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Transcript

SMNTY Fiction: supervoid · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Steph.
0:07
Speaker 1: I never told your protection of I Heart Radio. It
0:18
Speaker 1: is time for another spin defiction. No, we do need
0:26
Speaker 1: a new jingle. You're good at jingles. I just want
0:30
Speaker 1: to say I appreciate people who have reached out to me.
0:34
Speaker 1: There haven't been too many of you, but some of
0:35
Speaker 1: you have reached out to you and said thank you.
0:38
Speaker 1: I like the fiction, don't worry about it, because I
0:42
Speaker 1: always put this disclaimer in here. If this is not
0:44
Speaker 1: your thing, this is one segment. We do have a
0:47
Speaker 1: million other things, and I just put that in there
0:49
Speaker 1: because I totally understand listening to a podcast and they
0:51
Speaker 1: try something new and you're like, no, wait, this is
0:53
Speaker 1: not what I signed up for. So this is a
0:56
Speaker 1: once a month ish kind of thing. But I have
0:58
Speaker 1: really appreciate cated hearing from people who like it. We
1:04
Speaker 1: really like fiction here and it's a fun thing for
1:07
Speaker 1: us to do, and Christina always does such an amazing
1:11
Speaker 1: job with the sound design and everything. So there's my
1:16
Speaker 1: fiction disclaimer that I put in all of these. If
1:19
Speaker 1: it's not your thing, you don't worry about it. There's
1:21
Speaker 1: a lot of other stuff we do. You can skip,
1:22
Speaker 1: it won't hurt my feelings. So this one I wrote
1:29
Speaker 1: based on an idea that I had that I've talked
1:33
Speaker 1: about before, and actually i've written fiction about before for
1:36
Speaker 1: Thirty Nights of Halloween, my fear of water cooler talk
1:41
Speaker 1: and icebreakers. So Samantha, I wanted to ask you, like,
1:44
Speaker 1: do you feel like you're good at water cooler talk
1:47
Speaker 1: small talk? Is it something you enjoy, something you dread?
1:50
Speaker 1: How do you feel about it? It's according to what
1:52
Speaker 1: it's for. But typically, if I'm anticipating that we're going
1:55
Speaker 1: to have to do something, so let's say it's at
1:57
Speaker 1: the beginning of class, and they say we're gonna art
2:00
Speaker 1: off with a warm up or get to know you exercise,
2:04
Speaker 1: and then someone starts, my heart races the point that
2:07
Speaker 1: I can no longer speak. So I really hate it,
2:11
Speaker 1: typically because I get very very anxious. We've talked about
2:14
Speaker 1: how we've done panels, and I'm ridiculously anxious, to the
2:17
Speaker 1: point that I probably blacked out on what just I
2:20
Speaker 1: just said. I have no idea what I've said. I've
2:23
Speaker 1: been told that I'm not bad at it, so that's
2:25
Speaker 1: the good news. Been told that I talked very fast
2:28
Speaker 1: and I talked very fast when I get nervous. Yeah,
2:33
Speaker 1: it is. It is interesting for me because I know
2:37
Speaker 1: we've had a lot of talks on here about especially
2:41
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, introverts versus extroverts, versus ambiverts, and I
2:48
Speaker 1: have come to the inclusion I'm very much an extrovert,
2:50
Speaker 1: but I'm also very nervous and I'm very shy. So
2:56
Speaker 1: to me water cooler talk, it feels the same as
3:02
Speaker 1: as I'm on the top of a roller coaster before
3:05
Speaker 1: it's about to go down the hill, Like it's literally
3:07
Speaker 1: I don't know all this is gonna go right, but
3:11
Speaker 1: I'm gonna travel best to make it good. And there's
3:14
Speaker 1: also the element of women feeling like they have to
3:18
Speaker 1: entertain or make this conversation and make it good, to
3:20
Speaker 1: make it funny, to leave a good impression when you're
3:23
Speaker 1: at work. There's a whole other element to it as well.
3:26
Speaker 1: It's like I've got to sell myself and being memorable.
3:33
Speaker 1: That's the other part is that I don't feel like
3:35
Speaker 1: people remember me unless I go overboard and become entertainment.
