Midnight Burger Interludes Part 3: Preludes

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Speaker 4 Hello, everyone. We are back once again with one last set of short pieces before we go into season three.
Now, if you missed the dates, we are just about to go into season three.

Speaker 4 It starts on November 1st for subscribers and it starts on December 15th for the public feed. So it's going to be a very fun season.
We're excited about it.

Speaker 4 We're excited to see y'all on either our subscription feed or our public feed. If you would like to subscribe, just go to our website and that will detail all the ways you can subscribe to the show.

Speaker 4 So on with the good stuff. We had a lot of fun doing these and we wanted to share them with the rest of the big wide world out there.
We're calling these preludes.

Speaker 4 These are all scenes from the Midnight Burger world that happened sort of outside of an episode and before the episodes actually started.

Speaker 4 So in a lot of these, you'll see scenes from people before they came to the diner. Now, the X recounts in chapter 13 the tale of how she got back to the diner.

Speaker 4 But there's another story involved that she did not tell. And we would like to tell that story to you right now.

Speaker 4 So, if you don't mind, if you've got a moment, please enjoy The Dead Woman of Brownie's Creek.

Speaker 5 All right, y'all. Settle down.
Bobby, Caroline, settle down. Put your butts on the ground, y'all.

Speaker 5 Y'all wanted a story, and now it's time for a story.

Speaker 10 Good.

Speaker 5 Thank you, y'all.

Speaker 5 Now, there's all kinds of stories I can tell you around campfires, but I hear tell what y'all want tonight is a scary story, is that right?

Speaker 5 Well now,

Speaker 5 seeing as how all your parents have put their trust in your big cousin June to bring their kids out here into the woods, I'm not sure that telling a scary story is the most responsible thing one could do.

Speaker 5 Can y'all promise me that if I tell you this story, that you'll still go to bed in your tents like good little little boys and girls?

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Everybody nod your heads.

Speaker 10 Alright,

Speaker 5 settle in.

Speaker 5 This story is a true story

Speaker 5 and it took place a long time ago.

Speaker 5 Here we are in 1963. This story takes place all the way back in 1934.

Speaker 5 Do y'all know how many years ago that was?

Speaker 5 No?

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 5 that was 29 years ago, children. I wasn't even alive back then, but my daddy was.

Speaker 5 And he told me this story the same way I am going to tell it to you right now.

Speaker 5 It all took place right here

Speaker 5 by Brownies Creek in Harlan County, Kentucky.

Speaker 5 See, back then, Harlan County was a dangerous place.

Speaker 5 Coal miners were striking and the sheriff wasn't having any of it.

Speaker 5 The sheriff back then was a man by the name of Winston Duffy, one of the meanest men to ever set foot in Harlan County, and this county has seen some mean ones.

Speaker 5 Strikers were getting pulled out of their homes in the middle of the night and left for dead in the woods, leaving crying wives and babies behind them.

Speaker 5 To this day, they'll still find old bones among them persimmon trees. The bodies of striking workers at the sheriff decided to disappear.

Speaker 5 My daddy tells me that one day, in the midst of all this strife and famine, the folks around Brownie's Creek were treated to a miracle.

Speaker 5 Somehow, overnight, someone had built an entire restaurant

Speaker 5 right in the middle middle of town.

Speaker 5 A fancy one, too.

Speaker 5 One like they'd never seen. The people in town walked in wondering what it was all about, and waiting there to take their order was a beautiful Mexican lady.

Speaker 5 And she told them all the food was free.

Speaker 5 You see, nobody had money for food back then because the coal company was trying to starve them out. Wives were mixing sawdust into their bread to make it big enough just to feed their whole family.

Speaker 5 And in the midst of all that, a restaurant giving out free food? Have you heard of such a thing? They thought their prayers had been answered.

Speaker 5 But after a whole day of stuffing themselves full of hot brown and mutton, they awoke the next morning to find that the magical restaurant had disappeared just as easy as it had shown up.

Speaker 5 They wondered if it was all a dream.

Speaker 5 Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Miss June, this doesn't sound like no scary story to me.
Well, just you wait till this next part.

Speaker 5 For in the morning, when they found that the mysterious restaurant had disappeared, they also found it had left behind a dead body.

Speaker 5 Now,

Speaker 5 back then the folks around Brownie's Creek were no strangers to dead folks. As I said, the sheriff was making plenty of dead bodies, but this particular body was unlike anything you'd seen before.

