[SPEAKER_00]: Dan is in the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to another episode of the Makab, the terrifying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tonight, we'll dip a toe into the creeping fog of haunted bayou.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy cow!
[SPEAKER_00]: That startled me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's pretty windy out there tonight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something blew inside the studio.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's see here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, well, well.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a letter and it's addressed to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's have a look.
[SPEAKER_00]: to the midnight host.
[SPEAKER_00]: Greetings.
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand that you are something of a connoisseur of the strange and the macabre, and that you commit a great deal of time into cataloging and disseminating strange tales.
[SPEAKER_00]: I happen to be a collector of unusual accounts, and I have come across something which I believe might peak your interest
[SPEAKER_00]: So much strangeness out in the world slips through the cracks, and more often than not, my experience has been that the oddities out there tend to find ways of keeping things that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turn on a light, they scatter like silverfish, not that hiding requires much effort,
[SPEAKER_00]: For the average person, either the humdrum of life, or the pressing matters of food, finance, and shelter, create sufficient noise to drown out all but the most glaring instances of the unnatural.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, I think this is all the more reason why we must remain ever vigilant and spread the word where we can.
[SPEAKER_00]: I expect you would agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: The following is a curious series of posts I archived from a support forum, frequented by those caring for friends and family in cognitive decline.
[SPEAKER_00]: Curiously, though I am sure this will come as no surprise to one such as yourself, the original post has since vanished.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is more curious is that any record of its existence or the corresponding account has also recently disappeared.
[SPEAKER_00]: even when accessing the forum through those tools that allow one to reach back into the history of the site, I now find nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems the only record that exists is what I captured and have held privately, though I wonder if this two will vanish in time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shall have to let the posts speak for themselves on this matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: all the more reason to spread the word, with respect, the collector.
[SPEAKER_00]: July, twenty-eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey all, I've been a lurker here for a bit, but this is my first time posting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not really sure where to start, but I've seen a lot of encouragement in these forums for some hard situations and
[SPEAKER_00]: I just need to air out some stuff that's been going on to some people who can sympathize.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess I'm looking for some advice too.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a little background, I'm a tech writer in my early thirties.
[SPEAKER_00]: About a year ago, I relocated and started renting this place on the outskirts of a town in North Carolina.
[SPEAKER_00]: Newish neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, they were still building up places near the entrance back when I moved in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe this seems irrelevant, but I bring it up because I've gotten pretty close with some neighbors and settling in.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an older couple in the house right next to mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the purposes of this post, I'll just call them Carl and Sarah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our place is Chera called a sack, way at the back of the development right up against what's left of the Cudzu covered woods that were clear to make space for the houses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just our two places there, everything else is all clustered together starting a little ways up the street.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, since our houses are set off by themselves, I got to know the couple pretty quick.
[SPEAKER_00]: They introduced themselves while I was moving in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carl is retired Army, though I'd never guessed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a pretty mild dude.
[SPEAKER_00]: Spins most of his time lately outtending to his tomato plants and just generally keeping up their well groomed yard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sarah is the more outgoing of the two.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think she told me she used to teach art back in the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was new to the area when I moved and was pretty open to their hospitality.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to help them with things here and there and they'd have me over for dinner on occasion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just real good people.
[SPEAKER_00]: My own grandparents have been dead for two decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: But being around Carl and Sarah almost felt like having them back again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Made me feel like a kid to tell you the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, this post is probably longer than it needs to be already, but it feels good to put this into words.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe I'm stalling a little, because since I'm posting here, you probably have an idea of where this is headed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a weird interaction with Carl the other week that I can't get out of my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stepped out after work and noticed him in the backyard.
[SPEAKER_00]: No big deal, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a thing after all.
[SPEAKER_00]: but there was something about the way he was moving around back there that bothered me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to say it except that he just looked irritated, kind of pacing back and forth at the edge of the property, and shaking his head.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was curious enough that I went over to say hello.
[SPEAKER_00]: I scared him half to death when I walked up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like he didn't hear me or sense me until I announced myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I made a little small talk with him, but the whole time I could just tell his mind was somewhere else completely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, I asked him about his yard work to see if I could figure out what was up without being too obviously nosy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, it's the strangest thing, but he came out to check on his tomatoes, and he found that one of the planting beds was missing.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, he's got several planting beds in a row back there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I asked him what he meant because we were standing right next to three beds full of ripe tomatoes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he points to a space beyond them, back toward the trees.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says there was a fourth.