3:39
Speaker 1: And I have to become entertainment often. And by the way,
3:42
Speaker 1: there's also that fine line of people have thought I
3:44
Speaker 1: was hitting on them when I was just joking it
3:46
Speaker 1: funny and I was flirting, like specifically. Do you remember
3:51
Speaker 1: when we went down to Florida one of our first conventions,
3:54
Speaker 1: a giant one um, and I was just joking around
3:57
Speaker 1: with a doorman, really just thanking him for a sort
3:59
Speaker 1: of us teasing him a little bit and moving on.
4:02
Speaker 1: And I thought it was no big deal because I
4:04
Speaker 1: could tell that we are we as a group, we're
4:07
Speaker 1: annoying loud. There was tons of us. Uh, so I
4:10
Speaker 1: was coming entertaining. And then he asked me about wanting
4:12
Speaker 1: to go home with him that night, because not only
4:14
Speaker 1: did he read into it, but his colleagues, who I
4:16
Speaker 1: was equally talking to as well, was telling him that
4:19
Speaker 1: I was I wanted him quote unquote, and I'm like,
4:22
Speaker 1: my god, I was just hanging out. And actually that's
4:25
Speaker 1: happened to me a lot. And it happened to me
4:27
Speaker 1: two more times at that convention because we were talking
4:29
Speaker 1: to booth people and I was just being nice and
4:32
Speaker 1: we were told to go and invite people to our party.
4:35
Speaker 1: They took that as a date. It was a weird,
4:37
Speaker 1: like I have both of those, like the anxieties now
4:41
Speaker 1: because I don't. I feel like I'm not overtly sexy
4:45
Speaker 1: a flirty, so therefore I am safe to talk to
4:49
Speaker 1: people in a friendly manner. But I've been taught otherwise. Yeah,
4:53
Speaker 1: I mean that's a good point to bring up for women.
4:56
Speaker 1: That's another tight rope that we have to walk is like,
4:59
Speaker 1: you want to be Why has that somebody told me
5:02
Speaker 1: you have to be like pretend you could be attracted
5:06
Speaker 1: to this man you're talking to in theory, but also
5:10
Speaker 1: not too much, but he has to believe you think
5:12
Speaker 1: he is. So it makes sense to me that we
5:18
Speaker 1: would have this tension around water cooler talk or small
5:24
Speaker 1: talk for a lot of reasons for women, where whether
5:27
Speaker 1: it is like, oh I have to entertain or oh
5:32
Speaker 1: I really have to put a lot of energy into
5:34
Speaker 1: making this man's ego feel okay, I guess right for
5:39
Speaker 1: my job, but then it can backfire in terms of
5:44
Speaker 1: that being seen as oh, you want to date me, yes?
5:49
Speaker 1: Oh no. No. So this story was something I wrote
5:56
Speaker 1: based on I've set up a four I said a
6:00
Speaker 1: million times, I just have so much trouble sleeping, and
6:03
Speaker 1: so it kind of became a thing that was weird
6:06
Speaker 1: at work because I am friends with most of the
6:08
Speaker 1: people we work with, like actual friends, and it kind
6:12
Speaker 1: of became this odd situation where people who I work
6:16
Speaker 1: with who are also my friends would ask me how
6:21
Speaker 1: are you sleeping lately? Like what's what's your sleep? Because
6:25
Speaker 1: they knew it was such a struggle for me. And
6:27
Speaker 1: it's not like I hid it. I was very open
6:29
Speaker 1: about it, but it was just kind of sleeping feels
6:31
Speaker 1: so intimate in a lot of ways, and so it
6:34
Speaker 1: was strange to be like waiting for your coffee to
6:36
Speaker 1: brew and then you know, coworker slash friend come up
6:41
Speaker 1: to you, but it's in this work space and asking
6:45
Speaker 1: you like how did you sleep? No, you do, but
6:55
Speaker 1: I don't think you ever asked me like while I
6:57
Speaker 1: was waiting for my coffee to get ready at work
6:59
Speaker 1: though we haven't had that many situations on that level. Yeah,
7:02
Speaker 1: And even then, like it's not I was never offended
7:06