Speaker 5 She was a beautiful woman with no signs of violence about her, almost as if she had slept there in the tall grass.

Speaker 5 But when you moved to touch her, you'd find that her skin was ice cold,

Speaker 5 and she seemed to shimmer in the daylight.

Speaker 5 Now, y'all are too young to know, and I'm sure your parents ain't have told you what it's like when a body goes from living to being dead.

Speaker 5 But your parents ain't here around this campfire with us, so I'm going to tell you some things you best not know.

Speaker 5 When a body dies,

Speaker 5 it begins to go bad.

Speaker 5 The skin turns pale, the eyes go white,

Speaker 5 and you begin to smell something awful.

Speaker 5 You just can't imagine the smell.

Speaker 5 Worse than ten piles of garbage, y'all.

Speaker 5 A smell so bad your eyes start to water and then

Speaker 5 and then come the birds. Birds of all kinds gather round a dead body, hesitant at first, making sure that you're dead, and then they start to pick away with you and they start with your eyes.

Speaker 5 But with this strange body that now lay here in the grass, there was no such thing.

Speaker 5 No birds, no smell, no whiteness in the eyes. It's like she was frozen in time.

Speaker 5 They had a hard time even calling her dead, but with no heartbeat and no life in her eyes and with skin as cold as the bottom of Brownie's creek itself, they didn't know what else to call her.

Speaker 5 The sheriff was informed of the strange body that had appeared down by the creek, but he was in no hurry to clean up yet another mess that had been left by the chaos of Harlan County.

Speaker 5 So the dead woman of Brownie's Creek lay there for days, covered by a white sheet held down with stones.

Speaker 5 In those few days, the minds of everyone in town ran wild.

Speaker 5 Who could she be?

Speaker 5 Where could she have come from?

Speaker 11 What is she?

Speaker 5 Some say she was a fallen angel, and others said she was a witch that could run afoul of the devil.

Speaker 5 They spoke in hushed tones as they gazed across the road at the billowing white sheet, knowing underneath lay the body.

Speaker 5 Not breathing,

Speaker 5 but not dying neither.

Speaker 5 Days later, Sheriff Winston Duffy finally arrived to address the issue. Everybody watched from afar as he tore away the sheet and circled the body.

Speaker 5 No one knew whether to be scared of the body or scared of the sheriff.

Speaker 5 Now, while the people in town let their imaginations run wild about this mystery, the sheriff found himself without a drop of curiosity.

Speaker 10 Not one bit.

Speaker 5 He didn't care that the body of this woman defied the laws of nature, and he didn't care about any stories of the vanishing restaurant that apparently dropped her off.

Speaker 5 His only thought was to bend down and roll her up in the sheet and throw her in the back of his police car.

Speaker 5 But when he reached down to do away with her corpse, he felt an ice-cold hand wrap around its neck. And he locked eyes with the otherworldly face of the dead woman of Brownie's Creek.

Speaker 5 Winston.

Speaker 5 She whispered to him.

Speaker 5 The sheriff jumped back so far that he nearly jumped out of his skin, and the townspeople watched in horror as the dead woman slowly rose to her feet like she was pulling herself out from hell.

Speaker 5 The sheriff's face went white as he stumbled backwards. She spoke his name again.

Speaker 5 Winston, she said.

Speaker 7 You killed me, Winston.

Speaker 5 Nobody but the sheriff recognized the voice that came from that woman, and he knew that voice all too well.

Speaker 5 It was the voice of his wife.

Speaker 5 His wife, who had mysteriously disappeared not six months ago.

Speaker 5 The voice of his wife emerged again from her mouth. You buried me in the yard.

Speaker 5 In the yard?

Speaker 5 Under the swing set?

Speaker 5 She spoke as she lurched towards him, now covered in sweat, and the sheriff drew his gun.

Speaker 5 You stay back.

Speaker 5 I don't know who you are, but you stay back.

Speaker 5 But despite his warnings, she continued to move toward him. All those years,

Speaker 5 all those children's, and you buried me under the swing set.

Speaker 5 Three shots rang out as the sheriff pulled the trigger. But as I'm sure you can imagine, you can't kill something that ain't alive.

Speaker 5 They say you could hear the bullets bounce off her skin like she was made of steel. Three more shots rang out, and she still kept coming.

Speaker 5 You think you're a big man because you got that gun? You took my life, and now I'm going to take your soul, Winston.

