05
Speaker 1: that one kind of looks like her face was an
22:08
Speaker 1: interesting take. One day, a customer asked the narrator to
22:12
Speaker 1: make a bag to hold a human heart. She had
22:16
Speaker 1: heard the narrator couldn't make a bag for anything, and
22:19
Speaker 1: that many others had already turned her down. Um And
22:22
Speaker 1: there are a lot of specifications. It can't be too absorbent,
22:25
Speaker 1: but has to breed and be kept warm. The shape
22:28
Speaker 1: is important to also uh. It was to be secure
22:32
Speaker 1: but not too tight. It needed holes for the veins
22:35
Speaker 1: and arteries. Um. And the bag is necessary because she
22:38
Speaker 1: had been born with her heart outside her body. It
22:41
Speaker 1: wasn't because of his position, but it was extremely vulnerable.
22:45
Speaker 1: And the narrators to just seal skin. And I was
22:48
Speaker 1: like already, oh, oh, sealskin. Yeah. The narrator is excited
22:54
Speaker 1: about this prospect, like this challenge. So to make the bag,
22:58
Speaker 1: the narrator realizes he will have to eat the exposed
23:00
Speaker 1: heart at some point, a prospect that terrifies him. But
23:04
Speaker 1: when it actually happens, the narrator finds it's not so bad. Quote.
23:09
Speaker 1: It could fit in the bump of my hand. A pale,
23:11
Speaker 1: pink membrane of delicate muscle tissue surrounded it. What extraordinary
23:15
Speaker 1: breath taking beauty? Would it feel damp? If I kept
23:17
Speaker 1: it in my hands with the membrane rupture if I
23:20
Speaker 1: gave it a squeeze. Could I feel it beating? Feel
23:23
Speaker 1: it shrink from my caresses. I wanted to run my
23:26
Speaker 1: fingertips aver each tiny bump and furrow, touch my lips
23:29
Speaker 1: to the veins, soft tissue on soft tissue, the pressure
23:32
Speaker 1: of her pulse against my skin. I could easily lose
23:35
Speaker 1: myself to these thoughts, but I knew I had to
23:37
Speaker 1: keep this desire and check. I had to play my
23:39
Speaker 1: role and make the perfect bag for this heart. The narrator.
23:45
Speaker 1: To make this perfect guy goes about measuring veins and arteries,
23:48
Speaker 1: accidentally touching it at one point. Um the narrator learns
23:52
Speaker 1: the customer is a singer and goes to see her
23:55
Speaker 1: in secret, wanting to see the heart in the wild.
23:59
Speaker 1: When the they test the bag for fit, the narrator
24:02
Speaker 1: likens the bag to a spider or a fetus, but
24:05
Speaker 1: it does fit her pretty much perfectly that she asked
24:08
Speaker 1: her some adjustments. The narrator is incredibly pleased with his
24:13
Speaker 1: work and that he's created something unique, uh, something no
24:16
Speaker 1: one else has ever made. And by the way, throughout
24:20
Speaker 1: this story, we learned about his pet hamster, whom he
24:24
Speaker 1: loves and he has made a bag for his hamster
24:27
Speaker 1: so he could take it on a walk. So the narrative,
24:30
Speaker 1: his life became consumed with this bag. Their hunger died,
24:35
Speaker 1: their hamster died. I mean literally, he's like, oh, no,
24:38
Speaker 1: it is dead. What do I do? And we don't
24:40
Speaker 1: know if it's because of neglect or what, because at
24:43
Speaker 1: one point was happy and going about his life, and
24:46
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden he's like, I forgot about everything.
24:48
Speaker 1: Oh and I found my hamster dead. Then the customer
24:50
Speaker 1: reveals that she no longer niece the bag and that
24:54
Speaker 1: she's pursuing a procedure to put her part back into place,
24:57
Speaker 1: which I mean like, for a moment I was on
24:59
Speaker 1: his side. I was like, oh, that's really rude. I
25:01
Speaker 1: think she does offer to pay, but I don't know
25:03
Speaker 1: if she does, and she offers to but yes, she
25:05
Speaker 1: was very dismissive of like I don't need it anymore. Also,
25:10
Speaker 1: by the way, throughout this whole time, as she's like
25:12
Speaker 1: showing him the heart, she's very non plus about it.
25:15
Speaker 1: It's just like, here you go, here's the heart. You
25:18
Speaker 1: don't have to be so gentle, like be gentle, but
25:20
Speaker 1: you can you can look at you can like it
25:22
Speaker 1: was really oddly casual. Maybe that's what he thinks, and
25:28
Speaker 1: that's how you read it. I don't know. Anyway, the
25:31
Speaker 1: narrator tries to convince her not to that the bag
25:34
Speaker 1: is perfect, Like he's trying to tell how amazing it is. No, seriously,
25:38
Speaker 1: I put so much work in through what you're not
25:39
Speaker 1: gonna want to put it back in your body? Okay.