[SPEAKER_00]: All I see is an empty space with some high weeds and the reaching tips of cut zoo vines right up against the tree line.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll be honest, I just kind of excused myself after that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just seemed so agitated, and I wasn't sure what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't remember there being more than three beds back there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Granted, I don't pay as much attention to his own yard as he does, but I'm pretty sure I'd remember a whole planting bed if it was there one minute and gone the next.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was so weird how he was getting so bent out of shape about the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: but the guy is really into his yard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually ran into Sarah later that day while checking the mailbox, and the whole thing bugged me enough that I asked if Carl had seemed strangely.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt bad even asking something like that, and she looked as confused as ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told her a little about the interaction I'd had.
[SPEAKER_00]: She agreed that she only ever knew there to be three tomato beds back there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Embarrassingly, Carl actually came out during my talk with Sarah, and she asked him about it right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly, he was looking confused too.
[SPEAKER_00]: He also agreed that there were only ever the three beds, and he didn't outright say it, but I got the feeling he didn't even remember the conversation we'd had earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was just a weird fluke.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I keep thinking of how absolutely distressed he looked in the backyard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, in that moment, he really believed he had misplaced an entire section of his beloved tomatoes.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's an older dude, so I'm starting to wonder about his memory.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just curious if anyone who's had experience with someone's mind starting to slip would see this as a red flag?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm worried to be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the two of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they had a daughter, but she's passed as far as I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it's my place to get involved, but there's no one else, and I can't get that interaction out of my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any thoughts would be appreciated.
[SPEAKER_00]: August Sixth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, all.
[SPEAKER_00]: First, I wanted to say thank you to the kind people who responded with their thoughts and advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been about a week since my last post and things seemed fine for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: Almost long enough to make me put the whole thing with Carl out of my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: But something happened last night and I can't keep pretending like things are normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hell, I don't even think there's anything I can do anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometime in the early morning hours, I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have nights like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm on medication for insomnia, but some nights I just wake up and there's nothing to be done about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm laying there trying to get back to sleep when I hear something.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's faint, but it sounds like shouting.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first, I figured I had to be hearing things, but it picked up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I went out on the back porch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure enough, I hear muffled shouting and see the lights on at the neighbors.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first, I just kind of stood there listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounded like Carl and Sarah were having some kind of fight, but that seemed crazy, not that they would have a fight, but that they'd be up at this time of night at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: It got louder and louder, and that unnerved me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started wondering if it could be some kind of home invasion, and in the end I decided to go check on things.
[SPEAKER_00]: about that time was when their back door burst open.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sarah came out into the backyard, and Carl came out after her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Except at the time, I didn't think it was Carl, because the person who came out after her was this flailing maniac flashing a big ass knife that glinted in the moonlight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sarah saw me and started moving in my direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was yelling for me to call the police, but she was drowned out by Carl's voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't really remember things word for word, but Carl was spouting some insane stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was bellowing about how someone needed to get out of the house, about how he didn't know them, about how he'd skin them for what they'd done.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I realized he was saying all this to his freaking wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: Things are a blur after that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somehow I ended up on the ground with Carl fighting over the knife.
[SPEAKER_00]: Scared the absolute shit at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never known Carl to be anything but nice, but I really believe that he'd have killed me if he'd gotten the upper hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he was so much stronger than seemed possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like he was throwing every bit of effort he could muster from his old body into the fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a wildest desperation I've ever felt.
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole time we were rolling, I was the one now telling Sarah to call the cops and trying to tell Carl to calm down.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the way he looked at me, it wasn't rage in his eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this kind of bald faced fear, like I'd never seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told him it was me, his neighbor friend, and then everything was okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the more I tried to explain who I was and what was happening, the more aggressive he became.
[SPEAKER_00]: It struck me then that it didn't matter how much I explained.
[SPEAKER_00]: He no longer knew who I was at all."
[SPEAKER_00]: Sarah must have gotten to my phone, because the cops did eventually show along with an ambulance.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were able to subdue Carl, and he was taken to the hospital.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time I'm typing this up, the sun's gotten well into the sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: Makes the whole incident feel like it couldn't have been real.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then I look out and see the lingering police car in the cold of sack and I can't deny it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just at a loss over what to do now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel so guilty about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just knew something was off with Carl last week, but I didn't really want to admit it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I keep wondering if there was something I could have done or said.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just keep thinking about that bewildering look of fear in his eyes and the lack of any recognition.