Speaker 5 And the sheriff. A grown man, started screaming like he was no older than y'all.
He jumped into his police car and he hit the gas and tore off down the road, leaving his nightmare in the rear view.

Speaker 5 The dead woman at Brownie's Creek gave no chase. She stood there as the sheriff's car kicked up dirt and sped away.

Speaker 5 She stood there

Speaker 5 and stood there

Speaker 5 and stood there

Speaker 5 for

Speaker 5 hours.

Speaker 5 You'd never seen something so still.

Speaker 5 The people in town in the safety of their homes watched her, waiting for hours for her to do something.

Speaker 5 Anything.

Speaker 5 While they waited, they wondered.

Speaker 5 Wondered how the woman could suddenly wake from her slumber and take on the voice of the sheriff's wife?

Speaker 5 What was all that talk about being buried under the swing set?

Speaker 5 As the sun began to set, there was one young man in town who decided he'd waited long enough.

Speaker 5 He was going to approach the dead woman who stood as still like a tombstone just a hundred feet away.

Speaker 5 That young man

Speaker 5 was my daddy.

Speaker 5 My daddy crept out of the corner store where he was hiding and slowly made his way toward her.

Speaker 5 Now,

Speaker 5 my daddy was a paratrooper during the war, and he jumped out of airplanes with only a parachute and dropped down into enemy territory.

Speaker 5 And he told me the fear he felt when he was jumping out of a plane was nothing compared to the fear he felt walking toward the dead woman at Brownie's Creek that day.

Speaker 5 He approached her real curious-like.

Speaker 5 And when he was halfway convinced she wasn't going to leap toward him and rip his soul from his body,

Speaker 5 my daddy simply said,

Speaker 5 Ma'am, what is it you want from us?

Speaker 5 And then suddenly she turned to him.

Speaker 5 She turned to him and said with a hollow voice,

Speaker 5 where's Casper?

Speaker 5 Then she fell once again to the ground, lifeless.

Speaker 5 My daddy was desperate for this day to come to an end. The town couldn't spend any more time being held hostage by this woman.

Speaker 5 So, after taking a deep breath, he bent down,

Speaker 5 rolled the body into that sheet, carried her to the deepest part of Brownie's Creek he could find, and tossed her cold body in it.

Speaker 5 She sank to the bottom like a stone and disappeared. And that was that.

Speaker 5 My daddy never found out what she meant by what she said.

Speaker 5 Who was this Casper?

Speaker 5 Why was she looking for him?

Speaker 5 It was the strangest day of his life.

Speaker 5 You know what else was strange?

Speaker 5 Two days later, Sheriff Winston Duffy confessed to the murder of his wife.

Speaker 5 I suppose his encounter with the dead woman of Brownie's Creek shook him to his core.

Speaker 5 And over the years they began to call her a saint, for she had rid Harlan County of the sheriff, and he was one of the most evil sons of bitches this county's ever seen.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's right, you heard me. I said sons of bitches.

Speaker 5 They say

Speaker 5 you can still

Speaker 5 see her body sometimes when the sun shines real bright on the creek.

Speaker 5 And my daddy told me

Speaker 5 that place

Speaker 5 where he dropped her in the creek

Speaker 5 is right behind us right now.

Speaker 5 But don't get scared, y'all. That was, as I said, 29 years ago.
So I think we can all rest assured that the dead woman of Brownie's Creek has found her final resting place.

Speaker 5 And speaking of resting places, my story has ended and it's time for y'all to get into your tents and get a good night's sleep.

Speaker 5 Now, go on, we're getting up real early to go fishing.

Speaker 5 Not you.

Speaker 5 Hope it ain't too cold down there.

Speaker 10 Where's Casper?

Speaker 4 Where's Casper?

Speaker 10 Where's Casper?

Speaker 5 Where's Casper?

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Speaker 4 Up next in our preludes, everybody loves Effie and Zebulon Mucklewain. They are kind of the soul of the show, the spiritual center of the show.
We all love them.

Speaker 4 We wanted to do something just kind of fun with them and do a scene that actually

Speaker 4 centers around what their life was like before they came to the diner and before they became the strange creatures that they are now.

Speaker 4 The real Effie and Zebulon Mucklewain, the flesh and blood Effie and Zebulon Mucklewain.

Speaker 4 And also, we wanted to do a Christmas episode. Listen, if you don't celebrate Christmas, I want you to know that I celebrate you.

Speaker 6 Okay, however,

Speaker 4 Effie and Zebulon Mucklewain love Christmas, and we wanted to do a Christmas episode with them celebrating a little bit of Christmas.