Speaker 1: or mad or there's nothing about it, Like it was
7:08
Speaker 1: just kind of odd. It was just kind of an
7:11
Speaker 1: odd situation. And it got me thinking about water cooler
7:16
Speaker 1: talk in general and how it's sort of this whole
7:18
Speaker 1: social thing where we're all kind of trying to find
7:23
Speaker 1: something that won't make people mad, that's easy to talk about,
7:26
Speaker 1: so it's sort of a performative thing. And then for
7:30
Speaker 1: women that performance is different. And then for me specifically,
7:34
Speaker 1: who I guess I'm very open and vulnerable and I'm
7:37
Speaker 1: very i am very extroverted, and I will tell you
7:40
Speaker 1: all kinds of things about my life. And to the point,
7:44
Speaker 1: it was getting people are asking me how it was
7:46
Speaker 1: sleeping at ward and it just it was kind of
7:50
Speaker 1: an odd moment. So I came up with this idea
7:53
Speaker 1: about what if that was a cop Like it wasn't
7:57
Speaker 1: just me, but what if like we all gave up
8:00
Speaker 1: because a lot of people would tell me, I wish
8:02
Speaker 1: I could be you, I wish I didn't have to
8:05
Speaker 1: sleep as much as I do. I wish I could
8:07
Speaker 1: stay up as as long as you do. And I
8:09
Speaker 1: just got this idea in my head, like what if
8:11
Speaker 1: that was an option you could take and we all
8:14
Speaker 1: took it. And then, of course, because I watch a
8:16
Speaker 1: lot of horror movies, how could that go terribly wrong? Right?
8:22
Speaker 1: Of course? So with all of that context and mind,
8:27
Speaker 1: let us get into the fiction portion for this story
8:31
Speaker 1: called super Void. My dad used to say, be the
8:48
Speaker 1: architect of your own dreams. My dreams were nightmares ever
8:55
Speaker 1: since I was a kid, violent disturbing things that lingered,
8:59
Speaker 1: that ripped screams from my throat, that woke all in
9:02
Speaker 1: the vicinity, brought them running, hearts racing as I was
9:05
Speaker 1: engulfed in the dizzy moment of not knowing what was
9:08
Speaker 1: real and what wasn't. The uncertainty was terrifying. I would
9:15
Speaker 1: lay in bed at night, praying to anyone that will
9:18
Speaker 1: listen that I wouldn't fall asleep. I could swear someone
9:22
Speaker 1: was there, that I could feel their presence here, their breath,
9:26
Speaker 1: heart pounded. My parents took me to a sleep clinic.
9:31
Speaker 1: Sticky notes were attached to my body on biblical cords
9:34
Speaker 1: linking me to machines, and I was told to sleep.
9:39
Speaker 1: Of course I did it. I laid awake, staring into
9:42
Speaker 1: the darkness and thinking that whatever possibly awaited me in
9:45
Speaker 1: the shadows was better than whatever awaited me in sleep.
9:50
Speaker 1: They prescribed me sleeping pills, but all they did was
9:54
Speaker 1: chapped me in a nightmare, a realm of monsters and
9:57
Speaker 1: fire and screaming, a realm I was certain I would
10:00
Speaker 1: one day not wake from. I did everything I could
10:06
Speaker 1: not to sleep, everything in my life revolved around it,
10:09
Speaker 1: and everything in my life suffered for it. So when
10:14
Speaker 1: I was in my twenties and I was contacted about
10:17
Speaker 1: participating in a drug trial for a pill that eliminated
10:20
Speaker 1: the need for sleep, I jumped on it my salvation.
10:24
Speaker 1: I thought this could change my life. It did, just
10:30
Speaker 1: not in the way I thought. The architect of my
10:34
Speaker 1: own dreams, I think about that a lot. It's strange
10:41
Speaker 1: looking back. White rooms, white beds, white sheets, white pills,
10:47
Speaker 1: day after day, white, white, right, sterile, lonely, silent. Did
10:58
Speaker 1: give me the pill, and I take it As they watched,
11:00
Speaker 1: so desperate for it to work. The nightmares faded. They're
11:08
Speaker 1: crushing right on my chest faded. It worked, It worked.