25:42
Speaker 1: So the customer reiterates she won't be needing it and
25:45
Speaker 1: accidentally knocks into the floor as she leaves like a
25:48
Speaker 1: dead animal. He compares it to like just a dead carcass. Yeah,
25:52
Speaker 1: and also read the hamster. He threw it away in
25:56
Speaker 1: a fast food trush game. Yes, catch up on apparently? Yeah,
26:01
Speaker 1: catch up. I don't think he put catch up on it.
26:03
Speaker 1: And then through the way ketchup just what happened. But
26:06
Speaker 1: yeah he just talked about but Ketchup being on it.
26:09
Speaker 1: I was like, huh, yeah, okay, okay, Well anyway, the
26:14
Speaker 1: narrator shows up at the hospital determined to get the
26:17
Speaker 1: woman to try the bag one time since it was
26:21
Speaker 1: a once in a lifetime project before she gets the procedure.
26:27
Speaker 1: So he as he's in the elevator going up, he
26:32
Speaker 1: thinks to himself that he will get the bag on
26:35
Speaker 1: her and cut away the heart so that it belongs
26:38
Speaker 1: to him. Yeah, it ends there, but that's the thought
26:42
Speaker 1: he has, and he has a knife, like he has
26:44
Speaker 1: a whole plan on how he's going to do this,
26:46
Speaker 1: how he's faking his way into the room. But also
26:50
Speaker 1: you should know that throughout he does obviously as she
26:53
Speaker 1: read the passage, he has a really big fetish for
26:57
Speaker 1: this heart that he is so obsessed with it. It
26:59
Speaker 1: cares nothing about the woman, who cares nothing about her,
27:02
Speaker 1: only the heart, and it usually ends with like him
27:05
Speaker 1: pretty much in his mind, molesting the heart and then
27:07
Speaker 1: squeezing it. Oh that is throughout the story, which that
27:12
Speaker 1: was weird. This is why I was like, oh god,
27:15
Speaker 1: that's just yeah. Yeah, that's a pretty big turning point
27:19
Speaker 1: from where they've been so far. Yeah, I was like, oh, okay,
27:23
Speaker 1: this dude is real, real, real there because at the
27:26
Speaker 1: very least the other way the other stories, we have
27:28
Speaker 1: a different perspective of the narrators not being a part
27:32
Speaker 1: of that but may have been witnessed to it, so
27:34
Speaker 1: different to see that as the point of view. And
27:37
Speaker 1: then we have the next story, which is Welcome to
27:39
Speaker 1: the Museum of Torture, which is like okay um, And
27:43
Speaker 1: this one starts with recounting of all the deaths that
27:46
Speaker 1: have happened across the world that day and the narrator
27:49
Speaker 1: finding the body of a dead hamster and a fast
27:51
Speaker 1: food trash can. Yeah, she talks about the fact that
27:54
Speaker 1: she thought it moved and she was very fascinated about it.
27:56
Speaker 1: But then it was magas know, not only that a
28:01
Speaker 1: doctor has been murdered in the apartment above hers, is
28:05
Speaker 1: that she At this point of narrators, investigators questioned the
28:11
Speaker 1: narrator about the murder and also about the possible connection
28:14
Speaker 1: between that and a murder of a patient that took
28:16
Speaker 1: place in the hospital where he worked. At that doctor Essentially,
28:19
Speaker 1: when the woman had been killed, the murderer goudging a
28:22
Speaker 1: hole in her chest, but I think actually she was
28:24
Speaker 1: stabbed like in her throat too. He lost his pace,
28:28
Speaker 1: Like I don't know what conversation happens, but it says
28:30
Speaker 1: she had been stabbed at death, and so was the
28:33
Speaker 1: doctor had been stabbed at to the point that he
28:35
Speaker 1: was almost decapitated. And she's talking about the fact that
28:40
Speaker 1: trying to describe this to him being essential to the
28:43
Speaker 1: investigation and kind of proud of it and really into
28:46
Speaker 1: this detective and wants to tell him more, wants to
28:49
Speaker 1: be needed. The narrator, who is a beautician, is preparing
28:52
Speaker 1: for a night with her boyfriend complete were strawberry shortcakes, um,
28:57
Speaker 1: and it's you know, they've spent three teks apart, so
29:00
Speaker 1: that's you know, supposed to be this happy reunion. After
29:04
Speaker 1: she hears some noise coming from the apartment above, the
29:07
Speaker 1: narrator informs her boyfriend that there was a murder in
29:10
Speaker 1: that apartment, and the narrator goes all in yeah and
29:14
Speaker 1: like how she wants to help the detectives and reporters.
