S4/E2 | Socialization

Thirteen Days of Halloween Pennance, a co production of iHeart three D Audio Blumhouse Television and Grim and Mild from Aaron Yankee. Headphones recommended Listener discretion advised.

What where am I back in Kansas? Dorothy?

Is it time for breakfast?

I'm not glad breakfast in an hour?

What do I do till then?

How should I know?

Oh?

My god, your names? You'll b too much?

Well, they left the door open. So many cells. I didn't even think about the showers. I wonder where this goes?

And what do we have here?

Weight room, TV room, library? Well, this doesn't seem so confusing, art room, Another room?

This one's locked.

Locked?

Weight room again?

Wait, how did I Where did I come in from?

You gotta be kidding me? Where's the good?

Damn?

Oh Jesus Christ, welcome. Sorry, I didn't mean to stalk at you. Can I help you?

I am lost?

Where are you trying to go?

I don't know?

Then?

How could you be lost? You're the priest in so far that labels are important to you. Here they call me the chaplain.

Well that's what they call priests in prison.

Hospitals too, right, right right?

I almost forgot the party line. We never say the P word around here. Just testing you. So you are also insisting to me that this is not some kind of fucked up jail.

I was playing yes and yes, and hospitals, schools, labor unions, militaries, chaplains can be found in many places.

Well, what do you call this place?

The chapel?

So what do you want from me?

Exactly as I remember you came to me. Is there something on your mind?

Why do I get the impression that you are just another prison spy?

Maybe because everything that has happened to you recently has been destabilizing, and you've been forced in so many one sided conversations in air quotes where every question comes loaded with ulterior motives that you've been left wondering who, if anyone, you can trust.

That's just a guess.

It's a good guess. So wait, are you saying that you're the one person in this whole god forsaken place that isn't trying to work one over on me? That you're not going to try to convert me and brainwash me and interrogate me. And I just happen to stumble through your door.

I leave it to you to make up your own mind about that and whether you really think that God has forsaken this place. But I will say there is no obligation here. If you'd like the space to yourself, I can go. But if you'd like to talk, I'm here for that too.

I'm not supposed to be here. How do you know I'm innocent?

Any of us truly?

In Oh?

Whatever? You know that's not what I meant. I'm saying I did not commit any crime, and even if I had, how would I know? Since not a single goddamn person will tell me what I am accused of. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to swear in the chapel.

You wouldn't be the first, but you being here it means more than you think. You are not accused. You have been convicted. Ah shit, I'm sorry to be the one to make that clear.

No, No, it's just do you know what time it is?

My watch has a minute plus six.

I'm late for a thing, So.

We can do this anytime you like.

I'll be here right bye.

Peace be with you, and also with you.

Rip Si, you're can I have back cut?

Really?

She's new here. Listen, follow right behind me. Don't take anything. I don't take and leave when I leave.

I appreciate it, but I think I can handle a lunch line. Hey, listen, you ever see anyone outside their rooms after lights out?

You mean besides the guards.

In the middle of the night, some blonde woman walked right up to my cell. She was barefoot and singing, singing out loud. I realized that sounds.

Crazy, doubtful to be the craziest thing I hear today.

It felt like a dream, but I'm sure it was real.

It's a difference. You want bread?

Is it?

Okay?

It's food? Caught you wine? I we'll see.

The hell was that?

They were calling you my fish?

What I am not your?

What is this fish? It's always fish, any particular kind. Ain't got all day frip.

That's all we need. Let's scoop.

But what about the rest of the food?

That up there? We call that the special?

What's in it?

Nothing? You want? Hey, Hypna?

How much some much struck?

Are you?

Honey?

Always?

This here is shaky, Pete, Please to meet you?

Darn it?

That draft and our meditating friend here is CALLI.

And six CALLI, yes, please to meet you. Forgive me. I have to keep my eyes closed while I count huh.

You'll see. And lastly, Galina, do.

Not call me that young frip. You know well exactly who I am.

Fine, nemo, old timer's this, here's cy let's.

See it, you dear, you still smell it outside? What time is it out there?

I mean six thirty?

Maybe?

Are her eyes always closed?

I've never seen them open.

It's how they get you, It's how they got pat. I have a open my papers and no, no, you know what I mean outside? What year is it out there?

Ignore her? Kelly's gone off her? Rugger?

What year do you think it is?

