WEBVTT
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Paranormal Salad, The Dressing, The Ember Timeline and RJPC Studio
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audio production written by Robert Jerome Pegan, performed by Jack's Ember.
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Created and produced by Robert drum Pegan. This program is
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a work of dramatic fiction. Listener discretion is advised.
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Episode two. The woman in the classic was not large
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enough for two people.
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I want to establish that because memory gets accused of
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exaggeration whenever the supernatural becomes inconvenient. Her closet was narrow,
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built in to the wall beside a dormitory room at
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the seminary. It held three shirts, one winter shirt I
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could not afford to replace, a pair of shoes I hated,
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and a wooden shell that smelled like old cedar and
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somebody else's cigarettes. When I hid inside it, my knees
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touched the door. When she sat beside me, there was room.
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That was the first impossible thing. The second impostle.
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Thing is that I did not scream. I had every
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reason to scream. I was twenty years old, hiding from
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a bishop who had just spent the better part of
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an hour explaining that desire was a kind of spiritual infection.
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And there was suddenly a woman sitting in a closet,
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but did not physically have space for Earth. But does
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strange things when you have already been afraid for too long.
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Sometimes the new horror rives and your nervous system looks
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at it and says, take a number.
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Her dress was dark, I remember that black.
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Or maybe something wet clung to the fabric around her knees,
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though the closet was dry. Her hair hung forward enough
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that I could not see her own face. She smelled
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faintly of rain. There had been no rain that week.
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I was trying not to.
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Breathe loudly because I could hear footsteps in the corridor.
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She turned her head toward me, Daniel, she whispered. My
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stomach drop so hard that I might throw up. Daniel
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was not supposed to exist in that build. Daniel was
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another seminary. He was funny, and the way people became
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funny when humor is the only form of rebellion they
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can afford. He sang badly on purpose during morning prayer
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because he knew it irritated Father Bell. He had beautiful hands.
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I noticed his hands before I noticed anything else, which
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I realized sounds like something an elderly poet would say
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about his first love.
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There it is nobody knew.
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At least I thought nobody knew. The woman whispered another name,
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then another. Boys I had noticed men I had wanted.
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One name belonged to somebody I had kissed exactly once
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behind a theater before seminary, and then spent three weeks
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asking God to make me forgive. She knew all of them.
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The footstep stopped outside of the closet. I covered my mouth.
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The woman raised one finger.
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To her list, don't you, she said.
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The door handle moved, and I obeyed her. The detail.
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That detail has bothered me for years. People want their
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origin stories to be clean. They want the first supernatural
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encounter to teach your hero something mobile.
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Mine taught me.
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That when a priest and a ghost give contradictory instructions,
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I must trust the ghost.
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The handle mood to get The bishop said my name
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from the other.
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Side, not Jack's, the name I had before Jackson. I'm
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not giving a gene. Some things remained mind. The woman
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beside me leaned close enough that I could feel cold
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against my cheek.
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You cannot come inside unless you answer, she whispered.
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I did not answer. The bishop stood there for what
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felt like an hour, It was probably thirty seconds. Human
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terror is terrible at clocks. Then his footsteps moved again.
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I stayed inside the closet. The woman stayed with me.
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I should tell you I prayed, but I didn't. I
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should tell you I reached for a cross.
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Hanging beneath my shirt. I didn't do that either. I
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sat beside an impossible woman and then felt safer with
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her than I had felt with the men who were
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supposed to represent God. That is the wound underneath everything
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that came later. It is not that the church made
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me gay before anyone writes that stupid sentence on the internet. No, no,
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I arrived gay efficiently, with excellent timing, terrible taste in them.
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The church didn't. The Church did something more.
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Useful to the darkness. It taught me that fear could
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wear the ford. It taught me that shame could sound holy.
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It taught me that the person threatening me might also
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claim to be protecting me. Most importantly, it taught me
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that secret desire creates secret rooms. Things like secret rooms.
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When the corridor I finally went quiet, I turned to
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the woman, What are you?
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I asked.
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Her.
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Hair moved, though there was no air. She smiled, not wildly,
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not monstrously. That would have been easier.
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She smiled like somebody who had just learned something important
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about Then the closet was too small again. My shoulders
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hit the wall, my knees stuck to the door. The
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second body was gone. I opened the closet and crawled
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into the dormitory room. There was no water on the floor.
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There was no footprints. Believe me, I checked anyway. I
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checked because that was the night I became an investigator.