29:16
Speaker 1: She wants to help solf the case. And her boyfriend
29:19
Speaker 1: asked angrily if she thinks it's amusing someone died and
29:23
Speaker 1: storms out. The narrator goes for a walk, sitting in
29:27
Speaker 1: front of a familiar bakery and watching a familiar clock
29:31
Speaker 1: that we've seen in other stories. She reminisces about all
29:35
Speaker 1: the girls that she had known who had been broken
29:37
Speaker 1: up with by their boyfriends foreseemingly random silly reasons. In
29:42
Speaker 1: her mind. As she walks, the narrator ends up at
29:45
Speaker 1: the Museum of Torture and decides to go in. There's
29:49
Speaker 1: no one in the lobby, no one answer has been called,
29:52
Speaker 1: so the narrator goes in finds an old man that
29:56
Speaker 1: seems to be waiting for her. He asked the narrator
29:59
Speaker 1: if she wants to see the collection or contribute an
30:02
Speaker 1: instrument of torture. The narrator asked for a tour, and
30:07
Speaker 1: the man agrees, showing and describing items of torture, including
30:10
Speaker 1: a bag that is almost course it like and contains
30:13
Speaker 1: traces of human blood and flesh. The narrator imagines what
30:17
Speaker 1: it would be like to torture her boyfriend and asked
30:20
Speaker 1: if she can come back sometime. The old man says
30:24
Speaker 1: they will be waiting. Yeah, she has a lot of
30:27
Speaker 1: thoughts of torturing her boyfriend. She does, she does, and
30:32
Speaker 1: then also a lot of thoughts on how the old
30:34
Speaker 1: man didn't look old. Yeah. I remember being like, there's
30:41
Speaker 1: something with this guy, and there and there was. He
30:47
Speaker 1: also asked if those items had been used or he
30:49
Speaker 1: had been attempted to use it, and he was like
30:51
Speaker 1: I have, and she was like wait what I mean?
30:54
Speaker 1: So there you go, but doesn't need to be shocked.
31:09
Speaker 1: So we move on to another story called The Men
31:12
Speaker 1: who Sold Braces. In the story starts with the narrator
31:17
Speaker 1: remembering their uncle who seemed to break everything he touched
31:21
Speaker 1: um and went through many jobs, including curator of a
31:25
Speaker 1: museum and a brace salesman and creator. He was an inventor.
31:30
Speaker 1: He died when he was strangled after the garbage that
31:33
Speaker 1: accumulated in his place fell on him. I still understand
31:37
Speaker 1: the strangled bit as much as suffocation, so I wondered
31:39
Speaker 1: if that was a translation and or the insinuations that
31:42
Speaker 1: I thought maybe he had like assixiated himself. But whatever,
31:48
Speaker 1: and the narrator was called to claim the body and
31:51
Speaker 1: the fur coat left for them. So in the narrator's memories,
31:55
Speaker 1: their parents were always in tents around the uncle, like
31:58
Speaker 1: and everyone. It wasn't just the parents are all adults
32:03
Speaker 1: except him as a child UM. And in one particular memory,
32:07
Speaker 1: the uncle tried to help build a model that promptly broke,
32:10
Speaker 1: And it wasn't that he helped, he didn't up doing
32:12
Speaker 1: it himself and wouldn't allow the boy to touch it um,
32:15
Speaker 1: and the boy knew he was going to mess it up,
32:18
Speaker 1: like immediately and was anxious about allowing him to do it. Also,
32:21
Speaker 1: it took away from doing it with his father, who
32:23
Speaker 1: had bought it for him. Both of those things, and
32:26
Speaker 1: in another the uncle tested a brace on the narrator,
32:31
Speaker 1: a color around the neck, brace around the spine, and
32:34
Speaker 1: support around the waist, which was supposed to make him taller.