Speaker 4 And so we put together this episode for you: A Muckle Wayne Christmas, and we very much hope you enjoy it. Here it is: A Muckle Wayne Christmas.

Speaker 4 Well, hi to anyone out there listening right now.

Speaker 14 Hello, y'all. It's Effie, and, oh, I am not supposed to be speaking into this microphone of ours right now, but it is Christmas Eve here in our little corner of God's Country, and the mood struck me.

Speaker 14 I hope this season has struck you in good spirits. I know it's tough out there for some of y'all, but I do believe that sorrow has the shelf life of a head of lettuce.

Speaker 14 And may your sorrows, if you have them, soon be wilted in your cupboard. Honey?

Speaker 8 Oh, my,

Speaker 14 I have been discovered. My dear, are you sending out missives to the listeners? I am, darling.
I was in a mood.

Speaker 14 Very well.

Speaker 14 Hello to you all dear you know around this time of year i get to thinking about the have-nots

Speaker 14 such as we should but you also know how this time of year we dip into the brandy just a little bit a bit yes because y'all we love jesus but we drink a little just a bit

Speaker 14 Because we are on the eve of the birth of the baby Jesus and if there was ever a time to show our appreciations, it should be now.

Speaker 14 Yes, within moderation, of course. If you say so, dear.
Y'all, I hope the Lord has given you a year that affords you some presents under your trees.

Speaker 14 I don't mind telling you that I have been gifted with a husband who has a preternatural affinity for the giving of gifts.

Speaker 14 Well, not to light my own bonfire, honey, but I do feel skilled in such arenas. I feel as though when I meet a person, I somehow know the perfect gift for them to receive.

Speaker 14 I remember you gave Jim Tucker's wife that needle point set one year. Oh, that was a good one.
She had never pointed a needle in her life and didn't know what to make of it all.

Speaker 14 But then, in the coming year, she really took to it. And now their house is filled with all sorts of hoops and linens.

Speaker 14 Much to the chagrin of Jim Tucker. But if y'all know Jim Tucker, that man ain't nothing but chagrin.
Jim, if you're listening, I apologize and I celebrate the life that God had given you. Of course.

Speaker 14 But stop being a grumpus. You have a lovely wife.
Honey. I apologize and I digress because I was talking about my husband's gift-giving abilities.

Speaker 14 Y'all, there are so many presents under that tree, and I just have no idea what they are.

Speaker 14 Well, I really have sailed out over the yard arm on this particular season. It's going to be quite a Christmas morning.
But now, we have been giving ourselves a gift all year, haven't we, dearest?

Speaker 14 That is true. Y'all, this year, we have been subscribing to magazines.

Speaker 14 Born out of necessity, of course. Indeed.
I mean, if y'all don't know, well, I'm lighting my own bonfire now. This entire contraption that we are speaking into was actually built by yours truly.

Speaker 14 Yes, as with my gift for the giving of gifts, you seem to have quite the affinity for the various ephemera of radio technology.

Speaker 14 Y'all, when you hold something in your hands and you know what to do with it without even reading a book, don't you know that's the Lord talking to you?

Speaker 14 I came home one day to the whole study strewn with all sorts of tubes and wires.

Speaker 14 He thought I'd gone around a bed, y'all, truly. But then a few months later, I had it all sorted.

Speaker 14 So we thought it important that Effie stay abreast of this strange new world of the airwaves that we had found ourselves in.

Speaker 14 And if you're in the know, the best way to stay in the know is with a subscription to Popular Radio Magazine. Yes.
Now I always know when a new issue has arrived because you are nowhere to be found.

Speaker 14 That is correct. I am deep in it, y'all.
But what had happened was, is that Zebulon was feeling a little left out not having his own magazine. Well,

Speaker 14 I will admit to the jealousy, yes. So, I surprised him with a subscription to something called Adventure Magazine.
Yes, you did, honey.

Speaker 14 And I spend as much time with that adventure magazine as I do with the scripture. Yes, you do.
Stories of pirates and cowboys adventuring in the jungles of Panama.

Speaker 14 Every issue has me flung to all corners of the globe. You can hear him in the house read the lines out loud to himself sometimes.

Speaker 14 Can you? Yes, dear. Sometimes I'm at the pig shop and I can hear you in the house.
Oh my.

Speaker 14 But then

Speaker 14 we went even further.