11:17
Speaker 1: I didn't need to sleep, a dream come true. For
11:23
Speaker 1: a while, everything was perfect, a dream, a living, waking dream.
11:34
Speaker 1: I suppose that's the key. I never slept, but I
11:39
Speaker 1: never felt truly awake either. I considered this an improvement.
11:43
Speaker 1: At first. I had to keep a journal for the
11:46
Speaker 1: trial about my experience. The entries got progressively lifeless. People
11:54
Speaker 1: always talk about what they would do with more time,
11:57
Speaker 1: how much they'd accomplish if they didn't have to sleep.
12:01
Speaker 1: I didn't accomplish anything. I just stared into the dark,
12:06
Speaker 1: the memory of my nightmares screaming in the back of
12:09
Speaker 1: my brain, even though I wasn't sleeping. They hungered for me,
12:16
Speaker 1: and perhaps I hungered for them, as if I didn't
12:19
Speaker 1: know how to exist without them. But that's not the
12:23
Speaker 1: worst of it. As weeks went by, I started going
12:27
Speaker 1: into trances. The line between reality and not blurred, or
12:33
Speaker 1: maybe it's more accurate to say nothing felt like reality
12:36
Speaker 1: at all. It felt like dying, like slipping away and
12:43
Speaker 1: being too tired to care. I tried to knock myself out,
12:49
Speaker 1: drink myself into oblivion. I try sleeping bills. That's when
12:57
Speaker 1: I discovered it. In the darkness of unconsciousness, under the
13:03
Speaker 1: layers of nightmares, something worse lay in wait, dormant, eager,
13:12
Speaker 1: a primordial, consuming void. Staring into that was more terrifying
13:20
Speaker 1: than any nightmare I'd ever had, a gaping black mall, waiting, hungry.
13:32
Speaker 1: I couldn't look away from it, though I so desperately
13:35
Speaker 1: wanted to. It was mesmerizing, and its unending nothingness, the
13:41
Speaker 1: horror of it alluring, tempting, with its dark embraces promised
13:47
Speaker 1: of folding you up and swallowing you whole and never
13:50
Speaker 1: letting you go. I treated one nightmare for another breed
13:54
Speaker 1: of horror. I was so lonely. Even when people were around,
14:00
Speaker 1: I felt isolated. I felt as though avoided claimed me
14:04
Speaker 1: for its own, and every second it was eating away
14:07
Speaker 1: at me, dissolving me until I was immaterial nothing. Sometimes
14:14
Speaker 1: I fantasized about sleeping, about the nightmares. I'd ask people
14:20
Speaker 1: to tell me about their dreams, and I'd try to
14:22
Speaker 1: visualize them, but it gave me no relief. I would
14:27
Speaker 1: debate about what was worse, horrific images steered into my
14:32
Speaker 1: brain or nothingness, vast, all consuming nothingness. My mind changed
14:42
Speaker 1: depending on my mood. Some days I wanted to die.
14:48
Speaker 1: Oh please, I think, take me and this waking nightmare?
14:57
Speaker 1: Was it death? Was I seeing the other side? Oh?
15:02
Speaker 1: Was it my brain misfiring, deprived of its need to dream?
15:07
Speaker 1: Or something else? Was it real? The void was silent,
15:15
Speaker 1: but it felt like it was screaming. It felt like
15:19
Speaker 1: if I screamed into it, I would make no sound.
15:25
Speaker 1: I surrender. I think looking at it a surrender. The
15:31
Speaker 1: void wanted me, and I wanted it. The relief of
15:36
Speaker 1: being nothing was overwhelming. And horrifying in itself. As the
15:41
Speaker 1: days went on, I stared into the void longer and longer.