32:37
Speaker 1: So it says, just thirty minutes a day for six
32:40
Speaker 1: months to make you taller. Of course, it was incredibly uncomfortable,
32:46
Speaker 1: and despite the pain they caused, the difficulty breathing, the
32:50
Speaker 1: uncle has a contract to sell them, or so he says,
32:53
Speaker 1: and it is planning on advertising them and getting them
32:56
Speaker 1: medically approved for physical therapy. And when the boys trying
33:00
Speaker 1: it all, he's choking. Please take it awfu, least take
33:03
Speaker 1: it off, and everybody like, oh my god, what is this. Eventually,
33:07
Speaker 1: by the way, the uncle was arrested for fraud because
33:10
Speaker 1: that contract wasn't real, the protiment wasn't real, and he
33:14
Speaker 1: was not supposed to be selling it as such. And
33:16
Speaker 1: he went to Jill, Yes he did. But when he
33:20
Speaker 1: got out he got a job as a butler at
33:22
Speaker 1: a very nice house owned by a pair of elderly
33:25
Speaker 1: twin women. Um he were constantly traveling. The uncle claims
33:29
Speaker 1: that he spent most of his time at his job
33:31
Speaker 1: looking after the Bengal tiger, but also the twins go
33:36
Speaker 1: around the world buying stuff that could and had inflicted
33:39
Speaker 1: torture and bringing them home. So he watched over all
33:42
Speaker 1: that stuff, becoming the curator of this museum. After the
33:47
Speaker 1: women died at the funeral. At the uncle's funeral, there
33:51
Speaker 1: were whispers that the uncle had been doing indecent acts
33:54
Speaker 1: with underage girls at the museum, including a beautician he'd
33:59
Speaker 1: allegedly been involved with. The narrator remembers um when his
34:04
Speaker 1: uncle gave him, yes, the fur coat to walk home
34:07
Speaker 1: in it was a cold night, gave him a fur coat,
34:09
Speaker 1: and how the sleeves slipped off as the narrator realized
34:12
Speaker 1: it was bits of tiger. Yes, the relationship was really sweet,
34:18
Speaker 1: like oddly enough, because a the uncle always brought him
34:23
Speaker 1: a gift and would be like, where do you think
34:25
Speaker 1: it is, and and maybe like, oh, this is gonna
34:27
Speaker 1: be bad, but it wasn't. It was It was innocent.
34:30
Speaker 1: And so when the boy goes to visit him as
34:33
Speaker 1: an older man, he's like, I brought you a gift.
34:36
Speaker 1: And brought him his favorite chocolates. Like the fact that
34:38
Speaker 1: someone actually cared about him, yeah, was shocking because apparently
34:41
Speaker 1: no one did. None of the families didn't even talking
34:43
Speaker 1: about the funeral. How everybody was really uncomfortable and was
34:46
Speaker 1: trying to figure out why they were there essentially, And
34:49
Speaker 1: again the young boy who who ends up being the
34:52
Speaker 1: one that's called in to come and claim his body
34:54
Speaker 1: because there was nobody else. He had been arrested a
34:57
Speaker 1: second time because he had ambezzled all of the elderly
35:02
Speaker 1: sister's money apparently, which is why he when he was
35:05
Speaker 1: in his home, he had all that stuff that was
35:07
Speaker 1: coming apart and he never got rid of anything, so
35:10
Speaker 1: he ended up just stacking in a small apartment and
35:12
Speaker 1: that's how he died. Yeah. And also there were cheek rubbing.
35:15
Speaker 1: There was a lot of cheek rubbing, man like to
35:17
Speaker 1: rub his cheek on everything, but again it wasn't sexual. Yeah,
35:23
Speaker 1: I think. I think the implication was that he hangs
35:25
Speaker 1: out with that tiger so much and that was his
35:27
Speaker 1: way of showing affection to the tiger, which is a
35:32
Speaker 1: good lead in to the next story. The last hour
35:36
Speaker 1: of the Bengal Tiger Um and this one opens on
35:40
Speaker 1: the narrator looking for a reason to avoid a confrontation
35:42
Speaker 1: with a woman demanding She's like thinking in her head
35:45
Speaker 1: that she's going to demand of this woman that she
35:47
Speaker 1: quote give her husband back. And the husband is a
35:51
Speaker 1: respiratory specialist who's been away on a medical conference. The
35:57
Speaker 1: narrator is stalled from this whole ordeal by an overturned
36:00
Speaker 1: truck on the highway that has killed the driver and
36:03
Speaker 1: um left all these tomatoes spilling all over the road.
36:07
Speaker 1: The narrator remembers the woman her husband is cheating with
36:11
Speaker 1: the hospital secretary as pathetic and bad at her job. Also,
36:18
Speaker 1: she has a run in with the beautician. It's all
36:23
Speaker 1: coming together, right, so looking for a reason to avoid
36:26
Speaker 1: the confrontation. Apparently in her mind she also gets lost.
36:29
Speaker 1: She's like it's changed. And also she also had this
36:32
Speaker 1: big description of how she's running over the tomatoes and
36:35
Speaker 1: wondering what I feel like to run over a body.