Speaker 14 We went and got that subscription to that life magazine.

Speaker 14 Yes. And I don't mind telling you, I am amazed at what people get up to all around this world.

Speaker 14 There is a race that they have every year over in England where they roll a big round of cheese down a hill and then everybody chases after it. You know what they get if they win?

Speaker 14 Cheese. The cheese.
They get the cheese if they win. Just make some cheese, y'all.
Don't risk life and limb barreling down a hill. The photos are quite humorous.
They do look ridiculous, don't they?

Speaker 14 Oh, they do.

Speaker 14 Like, there's a gold bar inside that cheese.

Speaker 14 Oh!

Speaker 14 You know what we should do? Watch that. There is an article in the newest issue that I want to read to y'all.
Hold on. It is about how people are celebrating Christmas all over the world.

Speaker 14 You're just not going to believe some of it.

Speaker 14 Oh, here it is.

Speaker 14 So, over in Finland on Christmas morning, everybody has porridge, but it's made of rice. And then at night, because it gets real cold there, the whole family gets an asauna.

Speaker 14 Asana is like a shed, and you got to put hot rocks in it so it gets real hot in there, and everyone sweats a whole bunch.

Speaker 14 Interesting.

Speaker 14 Nearby in Denmark, their Christmas is a lot like ours, but they put their tree in the middle of the room and everyone dances around it singing Christmas carols. That's nice.

Speaker 14 You know,

Speaker 14 something that I don't think much about is that when it's winter in Arkansas and the weather's real bad, it helps if I remember that it ain't winter everywhere.

Speaker 14 And if you go down south long enough, you can find yourself in a place where it's summer right now.

Speaker 14 Like on the island of New Zealand, they celebrate Christmas right in the middle of summer by having an outdoor cookout with all kinds of lobsters and fancy things. I'd never thought about that.

Speaker 14 I suppose it must be summer somewhere.

Speaker 14 Oh, oh.

Speaker 14 In Czechoslovakia, they have a tradition of eating carp on Christmas Eve. But before they eat the carp, they keep them alive in their bathtub for a few days.
They say that the scales bring them luck.

Speaker 14 I don't like that one.

Speaker 14 Yes, I'm unclear how such a thing becomes a tradition. But in Greece, they put their Christmas trees on boats.

Speaker 14 And down in Mexico way, they have parties all night and then have holy mass when the clock strikes midnight. In Spain, they...

Speaker 14 Oh my,

Speaker 14 what do they do in Spain? Hold on.

Speaker 14 Well,

Speaker 14 they take a big hollowed-out log, dear, and they put a face on it, and they call it Cagatillo.

Speaker 14 All the presents go inside the log and then the whole family beats the log with sticks until this character named Kagatio

Speaker 14 defecates the presents onto the floor.

Speaker 14 Well how does well it's still better than a fish in the bathtub.

Speaker 14 Yes, true. Anyhow y'all, we've been enjoying our magazines this year and if you think that makes us too fancy well then your name is probably Jim Tucker and you wouldn't like what we're doing anyhow.

Speaker 14 And I apologize Jim Tucker. I celebrate the life that God hath given you.
And I have reached the end of my glass, dear, and I'm not yet done celebrating the baby Jesus.

Speaker 14 So, how about a little reading for those that listen?

Speaker 14 There is a certain something that can only be read around this time of year, so perhaps we shall indulge ourselves. That sounds real nice, dearest.
I love you so much. Yes, and I love you, my dear.

Speaker 14 I love it when you read your little things over the radio.

Speaker 14 So I begin.

Speaker 14 T'was the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Speaker 4 The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas was there.

Speaker 4 And finally, in our prelude section, we have something that we are calling office hours. Now, throughout the show, your favorite theoretical physicist and mine, Ava, Dr.
Ava.

Speaker 4 She's trying to unravel the mysteries of the diner, and in doing so, unravel the mystery of just about everything.

Speaker 4 And we don't talk much about how she got on that trail and how she got on that journey because it all started with a key moment with a friend of hers back when she was a university professor.

Speaker 4 And so we put together this piece. It's called Office Hours.
I hope you enjoy it. Here we go.

Speaker 10 I heard that no one uses landlines anymore, so what's going on here?

Speaker 10 Oh, hi

Speaker 5 with the Dean.

Speaker 10 Okay.

Speaker 10 Sure.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I have that free.

Speaker 10 I'll see you then.