15:45
Speaker 1: Nothing else mattered but the void. I'll die and I
15:50
Speaker 1: don't care. That's the price I paid, the trade I
15:55
Speaker 1: made for getting rid of my nightmares. Where I once
15:59
Speaker 1: avoided deep, I now sought it out, an elusive the
16:02
Speaker 1: gift i'd forsaken. I'd marvel how I had taken it
16:06
Speaker 1: for granted. The researchers sent me a letter months after
16:11
Speaker 1: the trial. I scanned it. Side effects, hallucinations, psychotic breaks, death,
16:20
Speaker 1: a phone number to call, a website to visit. But
16:23
Speaker 1: I knew the truth. The medication had unlocked something in me,
16:28
Speaker 1: something that exists in all of us, the ability to see,
16:34
Speaker 1: to see the truth of our existence and what we
16:36
Speaker 1: can expect when it ends nothing, It's all meaningless. The
16:44
Speaker 1: void waits for me, it waits for you, and it
16:48
Speaker 1: will have us, and we will be nothing too. I
16:51
Speaker 1: am not the architect of my dreams. I'm just like
16:55
Speaker 1: everyone else who is trying to ignore the reality that
16:58
Speaker 1: the void is more powerful than any of us. It
17:01
Speaker 1: doesn't care about any of us. It will devour us
17:07
Speaker 1: and everyone we love, and we will all be forgotten
17:10
Speaker 1: and none of it matters. Anyway, I've seen it, and
17:15
Speaker 1: one day you will see it too. Maybe you already
17:19
Speaker 1: have sweet dreams. And that brings us to the ends
17:43
Speaker 1: of the fiction portion of super Void. I can. It's
17:47
Speaker 1: funny because I wrote all these pretty like around the
17:50
Speaker 1: same time, and I can. I love an ending where
17:53
Speaker 1: it's like and now you're next, because this is like
17:55
Speaker 1: the second one I've done. Also say, you do a
17:57
Speaker 1: lot of just like lingering what is Yes, yes, I
18:00
Speaker 1: love a good like uncomfortable It's coming for you. Yes, Yes,
18:09
Speaker 1: I write a lot of stuff that I know people
18:12
Speaker 1: would find annoying because it's exsty and in terribly But anyway,
18:17
Speaker 1: so as I said, I really like titles for things
18:20
Speaker 1: that are kind of based on technology or or some
18:24
Speaker 1: other thing but has what I think a broader cultural context.
18:29
Speaker 1: So this is actually named after This is a long story,
18:33
Speaker 1: but to condense it, I basically got a check from
18:36
Speaker 1: a bank that was has super Void over it, and
18:40
Speaker 1: it was because they couldn't prove I existence. Yes, and
18:45
Speaker 1: it's a whole thing. But I remember looking at that
18:48
Speaker 1: check and it said super void and thinking do I exist?
18:53
Speaker 1: What is existence? So that's where the title came from.
18:58
Speaker 1: We have talked a lot about how trauma and PTSD
19:03
Speaker 1: affects sleep and how was this whole story is basically about,
19:08
Speaker 1: like the struggle to sleep, and then when you I
19:12
Speaker 1: guess our idea around sleeping being almost a weakness or
19:16
Speaker 1: a luxury or or something or where it's be better
19:19
Speaker 1: if we couldn't sleep. But for me, I have this
19:23
Speaker 1: like flight or flight reflects around sleep. That's my therapist says,
19:27
Speaker 1: And when she said that, I was like, oh my gosh,
19:29
Speaker 1: that is it. That is exactly what I'm talking about,
19:31
Speaker 1: because it's less of I can't sleep, you have more
19:34
Speaker 1: of like I'm almost there and then my body's like Nope, nope,
19:38
Speaker 1: we're not gonna do it. So that's where kind of
19:40
Speaker 1: this whole idea came from. And I did struggle. I
19:43
Speaker 1: don't have nightmares so much as anymore. We've talked a
19:45
Speaker 1: lot about I have really vivid dreams, but um, I
19:49
Speaker 1: did have a lot of nightmares when I was younger,
19:51
Speaker 1: like really vivid nightmares that would make me afraid to sleep.
19:57
Speaker 1: So that's sort of where that inspiration came from. And
20:01
Speaker 1: I talked to my parents about it once and it
20:03
Speaker 1: was just a weird thing where I could tell they
20:05
Speaker 1: were like unsure what to do with me or there.
20:11
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm happy to I'm telling you I'm
20:12
Speaker 1: having these dreams and they were kind of like hmm, okay.