36:37
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I don't know. Do you think this
36:40
Speaker 1: is the same time the doctor was supposed to be
36:42
Speaker 1: at a conference somewhere else or something, returns back because
36:47
Speaker 1: he got stuck in the train, goes and sees the
36:50
Speaker 1: secretary and he's being killed. Do you think this is
36:52
Speaker 1: the same timeline? So the reason like her missing not
36:55
Speaker 1: getting to him was actually saved her life? Maybe? I
36:58
Speaker 1: think so. I think he got to laid the secretary
37:04
Speaker 1: hospital secretary just did not believe it. But I think
37:07
Speaker 1: he was either lying about that medical conference, right. Was
37:12
Speaker 1: it was this the same timeline or a different timeline?
37:14
Speaker 1: I was wondering that. I was like, is this like
37:17
Speaker 1: when it just happened that she missed all these things
37:19
Speaker 1: and changed her mind on a day that would have
37:21
Speaker 1: gotten either her killed or that husband. Right. I think
37:27
Speaker 1: at this point, huh, I think I think it's the
37:32
Speaker 1: same timeline because I think it's earlier than some of
37:35
Speaker 1: the other stories we've read, because the tiger is still alive. Right,
37:40
Speaker 1: Listeners who don't know how the story, you probably do.
37:42
Speaker 1: It's pretty obvious. Wait what right? Right? So moving on, So,
37:50
Speaker 1: because she's trying to avoid it, she gets kind of
37:52
Speaker 1: lost and she finds in really large house with a
37:56
Speaker 1: beautiful garden. Um decides I wasn't going to this arden
38:00
Speaker 1: even though it was private property. I still don't understand
38:03
Speaker 1: this like invasiveness that everyone seems to be okay with
38:06
Speaker 1: and she runs into an old man hovering over a
38:09
Speaker 1: very sick tiger, and the man gestures the darator close
38:13
Speaker 1: as if he was expecting her, and we have this
38:16
Speaker 1: whole moment of us seeing that the tiger is sick,
38:19
Speaker 1: um is laying there and dying, and then the man
38:22
Speaker 1: is loving all this. I will say, I was sitting
38:25
Speaker 1: next to my dog was like, this is not a
38:27
Speaker 1: nice story. I don't like this story because we're watching
38:30
Speaker 1: this tiger die. But there's just like moment between the
38:33
Speaker 1: tiger and the older man really connected. They become one,
38:36
Speaker 1: she says at one point in time in her mind,
38:39
Speaker 1: because the way he touches his cheek to the tiger's cheek,
38:42
Speaker 1: and the tired looking up to make sure he's still
38:44
Speaker 1: there as he's about to die. And then she stays
38:47
Speaker 1: with him and she's like, oh my god, I think
38:49
Speaker 1: I've I've interrupted, and he's like, no, you're supposed to
38:52
Speaker 1: be You're supposed to be here. Why would you say that.
38:54
Speaker 1: She stays with him, and as the tiger dies, and
38:57
Speaker 1: immediately after she walks away, she does, uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
39:04
Speaker 1: It was an interesting tie. And I was like, oh,
39:06
Speaker 1: so the tiger was real because for the longest time,
39:08
Speaker 1: I thought maybe he was making this up right, right,
39:12
Speaker 1: And then it's implied that she's like given up on
39:15
Speaker 1: the confrontation, still thinking about it, but she's like, not
39:19
Speaker 1: not today. Well, she's about to go home and find
39:21
Speaker 1: her husband was decapitated. It has no tongue, So there's that.
39:26
Speaker 1: I mean, is that a good or bad thing? I
39:28
Speaker 1: don't know. Probably pretty bad. So we come to the
39:34
Speaker 1: next story, which is called Tomatoes and the Full Moon.
39:38
Speaker 1: The next story opens again with a narrator a reporter,
39:41
Speaker 1: this time checking into a hotel room, only to find
39:44
Speaker 1: a dog like lady and her dog inside. I'm not
39:48
Speaker 1: gonna lie. I thought for a minute it was gonna
39:50
Speaker 1: be a ghost story. Maybe it was I trying to
39:53
Speaker 1: figure it out. And the woman claims to have checked
39:55
Speaker 1: into the room as well, but offers no proof, and
39:58
Speaker 1: the narrator convinces her she made a mistake and she leaves.