I said, don't noh, now where was I nine hundred ninety nine million nine?

Can that want to help me get my spools here?

Let me six stick too? I imagine you can lose track of time in a place like this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's no use. Once you get in. It doesn't matter at that time. Hey, well, he don't get ended of a companion, It gets into us.

So this is the old Timers club, older than you know, mortal.

We four may be the only people here with a full awareness of reality. I see for steered you astray from the special capital effort, My lad.

Well known, what are you twenty years old.

It's an interesting question, my fish, and I'm afraid the answers are not as simple as we would all hope them to be. See our friend Peter there, Peter, Peter, how old are you?

Well, that's easy. When I at my where I was nineteen, I was nineteen when I got here at twenty five, I think I'm the newest one who I was.

By my count, Peter is somewhere between ninety five and thirty two years old. You see, I'm always counting.

Heah, we know, head mathematician of the Oldheimers.

So wait, what is this old timers club? Exactly like you've been here? The longest.

Common misconception. No, I'm afraid, and I don't mean afraid. You understand there are many older than us, which is the ones who remember the old time. You'll see time is different here. It doesn't change. Of course, when you're in the thick of it, it feels like nothing really changes, doesn't it. When I was young, in the before, I was a book one, a homely little thing with a

I'd say.

There are more than nine billion names of God, each with powers all their own. To know these names entire would be to court meanness. Instead, the curious student of the arts needs only meditate on the actions, the mechanisms of these sacred sounds all they can achieve. Soon I wasn't reading the book so much as hearing it. It spoke to me, guided my hand, it is me what I wanted. Normally, I could give a thousand different answers

I could not lie.

I hated those girls, the ones with all the suitors, the ones in the headlines the book. Knew why I want to be one of them. I want to be a star. When the book closed, it took my blood. Drink it up like water soaking into a dessert. I heard it. I know it wasn't a language eye or any person living could speak, but somehow I understood it. You will have you to say, come to us when the time arrives. Only ass that you close your eyes

I knew it.

Thank you, Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Now we'll have a brief intermission so the ladies can take a powder stick around and avail yourself with the best spirits in camp jack City.

Well, boss, what's it look like out there?

Just horrid?

Edith?

You're singing flat this attire?

Janus?

Then makeup? Are you additioning to be a clown? Now?

What about me?

You calliope?

I've seen cripples with better choreography. Listen you don't. It's one, two, one two left leg, right leg repeat? Pearl wants lift skirt repeat?

Can you count?

I can?

I'm sorry, sir, of course I can't.

Can you How high can you count?

Can you count?

Two?

It's the number after one? Just close your eyes, close some damn it. Get in that corner. Count to a billion for all I care.

You're fired?

What could I do?

I walked to the corner like a scolded child. I close my eyes, I counted. I felt so foolish, humiliated. Magic of all things?

Five?

How long to be far away? For all of this to disappear?

Seventh?

And in my mind the book answered, no, you have returned. You granted? They willy.

That's the whole place burned down.

Two hundred and seventy nine people gone, just like that. How do you say it's all a misunderstanding. I didn't want everyone to die that wasn't my desire. I wanted to be famous. I am going to be famous. Hey will come for me and set me free, and I'll be a star.

Who is he?

Why?

Satan? Of course? Who else?

Um?

Don't ask me, you'll say.

I'll talk to him again and he'll set everything straight. All I have to do is keep my eyes closed and I stay in the wish the open eyes. Now whatever I see will be reality. This is only a moment. You, all of you are nothing but figments of my imagination. I will remember practice each step of the dance in my head. Maybe if you're nice, I'll thank you on stage when he returns and frees me.

Why did I tell you crazy?

This is just a temporary sit back, mind you. Once I get the word, I'll open my eyes and I'll be on Broadway. It's crucial that I don't forget that. And that's why I don'pe bar taking.

The special the special again? Okay, what are you saying? It's some kind of mnesia potion.

Oh, I don't think we should talk about it. It's a secret. You can get into trouble for telling secrets. That's how I got here. If I forget how it happened. I'll be like all the rest, you won't believe it. But once upon a time I was a steady man, voice, hands, heart and all I sang the old song, and the earth sang back five degrees north, six degrees.

I was what you call a.

Doodle bug, the dowser, the volume man. It's an ancient vocation. Few members my family had it every generation. The others went mad.