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Though it would take me years to admit it. I
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measured the closet. That is the most jacks emver thing
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I have ever done. I was shaking so badly I
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could not bare the old the ruler, But I measured
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the fucking closet thirty one inches deep, forty three inches wide,
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not enough room for two seated adults. I wrote the
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numbers on the back of a prayer con. I still
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have it. It's on my bookshelf. Not because it proves anything,
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it does not. I keep it because the twenty year
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old who wrote those measurements was terrified and still thought
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facts might save him. I found a fondness with that boy.
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I wish I could tell him.
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They would help. The woman came back. Of course she
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came back. Not every night. That would have been considerate.
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Predictable hauntings are practical a scheduling issue. She appeared when
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something in me was splitting, when I lied, when I
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wanted someone, when I felt, when I stood in front
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of the mirror and tried to decide whether God, whether
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God hated what I was looking act. Sometimes she was
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in the closet. Sometimes she appeared behind me in the mirror.
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Once I saw her at the far end the chapel
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after midnight, sitting in the front pew, as if she
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had arrived early for Mass.
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She never attacked me.
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That became part of the problem. You can build defenses
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against an attacker, you can hate an attacker. A witness
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is harder. She watched me become myself. Years later, when
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Chloe Higgins hid inside another closet and told me there
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was a woman in there with her, I felt twenty
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years at old again. Before she finished that sentence, I
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felt them. This is why I made mistakes in that house.
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I knew better. I made them anyway. But we will
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get there.
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For now, understand this, the woman was not trapped in
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a closet. I spent years thinking that was the haunting.
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It was not.
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The closet was simply the first place where the darkness
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learned how to reach me. And I made the mistake
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of thinking that because she had never hurt me, she
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was not dangerous. I have made that mistake more than once.
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There is another detail I left out of the very
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public version. The bishop was not pounding on the closet
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door like a monster. He knocked like three small taps.
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That made it worse.
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Monsters in movies announced themselves because movies respect your schedule.
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Real authority lowers its voice and makes you come closer.
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I remember the rule of my trousers scratching my knee.
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I remember the splinter under my left arm. I remember
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Daniel's note folded in my pocket, the one that said
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I was allowed to want things.
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I was allowed to want things.
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I remember thinking that if the Bishop found it, the
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note would become evidence, not evidence that Daniel loved me,
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editence that something was wrong with me. That is what
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Shane does. It takes tenderness and labels it counterback. The
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woman watched all of this without blinking. When she whispered names.
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She did not sound cruel, she sounded curious. That was
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the part I could not explain later. If she had
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mocked me, I could have hated her. Instead, she handled
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my secrets like someone's cataloging objects in a museum. Daniel Miguel,
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a bartender whose name I had never learned.
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The boy Inquire, who rolled his sleeves to his.
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Elbow, little stupid human wants.
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She knew exactly which one's had teeth.
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You have been listening to Paranormal Salad, The Dressing the
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Ember Timeline written by Robert Jerome Pagan, performed by Jax Ember, created, directed,
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edited and produced by Robert Jerome Pagan, Sound design and
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production by RJPC Studios. Audio. Paranormal Salad the Ember Timeline
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are productions of RJPCS Studios LLC. Follow Paranormal Salad wherever
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you listen to podcasts for the next Confession
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Paranormal Salad, The Dressing, The Ember Timeline and RJPC Studio
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audio production written by Robert Jerome Pegan, performed by Jack's Ember.
3
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Created and produced by Robert drum Pegan. This program is
4
00:00:18.760 --> 00:00:22.399
a work of dramatic fiction. Listener discretion is advised.
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00:00:29.359 --> 00:00:41.479
Episode two. The woman in the classic was not large
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00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:42.719
enough for two people.
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00:00:45.320 --> 00:00:50.799
I want to establish that because memory gets accused of
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00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:58.280
exaggeration whenever the supernatural becomes inconvenient. Her closet was narrow,
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built in to the wall beside a dormitory room at
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the seminary. It held three shirts, one winter shirt I
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could not afford to replace, a pair of shoes I hated,
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and a wooden shell that smelled like old cedar and
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somebody else's cigarettes. When I hid inside it, my knees
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touched the door. When she sat beside me, there was room.
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That was the first impossible thing. The second impostle.
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Thing is that I did not scream. I had every
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reason to scream. I was twenty years old, hiding from
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a bishop who had just spent the better part of
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an hour explaining that desire was a kind of spiritual infection.
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And there was suddenly a woman sitting in a closet,
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but did not physically have space for Earth. But does
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strange things when you have already been afraid for too long.
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Sometimes the new horror rives and your nervous system looks
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at it and says, take a number.
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Her dress was dark, I remember that black.
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Or maybe something wet clung to the fabric around her knees,
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though the closet was dry. Her hair hung forward enough
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that I could not see her own face. She smelled
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faintly of rain. There had been no rain that week.