40:01
Speaker 1: I mean convinces her because she's like, how did you
40:03
Speaker 1: How did He's like, how did you get in? She
40:04
Speaker 1: was like through the patio door's cook, ma'am, you don't
40:10
Speaker 1: have a key. Oh, I'm so sorry, And she leaves
40:13
Speaker 1: and she really loves this dog by the way, Yes,
40:15
Speaker 1: and the reporter sees the woman the next day and
40:17
Speaker 1: can't stop watching her. Um she's giving away tomatoes that
40:21
Speaker 1: she organically grows on her farm and her words. When
40:24
Speaker 1: the reporter eats at the hotel restaurant, the dishes are
40:27
Speaker 1: full of tomatoes, which kind of they fine, tiresome. The
40:32
Speaker 1: woman joins the reporter at the table. The reporter reveals
40:37
Speaker 1: that they are writing an article about the hotel firm magazine,
40:40
Speaker 1: and the woman reveals she picked the tomatoes up the
40:43
Speaker 1: day before on a bridge, and that she is drawn
40:47
Speaker 1: to the reporter because they remind her of the person
40:49
Speaker 1: who saved her and her stepson decades earlier from a snowstorm,
40:55
Speaker 1: the same snowstorm the narrator described going through with his
40:58
Speaker 1: MoMA seven stories ago, but also yeah, at the same time,
41:03
Speaker 1: it's confusing because it seems like she's describing the same
41:05
Speaker 1: child of the first story anyway, And she also says
41:09
Speaker 1: she's drawn to the reporter because they remind her of
41:12
Speaker 1: the person who saved her and her step son decades
41:14
Speaker 1: earlier from a snowstorm, perhaps the same snowstorm the narrator
41:18
Speaker 1: just got going through with his mama several stories ago,
41:21
Speaker 1: but also could be the same child from the first story.
41:25
Speaker 1: I don't know. She claimed that her work had been
41:29
Speaker 1: stolen and she had taken to carrying her manuscripts with
41:32
Speaker 1: her everywhere, And it turns out the women had written
41:35
Speaker 1: our claims to have written a story called Afternoon at
41:40
Speaker 1: the Bakery Beta fiction. When the narrator goes to check out,
41:44
Speaker 1: he discovers her manuscript only to find it, like, right,
41:48
Speaker 1: so several bits to this, because I was like, what's happening?
41:51
Speaker 1: When is happening A the entire time you see her
41:54
Speaker 1: with the satchel that she will not let go off,
41:56
Speaker 1: to the point that he is obviously very fascinated by
41:59
Speaker 1: her at this point, even like she's not just stalking
42:01
Speaker 1: him anymore, he likes being around her, starts taking pictures
42:05
Speaker 1: of her. He really enjoys her attention because when he swims,
42:09
Speaker 1: she requests specific types of swimming and collapsed very loudly
42:13
Speaker 1: for him, which, by the way, no one is paying
42:15
Speaker 1: attention to this woman. The kitchen got cooked, did, but
42:19
Speaker 1: outside of that, no one really seems to see this woman,
42:21
Speaker 1: which I found interesting. And the entire time she's clutching
42:24
Speaker 1: this where if used to let it go, talks about
42:26
Speaker 1: how her last work was stolen, and so he's like, okay, okay,
42:29
Speaker 1: we'll be careful whatever. Then she disappears. He never sees
42:32
Speaker 1: her again, and but she leaves as his leaving her
42:35
Speaker 1: the chair that she sat in watching him. Apparently she
42:39
Speaker 1: had this one chair the entire time he was there.
42:41
Speaker 1: She left the manuscript there completely blank. And also in
42:45
Speaker 1: the story the Afternoon right the at the bay Rate,
42:49
Speaker 1: it was a picture of the person with the carrots
42:52
Speaker 1: that was in the back and it wasn't her, right,
42:56
Speaker 1: So this is where you're like, wait, what because the
42:59
Speaker 1: first story it's called Afternoon at the Bakery, and that
43:01
Speaker 1: was the one where the woman went to the bakery
43:04
Speaker 1: and she was trying to get the shortcakes for her
43:10
Speaker 1: dead child and witnesses the bakery baker crying. But the
43:17
Speaker 1: implication seems to be she is this at least to
43:20
Speaker 1: me mama from that other story, because she is a writer,
43:25
Speaker 1: she kept things hidden. He later found out she wrote
43:27
Speaker 1: about those carrot hands. Found a clipping of that in
43:33
Speaker 1: the paper. But this whole thing just seems to imply
43:38
Speaker 1: that either the first story is just a story that
43:42
Speaker 1: you read in this fictional world that she wrote, or
43:47
Speaker 1: she didn't write anything at all. It was kind of
43:48
Speaker 1: like a big liar write right. So that was the
43:52
Speaker 1: other because like the picture was not her, is what
43:54
Speaker 1: he says. So I was like, wait, so was it
43:58
Speaker 1: not her? I don't I don't know. Moving on to
44:17
Speaker 1: the finale called Poison Plants Um and this starts at
44:21
Speaker 1: a concert that included a children's choir singing Little Dustman.
44:25
Speaker 1: The narrator, a painter this time, is intrigued by a
44:28
Speaker 1: servant at the event, believing he should be a singer
44:32
Speaker 1: um though he himself wants to be a composer. She
44:34
Speaker 1: arranges the narrator arranges a scholarship for the man. Part
44:37
Speaker 1: of the deal required the man meeting up with her
44:40
Speaker 1: every week so that the narrator could hear his voice.