[SPEAKER_00]: hairs me up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a long conversation with him in the driveway a couple days before, just as normal as you please.
[SPEAKER_00]: But last night he was looking at me like I might as well be an alien.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it normal for someone to act out like he did?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've heard of people becoming agitated or even aggressive when they're confused.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the way he was acting, it's like he really thought he was fighting for his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Could it be something to do with his time in the service?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm worried about Sarah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm guessing she's gonna have some hard decisions about what to do with Carl, but she didn't want me come into the hospital.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ended up honoring her wishes and saying I'd look after the house until she was back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just feel so useless.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess it is what it is now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks again for all the kind words.
[SPEAKER_00]: August eleven.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't expect to be back here posting again.
[SPEAKER_00]: After what happened with Carl, I knew he'd likely be institutionalized in some way and that would be that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now I just don't know what the hell is going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sarah finally came home the other day.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was by herself, as I thought she probably would be.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been biting it a bit to talk to her, but she seemed to want her own space.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I almost caught her at the mailbox again, but she ignored me when I called out to her and went back inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: It struck me as so weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: Normally she'd talk my ear off if I've given half the chance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyways, went on like that for a while, couldn't even get a glimpse of her because she took to just staying locked up in the house at all hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually I couldn't wait anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went over and knocked on the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Didn't think she was going to answer for the longest time, but finally the door opened a crack and one blue eye stared out at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like a damn broken me then.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just started spewing questions and letting her know how worried I'd been and how sorry I'd felt before I could get a handle on things.
[SPEAKER_00]: The words must have had some effect because she opened the door a fraction wider.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what got me was what she asked next.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who did you say you were again?
[SPEAKER_00]: I really thought she was joking at first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why she would be joking with everything that had happened was lost on me, but it had to be a joke.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just smiled and rolled with it, reminding her of my name and that I lived right next door.
[SPEAKER_00]: That seemed to trouble her, and the look on her face made my mouth dry up and the words came harder.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pushed on and asked directly about Carl.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to know what arrangements had been made, if there was a chance of his coming home, and if not, if there would be a chance of me seeing him wherever he was.
[SPEAKER_00]: But these questions only deepened that troubled look, until she asked me something that really floored me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember the exact words.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, I'm sorry, dear.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just not understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is this coral?
[SPEAKER_00]: You talk like he's my husband, but I've never been married.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry, but what the fuck?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all I could do not to blurt that out while talking to her there on the porch.
[SPEAKER_00]: I must have looked like some crazy person as I stood there, jaw-working, trying to rationalize what I was hearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: because Sarah's troubled look tilted toward something more.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a flicker of that same bewildering look of fear, which had been plastered across her husband's face on that night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I excused myself after that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just didn't know what else to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Has anyone experienced anything like this before?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, what are the chances?
[SPEAKER_00]: Her husband's mind goes and hers immediately and completely slips right after?
[SPEAKER_00]: Could it be some weird psychological quirk among couples married for a long time?
[SPEAKER_00]: Some kind of sympathetic molding of one mind after another in a grief response?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've heard of long married people dying in short order after their partner goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Could this be the same thing, but purely on a mental level?
[SPEAKER_00]: I just don't know anything about this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please, if anyone has any information, share it with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need some kind of answers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just have to understand something about all this weird shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't feel right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gotta go do some digging.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry for how heated this got.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just really freaked out by how fast this is gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: August, Thirteenth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hesitate to even post this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been sitting here starting and restarting this one because I'm just not sure what to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know some of you out there think I'm trying to sensationalize this, or that I'm just shit posting at this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that's you, think whatever the fuck you want.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the rest of you, thank you for being a listening ear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so after my talk with Sarah, I fell down a rabbit hole.
[SPEAKER_00]: It started with talking to some lawyers.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, I'm afraid for Sarah, but since she's nothing to me other than a neighbor, I don't have any legal rights to interfere.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't force her to seek help, or likely do anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: At least not unless something more public, like what happened to Carl, happens to her.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, I hate feeling like I need to step in and puppet her affairs or something, but I just want to do something to help.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like a bystander during some slow motion car crash happening right in front of me, and I'm not allowed to try to pull anyone from the wreckage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyways, after that, I got this notion that I'd at least try to see where Carl was being kept for the time being.
[SPEAKER_00]: Started with some inquiries at the nearby hospital since that seems like where he would have been taken at first.