Do you hear it? Hear it?

You?

It's coming from the ground.

And I remember how it felt, you know, even out in the dust bowld days, I could walk along the thirsting calichi of the desert and feel the vibrations you call them, the movements of precious things under the horrid skin of dessert, like blood flowing through a vein, or enormous heart beating waiting to raise its hand and greet me in the night.

Ah.

A lot of folks didn't believe in the art. They called me a flim flammer, snake, oil sailsman, a carn artist. Till they could desperate, hungry, hopeless. You could walk into a town in fields loost of it. You could see the grief they wanted to weep, but there was no water.

To spare.

We can't go on like this.

There's no crop, there's no far.

We'll have to move like everyone else where, there's nowhere to go.

Oh, pleas, sir, bless your hallelujah. You well praise me. You are our salvation.

There was a murderous drought all around the land back then. I must have traveled clear across the Great Southwest, finding what little water remained. Did I charge for all this?

Sure?

It was my livelihood, But I was honest. And you can't find what's not there. I'm sorry, there's nothing here. Even the folks who believe in the ark, well, my, most of them don't understand the truth of it. First thousand ain't just for while. If I get the right things together, I can divine for don anything lost, treasure, lost, people. I can find what's forgotten.

We thought we'd lost.

You.

Second, a power like this, it's it's not about taking it. It's a trade, a covenant. For everything I douse, the land demands something in return, a balance, like watching a pendulum swing. I'd save a dying ranch with a new well.

We later cattle would disappear.

I'd find a child lost in the cliffs and cholera would sweep the town. Every miracle has a price, and some are more expensive than others.

Old man Gray foul.

So I'd learned to keep moving, never born, a few days in one place, getting on still I delivered. People knew I was the real McCoy, an actual water man. Wood spread far and wide somewhere out in Arizona.

I got the letter, but.

It's all I have.

I'm sorry, man, I am This year is for you.

I don't know how they found me. I should have known right then something was wrong, but I was on the run. I just doodled bug the van of gold for a nearby prospector, and I knew there'd be hell to pay. Asking Earth for that much gold, it sets a high price. It would be a fire or a plague. I could feel the vibrations of an echoing from the future back to the present, calling the account's due. I needed to be long gone before it hit, and this letter coming at the exact moment I needed in most

Now?

I dousd from anything in my time, People, treasure water, most of all, it's the safest trade to make. But when I got here, they set me on something different. I'm not sure I understand.

Find the bottom, that's all we're cleared to tell you.

Well, what am I looking for?

Management says, you'll know it when you find it.

You want to get paid, right, And.

That was it.

I took out my rod, I sang my songs. I stretched my mind beneath up close. It's like putting your hand in water. Only this wasn't a this whatever this is, it was an ocean. It reached up from the abyss of vibration, grabbed hold and put itself inside me.

He's got it. He's got it, your fools, he's having a seizure.

It's gone it.

Lock it down, it locker, It's still here. It's in me.

Easy, pete, easy, now it's awake.

Now, a long way beneath, but awake. I can feel it.

It's coming for us, your friends, we gotta get out. Set Peter.

Don't let him worry you, young lady. He tells us a similar yarn at least once a fortnight. I imagine it to be some lunatic association with the cycles of the moon.

You know, you seem to be the least crazy person I've met here, No offense, frip.

Just wait, you are both astute and correct, Miss just Cy, will do h Clever names do have power, do they not? Clever sigh?

We could call you.

I won't be here long enough to have a nickname, so just sigh. We'll do well, then, just sygh.

Allow me to give you a truth of this place. I have traveled these halls longer than most. Our budding starlet Calliope is correct. One such as you would be best advised to stay off menu in another life. This small golgatha of bones and guts was any number of fish swimming free without a care in the world, just like you. Hey, watch it gross. Did you know most mortals believe fish have no memory. It assuages them. I

Tonight, it's morning, this is breakfast. M hm.

When was the last time you saw the sunlight the moonlight? Simple sigh? I again assure you it is later than you think. Eat, drink, be merry. Sometime soon you may wish to take the waters of leafy on your own accord.

She's not taking the special Galina.

Wait are we still talking about this later?

Galina? Leave her out of your games. We're not having another caval kaval.

Should you choose to speak with me directly, young FRep, you will say my name you more than most remember.

Is someone gonna tell me what the fuck is going on here?