44:42
Speaker 1: She reveals to him that she had a daughter that
44:44
Speaker 1: played before she died, and that she can no longer paint.
44:48
Speaker 1: He reads to her at night, including the story about
44:51
Speaker 1: the Key Weeks and the carrot Hands. Yes, so many
44:55
Speaker 1: of those stories. Okay, so it gets really awkward. Yeah,
45:00
Speaker 1: there's a lot of awkwardness to this. Like she obviously
45:04
Speaker 1: has feelings or at least fantasizes about him. He asks
45:08
Speaker 1: for a day like off or to switch his days,
45:12
Speaker 1: which she finds it very important, like she looks forward
45:14
Speaker 1: to it. She talks about it as it is the
45:16
Speaker 1: only thing she looks forward to. When she asked why
45:19
Speaker 1: he wants to switch to the days, he says, it's
45:22
Speaker 1: my girlfriend's birthday, and what she just says, no, it's
45:26
Speaker 1: obviously upset refused to allow him to do so, lies
45:30
Speaker 1: and says it's her birthday as well, and then does
45:33
Speaker 1: the guilt trip and says, I may be dead for
45:36
Speaker 1: the next one. So he shows up. They have the
45:39
Speaker 1: day she realized like nothing big moves on, but then
45:43
Speaker 1: later he calls to break off their partnership after receiving
45:47
Speaker 1: a scholarship from another source, like he sends her to
45:50
Speaker 1: the money back the letter, telling her thank you, someone
45:53
Speaker 1: else deserves to receive this. Distraught, the woman goes for
45:56
Speaker 1: a walk and gets lost, finding a vacant lot of refrigerators.
46:01
Speaker 1: So she opens and finds a dead body and she
46:03
Speaker 1: talks to him, tries to wake him up, and then
46:05
Speaker 1: she sees herself in this thing as if it was
46:09
Speaker 1: her dead body, and that she is dead. In her words,
46:11
Speaker 1: she'd eaten poison plants, climbed into the fridge to die
46:14
Speaker 1: away from prying eyes, and she says that she finds
46:18
Speaker 1: a body. It's not until later she talks about she
46:23
Speaker 1: sees herself and maybe she did hallucinate. But we do
46:26
Speaker 1: know from the first story that she the mother of
46:30
Speaker 1: the son says the woman was distraught, could not talk. Yeah,
46:34
Speaker 1: so we didn't mention this, but it discovered his body.
46:36
Speaker 1: And the very first story when the woman found her
46:40
Speaker 1: son's body in the fridge, there was a woman there
46:43
Speaker 1: who was very upset, and the narrator described her as
46:46
Speaker 1: looking more dead and ghosts like than her son did.
46:51
Speaker 1: So I'm assuming again that these stories are so good
46:57
Speaker 1: because they make you question and like doubts kinds of things.
47:01
Speaker 1: You were like, oh, but is it that? Is it
47:04
Speaker 1: the same person? I was assuming it's the same person
47:09
Speaker 1: from the beginning. But yeah, there were so many comes
47:15
Speaker 1: back through again, some things that's lost in translation. It's
47:18
Speaker 1: all weaved together by some common themes. We don't know
47:22
Speaker 1: the timelines, obviously, because the first one would be much
47:25
Speaker 1: later than the story she discovers the body with the refrigerators. Um,
47:31
Speaker 1: we don't know if the writer had a son. Originally
47:35
Speaker 1: in my mind of a weight was the woman from
47:37
Speaker 1: the Baker did she have a son before she had
47:40
Speaker 1: a stepson, and she mimicked some of the things that happened,
47:43
Speaker 1: and it just all came into one like, so I
47:47
Speaker 1: thought that, you, well, yeah, I really love the symmetry
47:50
Speaker 1: and a throwback because even if I mean, I'm not
47:53
Speaker 1: sure that there's necessarily a right answer in this case,
47:57
Speaker 1: but even if they're you know, we're connected things that
48:00
Speaker 1: aren't connected, that is still like a throwback. And of
48:03
Speaker 1: course you're going to think that, and I really I
48:06
Speaker 1: wasn't expecting it. It was pretty satisfying. So I know
48:10
Speaker 1: that as we've gone through these it might have been confusing.
48:12
Speaker 1: It's hard to describe. It's like a really easy read
48:15
Speaker 1: and great read. It makes sense when you're doing it.