[SPEAKER_00]: No dice there, no record of anyone matching Carl ever having been admitted.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then I started with some of the nursing homes around the area.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: No carol at any of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that point, I got extra freaked.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what started as a search for where Carl was staying turned into an investigation into the man himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's right about now that I keep deleting everything I've typed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And wondering if I should post this at all?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because what I'm finding just makes zero sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wanna know what I've learned about Carl?
[SPEAKER_00]: Fuck all, that's what.
[SPEAKER_00]: As far as anyone is concerned, there is no Carl.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there is no record of this guy existing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the property information for next door indicates that it was purchased only by Sarah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, those are recent records.
[SPEAKER_00]: This neighborhood is only a few years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: Could be they purchased it only under Sarah's name for some reason, so I looked into it more.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm no research genius, but I dug as deep as I could, and I keep coming to the same impossible conclusion that there is no quarrel, that there are no records of birth, no records of marriage to Sarah.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: that last conversation with Sarah just keeps replaying for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to make you understand the honest look of confusion she had when I asked about her husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: To me, it's clear that she truly has no recollection of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like reality is conforming to Sarah's delusions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or else, maybe I've been posting about the wrong person this whole time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's me who's losing his grasp on the real world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because as I'm sure you can tell, all of this got me really wigged out, like beyond freaked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't know if I should even say this here, but fuck it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This whole thing got me so paranoid that I decided there was one last thing to check on.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, I've got a key to the neighbor's place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gave it to me when they took a trip, asked me to water some houseplants and bring in the mail, stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never asked for it back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And until recently, I forgot I even had it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once I remembered, I got this crazy idea and I just couldn't shake it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was one more place that would prove to both Sarah and myself the truth about her husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was right in front of her face this whole time, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was pictures.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the occasions the neighbors have had me over for dinner, I'd always remarked on all the framed pictures around the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had pictures of the two of them from all over.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sarah and Carl had evidently been travelers in their time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe some of it on account of Carl's deployments over the years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all I could think about is that I needed to get one of those pictures off the wall, sit Sarah down, and point out the man who she just followed off to the hospital a few days ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I let myself in when I saw Sarah step out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Say what you want, but it needed to be done, because I needed to find what I found.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been over this part, so many damn times, and I still can't square it with what I know to be true.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't expect anyone out there will be able to either, but I can't keep this to myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I found the picture I wanted, all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sliped in and went to one I always liked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Photo of the two of them at Giza.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pyramids looming over their shoulders.
[SPEAKER_00]: Except when I got the picture, it wasn't right.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just wasn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really need you to understand that I've seen this picture so many times.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's right there near the front door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every time I came in, my eye always jumped to it first.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could tell you what colored shirts they were wearing in it from memory.
[SPEAKER_00]: At least that's what I would have said before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I don't know what to think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sarah was the only one in the picture.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what else there is to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what that picture looked like before.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember, Carl.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to keep telling myself that I remember him because a part of me is starting to wonder.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, it wasn't just that one picture that was strange.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was all of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every single one where I know the two of them had previously been posed now only showed one person.
[SPEAKER_00]: And beyond that, the few pictures of Carl by himself were just gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: The spaces they'd been in were occupied by other brick a bracket couldn't remember ever being there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's where we are now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know this all sounds crazy, but it's all true.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not even sure what I'm still writing this for.
[SPEAKER_00]: What help is there to be at?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hell is it really me who needs to help?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got all these memories, but then I look around in life just isn't right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how else to say it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what I know to be true, to have been true anyways.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe all I can be is good to Sarah, if she'll let me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see her puttering over in the garden, like Carl used to.
[SPEAKER_00]: She got that one bed of tomato, plants looking real good, despite everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe she'd at least let me cut back some of that encroaching cud-su.
[SPEAKER_00]: August, sixteenth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the theme of the questions that keep going through my head now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's Carl?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's Sarah?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who are all of you out there?
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope someone here can help me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found this laptop in my house the other day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never remembered seeing it before, but I opened it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bansy little camera recognized my face to unlock the screen, and I found this forum pulled up.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this is my profile, I've logged in before, and I seem to have even been posting.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing, I don't remember any of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been reading back over the previous posts from this account, and it's got me bothered.
[SPEAKER_00]: This laptop's camera unlocked from my face.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I guess it has to be mine?
[SPEAKER_00]: If that's the case, this has to be my account, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Unless someone else used it, but I don't think so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it might not be so strange to me after all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what to say except I keep coming back to the laptop.