Speaker 10 And Sue,

Speaker 10 you may want to politely remind the dean that he doesn't like me and that his day will be a lot more pleasant if he doesn't meet with me later today.

Speaker 10 Okay?

Speaker 10 Of course, it won't work.

Speaker 10 But

Speaker 10 hope springs eternal.

Speaker 10 Okay.

Speaker 10 Bye-bye.

Speaker 10 Strongly consider your choices.

Speaker 12 Hey, Doctor, can we talk for two hours about how I think the universe is a hologram?

Speaker 10 Oh,

Speaker 10 fuck you.

Speaker 10 How are things? Well, since you're not one of my students, things are going better.

Speaker 12 You know there's a whole group of them that gather by the statue after your class.

Speaker 10 How do you know they're mine?

Speaker 12 The permanent tear streaks on their faces is a dead giveaway.

Speaker 10 That's not fair. I'm not mean.

Speaker 12 You're not, but there are no tough guy scientists anymore.

Speaker 10 Were there ever tough guy scientists? Tico Brahe.

Speaker 10 Old brass knows himself. The first and last of the science tough guys.

Speaker 12 Kepler got his mom acquitted of witchcraft.

Speaker 10 That's pretty tough. That's not the same as losing your nose in a sword fight.

Speaker 12 Didn't he also have a pet moose?

Speaker 10 He did. He had a pet moose that died when it fell down the stairs after he had gotten it drunk.
He also had a court jester named Yiepp that he insisted was clairvoyant.

Speaker 10 He was also rich and was the first to observe a supernova. What's a girl to do when she finds out her ideal man died hundreds of years ago?

Speaker 12 Your children would have been so beautiful.

Speaker 10 So what are you doing here? Don't you have class right now?

Speaker 12 Hmm. Sudden schedule change.

Speaker 10 Good. We can scare away my students together then.
Oh, hey, speaking of sudden?

Speaker 10 The dean wants to meet with me today, all of a sudden.

Speaker 12 Really?

Speaker 10 Yes. really looking forward to that.
We love each other. Really looking forward to getting stared down by that portrait of Ezra Cornell on his wall.

Speaker 12 Ugh, I hate that thing. The eyes follow you.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 10 what's going on?

Speaker 12 I need to.

Speaker 12 I need to call an emergency meeting of the lady scientists of Cornell University. Well, let's see.

Speaker 10 Is everyone here? Oh, wait!

Speaker 12 That's just us.

Speaker 10 We have a quorum. Please proceed.

Speaker 10 What's wrong? Um

Speaker 12 you know that woman in academia feeling where you're just waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Speaker 10 Yes, I do.

Speaker 12 I have uh

Speaker 12 been shooed.

Speaker 10 Oh god. What's happened?

Speaker 12 It's a funny story.

Speaker 10 I'm sure it's hilarious.

Speaker 12 I'm pretty sure your meeting with the dean is about picking up some slack while they find an ad interim head of astrophysics.

Speaker 10 They're firing you?

Speaker 12 Yes. Sort of.
I don't actually know what they're going to do yet, but it's going to be whatever you do when you fire someone with tenure.

Speaker 10 You can't fire someone with tenure.

Speaker 12 Right, but they can nail me shut in a pine box, academically speaking. They're going to do whatever they can, and they can do a lot.

Speaker 10 On what fucking grounds?

Speaker 12 Well, I'm sure they'll say something about my lack of publishing, something like that.

Speaker 10 I've read all your publishing.

Speaker 12 You read my drafts?

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 10 They're great.

Speaker 12 Thank you. I think so too.

Speaker 10 Then what the hell?

Speaker 12 Well, there is that pesky step of actually submitting things for review.

Speaker 10 Pesky step.

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 10 How much have you submitted?

Speaker 12 Um I'm gonna say none.

Speaker 10 None?

Speaker 10 None? Roughly. Zero is a hard number.
You can't say roughly zero. Wait, it's zero.
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 10 That's fine.

Speaker 10 That's fine.

Speaker 10 Start the process right now. Start the process, and when they try to put you in the pine box, you just say you're in the process.

Speaker 12 Hey, I've been sleeping with the dean's wife.

Speaker 10 You.

Speaker 12 So

Speaker 10 I'm gonna need you to rewind your story a little bit. Right.

Speaker 10 Right.

Speaker 12 Well, we met two years ago at a function.

Speaker 10 Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Speaker 10 no.

Speaker 10 A little further back, please.

Speaker 12 So I'm a lesbian. Hi.