48:17
Speaker 1: But like how we did their best to to make
48:20
Speaker 1: sense of these. And I just briefly want to touch
48:23
Speaker 1: on some themes because we've been going on for a minute,
48:25
Speaker 1: but obviously grief is one of the big ones. I thought,
48:29
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of descriptions of how life
48:33
Speaker 1: goes on after tragedy despite your whole world being upturned,
48:37
Speaker 1: Like kind of that discordant feeling of what's going on
48:41
Speaker 1: inside of you and what's happening and how things are
48:44
Speaker 1: continuing even though what feels it like to you everything
48:46
Speaker 1: has changed and your whole world has changed. And also
48:49
Speaker 1: like like that speaks to how things are different beneath
48:53
Speaker 1: the surface because a lot of these stories and a
48:55
Speaker 1: lot of these narrators, not all of them, but a
48:56
Speaker 1: lot of them, you start thinking you understand them one way,
49:00
Speaker 1: and then you as you learned more about whatever grief
49:04
Speaker 1: or trauma it is that they're experiencing, like, oh, so
49:07
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on beneath right. There's definitely a
49:12
Speaker 1: whole tone of death in general, whether it is tragic
49:16
Speaker 1: or not, whether you see as tragic or not, it
49:19
Speaker 1: just occurs. And that's kind of a catalyst on several
49:22
Speaker 1: of these stories, and or the finale of several of
49:24
Speaker 1: these stories. Yeah, and I think also just the like
49:28
Speaker 1: almost impetus of yes, this death and it follows you
49:31
Speaker 1: around and it's like a ghost. I think the flipping
49:34
Speaker 1: of expectations that we've talked about, um, that was pretty common.
49:40
Speaker 1: It was really interesting too, because a lot of the
49:43
Speaker 1: like like the old woman who was in massus and
49:45
Speaker 1: then you find out, oh, he has been probably well.
49:49
Speaker 1: There was also an implication of like that she killed
49:52
Speaker 1: the cat before we found the cat, like she hated
49:54
Speaker 1: that she did so much. She was more powerful than
49:58
Speaker 1: you thought. Um. I think she really liked that flip
50:02
Speaker 1: as well. She also has a moment of like the
50:04
Speaker 1: author seemingly talking about age as the real like haunt
50:09
Speaker 1: of them all between the uncle and then the last story,
50:12
Speaker 1: it's kind of like all, oh, yeah, And I do
50:17
Speaker 1: think it's interesting because it does get meta fictional where
50:20
Speaker 1: you're like, are we commenting on the book that we're
50:24
Speaker 1: reading inside of this book, which I find fascinating. And
50:28
Speaker 1: there's a lot of elements, Like I said, it's really textural,
50:31
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of elements of music are song,
50:36
Speaker 1: and also food and food being used to represent kind
50:40
Speaker 1: of this like easily bruised slash consumed human body like
50:44
Speaker 1: it's often you know, implied a lot of decaying, Yes, yes,
50:48
Speaker 1: a lot of decaying, a lot of like yeah, driving
50:50
Speaker 1: over tomatoes and wondering whether let's the human body will
50:53
Speaker 1: feel this way? You're right, yeah, And even the eating
50:57
Speaker 1: of the kiwis, which is like right, it wasn't necessarily
51:01
Speaker 1: described in a disgusting way, but it just felt unnerved
51:05
Speaker 1: by it. Well, it was, yeah, because it was a
51:07
Speaker 1: duty without thought. And then there was the same thing
51:10
Speaker 1: in that same story when she and her father are
51:13
Speaker 1: aiding constantly just to pass the time, to move past
51:17
Speaker 1: that moment. It's like to the point of like, Okay,
51:20
Speaker 1: that's an interesting take on this. The carrots. Yeah, was
51:25
Speaker 1: that an actual hand? We don't know, We don't know,
51:30
Speaker 1: She kept saying, pinky. I was like, why do you
51:31
Speaker 1: have to say that, you know? Yeah, Yeah, I really
51:35
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. I feel like horror. I really recommend it,
51:38
Speaker 1: and it was fun. I enjoyed the picking up of clues.
51:42
Speaker 1: I do like doing stuff like that so fun. I
51:45
Speaker 1: love anything that connects. Yes, it feels it feels like
51:49
Speaker 1: huh and then you're guessing. But it's really hard impossible
51:54
Speaker 1: to guess a lot of times. But so we recommend
51:57
Speaker 1: you check it out if you haven't already and you're interested.
52:00
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you have any other recommendations for
52:02
Speaker 1: our book club, please send them our way. You can
52:05
Speaker 1: anail us that stuff Media mom stuff at i heeart
52:07
Speaker 1: media dot com. You can find us on Twitter at
52:09
Speaker 1: momst Off Podcasts or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never
52:11
Speaker 1: Told You. Thanks It's always to you our super producer, Christina,
52:13
Speaker 1: thank you and thanks you for listening Stuff I've Never
52:16
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