[SPEAKER_00]: As much as it is freaking me out to read this stuff, typing here feels right.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like there's something on the tip of my mental tongue and I'm supposed to put it down here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just don't know what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though I said I never remembered this laptop, the longer I have it, the more I have this
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to describe it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, image of me with it?
[SPEAKER_00]: This most vivid day dream of me sitting here and typing up something or other.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's just that, a conjured image.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I know this is not my laptop.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus Christ, I would remember buying a whole other fucking computer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Backdays, I don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, I can see myself sitting here, typing away at it, just like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the thought feels like a dream for some reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: A longing for a not quite life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who am I kidding, though?
[SPEAKER_00]: The laptop's nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the words typed here that bother me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it does almost sound like it was me writing these words.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a tech writer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Move to a new neighborhood within the past year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hell, I'm even on a cold asak.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all well and good.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's not is the rest of this?
[SPEAKER_00]: All this sentimental crap about some kindly old neighbors?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm desperately trying to understand it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe this is some kind of weird repression playing out here.
[SPEAKER_00]: because there are no kindly old neighbors.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're never were.
[SPEAKER_00]: This house is alone at the end of the cul-de-sac.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing out here but the Cudzu once the development ends and yet this deep part of me yearns for what I've been reading to be true.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why, but the idea of it seems more real than what's outside my own window.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus fucking Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Must be out of my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: The more I sit here, the more I'm starting to feel like something is wrong around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That the way I see things with my eyes is less real than what was keyed in right here, not long ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like something's changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just don't know what.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been slipping, I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: Slipping, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ever slipped, slipped, slipping away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Slipping from what?
[SPEAKER_00]: From who?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, now that's the big one, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: The biggest elephant in the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who am I?
[SPEAKER_00]: Wish I fucking knew!
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I got these two visions splitting me down the middle and it makes me all lightheaded
[SPEAKER_00]: The vodka's helped some, but the room's starting to swim again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Makes me think of the heat waves rolling on a warm summer's day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sun glinting off a ripe tomato on the vine.
[SPEAKER_00]: The vine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fucking vine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tomatoes won't grow because of the vine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hell, for all I know, nothing is alive out there now because of the fucking vine.
[SPEAKER_00]: It eats everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: It changes everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: It undoes everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not even sure what that means anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it keeps coming back to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some warning in the back of my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: Truth is, the longer I sit here, the less sure of things I'm becoming.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to go to the bathroom earlier, and it's like I forgot everything when I got up.
[SPEAKER_00]: This post, this computer, this house around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: My house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just that I don't think this is my house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, on some level, it seems like it must be.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm sure I've never been in this place in my life, because I couldn't find the bathroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only do I not know where it is, I couldn't find my way there.
[SPEAKER_00]: How could I not know my where am I on fucking house?
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sitting here, trying to make myself remember something of my surroundings, so I can type it here for reference.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I feel like I can't recall anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like the world is shrinking and fraying around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all I can say.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to look around myself, but when I look up from this screen, I'm seeing nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that it's blackness or anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just that I can't picture things at all once I look back to this screen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just running out of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm starting to feel like I shouldn't be looking.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like around me is this all encompassing static, like indistinct mental buzzing that'll rattle right through the last of my brains if I let it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the weirdest idea but I feel like once I stop typing, something will happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't ask me what?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't really understand it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I just feel that this act of writing is holding some key mental scaffolding in place.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to stop it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my thoughts feel fragmented.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pieces, many pieces.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I need help.
[SPEAKER_00]: The pieces can't put the pieces back together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to be able to do it, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to be able to remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: To remember what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember?
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember who?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who?
[SPEAKER_00]: The city would know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember who I am?
[SPEAKER_00]: The correspondence ends there.
[SPEAKER_00]: The account made no more posts, and, as mentioned previously, I was unable to locate any trace of it after a time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I did some extra digging into this one myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: managed to get in touch with some of the other people on the forum.
[SPEAKER_00]: At one point, I even managed to get an address to the place where I believe this computer would have been sending these from.
[SPEAKER_00]: But curiously, I can no longer find the information.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot even remember how I came by it to be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that it truly matters anymore, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I did get a chance to check out that address.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you be surprised if I told you there's nothing out there, but could zoo?
[SPEAKER_00]: I am sure you wouldn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Curious thing those vines.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love to talk more about it, but if I'm being honest, I forget.
[SPEAKER_00]: Regards the collector.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't have said it better myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you enjoyed this story, please check out the author in the links below and subscribe to hear more stories like this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever you do, whatever you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was I just saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ha ha ha ha