Speaker 10 Nice to meet you.

Speaker 12 I'm a private person.

Speaker 10 I have seen you date men.

Speaker 12 Nobody's perfect.

Speaker 10 Jesus Christ, Marguerite.

Speaker 12 I apologize.

Speaker 10 The dean's wife.

Speaker 12 She's actually a lovely person.

Speaker 10 I hope so.

Speaker 12 I kept getting curiously invited to functions when the other professors weren't. She sent the initial signals.

Speaker 10 Oh, you poor thing. You were an innocent victim.

Speaker 12 I really am, Ava.

Speaker 10 What should I have done? Not sleep with a married person? Also, not sleep with a person married to your boss.

Speaker 12 Marriage doesn't mean anything to me. I'm friends.

Speaker 10 You're from Colorado.

Speaker 12 I mean, my ancestor.

Speaker 10 He is going to form a posse and run you out of town.

Speaker 12 I know.

Speaker 10 He knows everyone in academia. Yes.
He's going to ruin you.

Speaker 10 I know. Fuck.

Speaker 10 Well,

Speaker 10 drink your drink, you total stranger to me.

Speaker 12 Okay.

Speaker 12 Another, please.

Speaker 12 I'm sorry I didn't tell you.

Speaker 10 We've been working together for seven years.

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 10 You're right down the hall.

Speaker 10 You're the only person I don't want to murder.

Speaker 12 It's an easy thing to miss. We both had our heads down in our work.

Speaker 10 You've had your head down in something.

Speaker 12 You never asked either, by the way.

Speaker 10 Yes, because asking a colleague their sexual orientation in an academic setting could never cause any problems.

Speaker 12 You could have asked leading questions.

Speaker 10 It is not my job to encyclopedia Brown your sexuality. Fine, okay.

Speaker 10 I can't believe you didn't publish any of the things I read. I know.

Speaker 10 It's not getting published now.

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 12 But here's the thing.

Speaker 12 There's a reason why I didn't publish them. It's actually the main reason I'm here.

Speaker 10 What are you talking about?

Speaker 10 What is this?

Speaker 12 Oh, uh, also these two flash drives.

Speaker 10 What is this? I haven't seen any of this.

Speaker 12 That's the reason I didn't publish. That's what I've really been working on.
I haven't been publishing because

Speaker 12 everything in these notes and those two flash drives disproves everything I would have published. In fact, it disproves...

Speaker 12 It disproves most things, Ava.

Speaker 10 What are you talking about?

Speaker 12 It wasn't a big bang.

Speaker 10 Keep talking.

Speaker 12 If you

Speaker 12 watch... The first three acts of Hamlet.

Speaker 12 It's about a guy who never does anything, but loves to talk about doing something.

Speaker 12 Not a great story. You really need those last two acts.

Speaker 10 Okay.

Speaker 12 We're in Act 3 of the universe.

Speaker 12 The beginning of Act III, even.

Speaker 12 We think we know the end by looking at the beginning, but it's a more interesting story than that.

Speaker 12 Who in their right mind would watch the first half of Hamlet and assume he's just going to keep doing the same thing over and over again?

Speaker 10 So then,

Speaker 10 how does it end?

Speaker 12 It doesn't.

Speaker 12 The lights fade, and the curtain lowers,

Speaker 12 and then we do it all again tomorrow for a different audience.

Speaker 10 You've been working on the big bounce theory?

Speaker 12 Secretly. On my own, since college.
In quiet moments to myself.

Speaker 12 You know, the quiet moments when you're post-coital with the dean's wife.

Speaker 10 Are you serious about this?

Speaker 12 Yes, look,

Speaker 12 I know I'm kind of a goofball most of the time. I forget things.

Speaker 12 I don't take things seriously that everyone else does.

Speaker 12 I miss important parties. I don't read enough journals.
I hardly ever get my oil changed in my car. I kind of...

Speaker 12 blow off most normal human things.

Speaker 12 You've seen it happen. But as it turns out, there's a reason for that because everything in those notes and those flash drives tells me that everything we've been doing is wrong.

Speaker 12 How do you take your work seriously when you feel that at its core it's fundamentally flawed?

Speaker 5 Marguerite,

Speaker 10 this would change

Speaker 10 everything.

Speaker 11 I know.

Speaker 10 If you're right, then people have to know about this.

Speaker 12 They won't.

Speaker 10 What?

Speaker 12 Don't play dumb with me.

Speaker 10 I'm not.