Demo? Don't do it? Please?

I am more than this fragile shell you see before. You like yourself, like anyone, I find myself caught between one place and the next. I the daughter of Titans, the goddess of memory Nemosny your people called me. I have witnessed all that has passed, or passing or yet to come. Imbrood by Zeus. I beget the nine amuses, one for each phase of what you call the moon, and one more a secret I tell no man, for a secret kept by one is the most powerful of arts.

What she's the well god of memory, she thinks, and now the most unsuccessful escape artists in.

The pen, True Shane, I am young Si, trapped in this mortal vessel, in perversion of my being, all to protect this place you call the pen. I am in a prison within a prison. And while this vessel constrains my powers, it does not prevent me from my thoughts. I was a journalist, a real one, working in the field, writing about conflict at the time. My editor wanted me covering Vietnam, but I was more interested in Cyprus.

For any who are now just joining the program, we can confirm the nations of Turkey and Greece are at war on the shores of Cypress. Turkis forces invaded early this morning following a long dispute over the nationality of the island. A word before we continue. Some of the footage you're about to see is disturbing.

The West chose Greece in the invasion. This wasn't a loud declaration, but it was certain they'd already run the numbers, called the banking cartels, and chosen their investment. The Cold War loomed, and every war was a war of economics, real politic, they called it. Landing on the shores of Pentomile, the chaos was evident, the horror palpable, and a press

Please don't let it end like this. People need to know to remember.

Oh, I'll do anything, Please just help.

Me.

And as I was on the verge of death, something answered.

It took me.

I felt as though my body was a car and I had been pushed into the back seat. When I tried to scream, my voice was no longer my own.

And so the Galina vessel found me. Pulled from depths beyond this mortal world, summoned afler untold ages by a new disciple, I rose with great wrath to seek my revenge.

We've got it.

Contact, repeat contact.

The entity has entered the subject, doesn't matter if.

The vessel bleeds out, Roll it over, block up that wound.

No, God, damn it, chest compressions.

Never mind that fifty secs of domestic before the move and knock her out.

No, the idiot, don't shoot her quick the spell.

By the waters of Lethy, we bind thee.

By the halls of Hades, we bind thee.

By the real Zeus, we bind thee.

By the.

We bind thee.

So it was the pen they kidnapped you, too.

Much worse than that, dear sigh. Just as the gods long ago imprisoned me in the temple, I am bound now to this body. They took also from the sacred waters of Lethy, the river of forgetfulness. That, just sigh, is the special They control, the source, the well spring at the bottom of my old prison. Each morning they slip a small amount into our food, removing pieces of our memories, one spoonful at a time, and it does

There's a last one closing down God me lollables, Look, Lady Nemo, Gillina whatever. I'm not supposed to be here. I need to get out.

I know, just sigh. I know you need to escape, and I can help you. Take this vial. It contains a portion of my power and can unlock almost any barrier, be it a memory or a door. All I ask is, should you reach beyond these walls? You pour half into the sea. How when Kelly reaches a billion, Peter drops his spoon and ceases.

The cards will be distracted. You will stand with your train and walk toward the chow line. When you reach it, you will run young side, just as Galina did. Jump the line, go straight back into the left.

Three times.

You will see a white door. Throw part of this water against it, then go through it.

Do you understand? Well, you're not me one billion?

It's hair, it's here, he's coy.

Oh fuck fuck o fuck left left left, Oh god, it's real ship the Bible? Okay, here goes?

What on earth is this the ocean? It's okay, child, Everyone tries it, at least once.

Just take a sip of dish.

Try to forget. Don't why don't fit In time, you will forget all about it.

Wait?

Wait?

Why am I on the floor?

Good enough? Ready?

Get what's happening?

Where are you taking me?

What the dungeon?

Oh yea.

High high.

Thirteen Days of Halloween Pennance starring Natalie Morales, Episode two, Socialization, written by Ben Bolan and Alexander Williams. Editing and sound design by Josh Thain, featuring the voices of Morgan Brown, Wilbur Fitzgerald, Rachel Rosenbloom, Joseph Whipp, Laura Shine, Miguel Perez, Chris j Alex, Wayne Bastrup, Sonny Bowling, Lauren Vogelbaum, Ben Bohlan, Blair Chandler, Alex Bowling, Jay Jones, and Raphael Corkill. Directed