20:19
Speaker 1: And I have never done a sleep study. I have
20:22
Speaker 1: a lot of friends who have done it, and they
20:24
Speaker 1: described it to me, and to me, they kind of
20:27
Speaker 1: described what my concern is about it, which is that
20:30
Speaker 1: you would feel like you're in a horror movie, almost
20:32
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't be able to sleep. So that's one
20:35
Speaker 1: of the reasons I haven't done it. But that was
20:36
Speaker 1: awesome an inspiration for this story. And that's not to
20:40
Speaker 1: say like there's anything wrong with them at all, but
20:42
Speaker 1: just I personally think I would never ever be able
20:46
Speaker 1: to relax in a sleep site enough to sleep right.
20:49
Speaker 1: I've heard that from different people with different types of
20:52
Speaker 1: sleep studies, and how you're in a box, you're being watched,
20:55
Speaker 1: and also you probably need someone there constantly, Like there
20:58
Speaker 1: were so many things to the sleep study, and I'm
21:01
Speaker 1: like you, I had a lot of trauma based sleep
21:05
Speaker 1: the services as a kid, and not so much now.
21:07
Speaker 1: I still have some stress stuff, but sleepwalking, which is
21:11
Speaker 1: also a big form of reaction to trauma. And again
21:17
Speaker 1: my parents not recognizing this, this trauma. She just got
21:20
Speaker 1: adopted and she is walking all over the place in
21:23
Speaker 1: depth like it's funny right now, but we're also able
21:26
Speaker 1: to watch her. But this could have been a sign
21:29
Speaker 1: that there's a deeper traumatic level, which as an adult
21:33
Speaker 1: reading about it, I was like, yeah, kids should not
21:38
Speaker 1: be that highly stressed, and or that there's a sleeping
21:40
Speaker 1: disorder that we need to talk about. Yeah, and I
21:45
Speaker 1: We've done a couple episodes recently about how women who
21:50
Speaker 1: typically experience higher rates of PTSD and trauma are having
21:55
Speaker 1: higher rates of insomnia, are sleeping disruption sleeping disorders, And
22:00
Speaker 1: I think that that was a part of my whole
22:06
Speaker 1: thought process with this, which was there are a lot
22:10
Speaker 1: of reasons for this. But when I told people that
22:12
Speaker 1: I was having these bad dreams, I was having these nightmares. Um,
22:16
Speaker 1: and this kind of ties into recent conversation we have
22:18
Speaker 1: about superstition, I was very much dismissed as in, like,
22:21
Speaker 1: you have no reason to have that, Like, what what's
22:25
Speaker 1: in your life? What reason could it be that you
22:31
Speaker 1: would be having this and just feeling very disoriented about
22:34
Speaker 1: it because I was having like I just was whether
22:37
Speaker 1: you knew the reason, whether there was a reason like
22:39
Speaker 1: I was having them, but it was very much like
22:44
Speaker 1: to stop it almost yeah, right, And then I guess
22:49
Speaker 1: that translates into my fear around fun facts and water
22:53
Speaker 1: cooler docs. So yes, this is I help you enjoyoid
23:00
Speaker 1: this other smitty fiction. Addition, we have a lot more.
23:05
Speaker 1: Most of these, I will admit have been kind of
23:07
Speaker 1: short horror, single person narration, and that's because I wrote
23:11
Speaker 1: a lot of them for that kind of format. But
23:14
Speaker 1: we have other things coming on the horizon, so look
23:17
Speaker 1: out for that. Yes. In the meantime, Oh my goodness,
23:22
Speaker 1: if you would like to email us any of your
23:26
Speaker 1: ideas about what we could do, any like fiction that's
23:29
Speaker 1: in the public domain we could read. That'd be awesome.
23:32
Speaker 1: You can do that. You can email us at Stuffy
23:34
Speaker 1: da mom Stuff at iHeart meat dot com. You can
23:36
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter at mom stuff podcast or Instagram
23:38
Speaker 1: and stuff I never told you. Thanks as always to
23:41
Speaker 1: our super producer Christina. Without these this would be impossible, impossible.
23:46
Speaker 1: She is a magic maker. She is a magic maker.
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Speaker 1: And thanks to you all for listening. Stuff I've never
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Speaker 1: told you. The production of iHeart Radio. For more podcast
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Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app. Apple
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Speaker 1: Podcasts a revular listen to your favorite shows.