Speaker 12 No one's going to listen to me. Maybe a hundred years from now, someone will find my notes and realize that a nutty professor from Cornell was right all along, but it'll just be a footnote.

Speaker 12 I'll just be another right after the fact scientist. It's not enough to be right.
People have to believe that you're the kind of person that can be right. Nobody thinks that about me.
Not even you.

Speaker 12 Look at you. You think I'm crazy.

Speaker 10 No, I don't.

Speaker 12 A little bit?

Speaker 10 Maybe a little bit. But you seriously think that the Big Bang didn't happen?

Speaker 12 No, it happened. It just isn't what we think it is.
We're not spiraling toward the total heat death of the universe. We're just halfway through a long and beautiful story.

Speaker 12 One that will be told over and over again for eternity.

Speaker 12 Everything in the universe condensed to a single point and then boom.

Speaker 12 The universe is created. Then after billions of years it slowly comes back together again and collapses in on itself down to that single point.

Speaker 12 Then

Speaker 10 boom.

Speaker 12 And we do it all over again.

Speaker 10 And you've proven this.

Speaker 12 I have for me.

Speaker 12 I have decided to now leave it on your desk desk and make it your problem.

Speaker 10 Astrophysics isn't even my field.

Speaker 12 I know, but I'm not going to give it to one of the fucking idiots down the hall.

Speaker 10 You're just going to leave me with a mess.

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 12 I'm leaving you with something you've been looking for.

Speaker 10 What do you mean?

Speaker 12 In those notes is a new draft of the universe. In my universe, things make sense that didn't make sense before.

Speaker 10 Like what?

Speaker 12 Like your big secret, Ava.

Speaker 10 Like,

Speaker 12 let's say you're a theoretical physicist who keeps telling people that she's discovered a single point of null entropy in the universe.

Speaker 12 In the current model of the universe, a single point of null entropy is impossible. In my model of the universe, it makes complete sense.

Speaker 10 And you still didn't tell me?

Speaker 10 My world fits perfectly into yours and you said nothing.

Speaker 12 Remember when I first started here and you hated me?

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 12 I kept saying, let's go get a drink. I kept saying, there's a free concert on the grass.
Let's go check it out.

Speaker 12 Every time you would move your office, I would help you move without you asking and it would really annoy you.

Speaker 10 I remember.

Speaker 12 Considering these new revelations about me, does all of that maybe make a little more sense now?

Speaker 12 I tried to convince you a while back that our worlds fit together, but you weren't listening.

Speaker 12 So I kept it to myself.

Speaker 12 Maybe a little bit out of spite. And I'm sorry about that, too.

Speaker 12 I have to go. The dean's wife is waiting for me on my couch.

Speaker 10 Oh my god.

Speaker 12 He thinks she's staying at her sister's, but she's not staying at her sister's, sister. She's staying with me.

Speaker 10 Are you out of your mind?

Speaker 12 Hey, I'm not going to be a pariah and single.

Speaker 10 Well,

Speaker 10 tell her I said hi.

Speaker 10 I will.

Speaker 12 So, will you call me when you've gone through all that?

Speaker 10 Yes, I will, but

Speaker 10 I don't know what to do with it all, regardless.

Speaker 12 Ava, look around.

Speaker 12 It's our universe.

Speaker 12 They just don't know it yet.

Speaker 12 Call me soon.

Speaker 10 Okay.

Speaker 10 Hey, Sue.

Speaker 10 Listen,

Speaker 10 I know the Dean needs to meet with me, but I'm afraid we're gonna have to do it first thing Monday.

Speaker 10 I know.

Speaker 10 He'll be upset, but something's come up.

Speaker 10 It's an emergency.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I'm sure he'll get over it.

Speaker 10 Okay.

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Speaker 1 So he's...

Speaker 2 he's not dead.

Speaker 2 He could have been on this months ago.

Speaker 11 Stop this. Please, Maya, no more.
I think we've just begun.

Speaker 3 Enjoy!

Speaker 11 Stay back, Evan.

Speaker 1 I'm not Evan Wexler, remember?

Speaker 11 Just what are you? Unkillable.

Speaker 1 I'm real enough for you.

Speaker 11 And now I

Speaker 9 know.

Speaker 9 I don't think so.

Speaker 9 So

Speaker 12 we've got work to do.

Speaker 13 The 100-handed lost souls.

Speaker 15 Available now wherever you get your podcasts or at 100-handed. That's one zero zero-handed dot com.