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I was trying not to.
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Breathe loudly because I could hear footsteps in the corridor.
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She turned her head toward me, Daniel, she whispered. My
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stomach drop so hard that I might throw up. Daniel
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was not supposed to exist in that build. Daniel was
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another seminary. He was funny, and the way people became
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funny when humor is the only form of rebellion they
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can afford. He sang badly on purpose during morning prayer
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because he knew it irritated Father Bell. He had beautiful hands.
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00:03:21.879 --> 00:03:26.879
I noticed his hands before I noticed anything else, which
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00:03:26.919 --> 00:03:30.680
I realized sounds like something an elderly poet would say
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about his first love.
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There it is nobody knew.
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At least I thought nobody knew. The woman whispered another name,
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00:03:48.719 --> 00:03:53.039
then another. Boys I had noticed men I had wanted.
45
00:03:54.199 --> 00:03:57.360
One name belonged to somebody I had kissed exactly once
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00:03:57.479 --> 00:04:01.319
behind a theater before seminary, and then spent three weeks
47
00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:06.400
asking God to make me forgive. She knew all of them.
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00:04:06.719 --> 00:04:10.319
The footstep stopped outside of the closet. I covered my mouth.
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00:04:11.719 --> 00:04:13.680
The woman raised one finger.
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To her list, don't you, she said.
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The door handle moved, and I obeyed her. The detail.
52
00:04:27.879 --> 00:04:31.959
That detail has bothered me for years. People want their
53
00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:35.800
origin stories to be clean. They want the first supernatural
54
00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:39.600
encounter to teach your hero something mobile.
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00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:40.480
Mine taught me.
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That when a priest and a ghost give contradictory instructions,
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I must trust the ghost.
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The handle mood to get The bishop said my name
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from the other.
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Side, not Jack's, the name I had before Jackson. I'm
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not giving a gene. Some things remained mind. The woman
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00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:16.399
beside me leaned close enough that I could feel cold
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00:05:16.600 --> 00:05:18.759
against my cheek.
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You cannot come inside unless you answer, she whispered.
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I did not answer. The bishop stood there for what
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00:05:41.439 --> 00:05:47.600
felt like an hour, It was probably thirty seconds. Human
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terror is terrible at clocks. Then his footsteps moved again.
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I stayed inside the closet. The woman stayed with me.
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I should tell you I prayed, but I didn't. I
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should tell you I reached for a cross.
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Hanging beneath my shirt. I didn't do that either. I
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00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:21.639
sat beside an impossible woman and then felt safer with
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her than I had felt with the men who were
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00:06:26.959 --> 00:06:31.439
supposed to represent God. That is the wound underneath everything
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00:06:31.560 --> 00:06:34.439
that came later. It is not that the church made
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00:06:34.519 --> 00:06:41.319
me gay before anyone writes that stupid sentence on the internet. No, no,
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I arrived gay efficiently, with excellent timing, terrible taste in them.
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The church didn't. The Church did something more.
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Useful to the darkness. It taught me that fear could
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wear the ford. It taught me that shame could sound holy.
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It taught me that the person threatening me might also
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claim to be protecting me. Most importantly, it taught me
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that secret desire creates secret rooms. Things like secret rooms.
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When the corridor I finally went quiet, I turned to
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the woman, What are you?
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I asked.
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Her.
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Hair moved, though there was no air. She smiled, not wildly,
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not monstrously. That would have been easier.
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She smiled like somebody who had just learned something important
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about Then the closet was too small again. My shoulders
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hit the wall, my knees stuck to the door. The
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second body was gone. I opened the closet and crawled
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into the dormitory room. There was no water on the floor.
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There was no footprints. Believe me, I checked anyway. I
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checked because that was the night I became an investigator.
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Though it would take me years to admit it. I
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measured the closet. That is the most jacks emver thing
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I have ever done. I was shaking so badly I
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could not bare the old the ruler, But I measured
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the fucking closet thirty one inches deep, forty three inches wide,
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not enough room for two seated adults. I wrote the
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numbers on the back of a prayer con. I still
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have it. It's on my bookshelf. Not because it proves anything,
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it does not. I keep it because the twenty year
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old who wrote those measurements was terrified and still thought
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facts might save him. I found a fondness with that boy.
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I wish I could tell him.
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They would help. The woman came back. Of course she
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came back. Not every night. That would have been considerate.
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Predictable hauntings are practical a scheduling issue. She appeared when
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something in me was splitting, when I lied, when I
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wanted someone, when I felt, when I stood in front
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of the mirror and tried to decide whether God, whether
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God hated what I was looking act. Sometimes she was
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in the closet. Sometimes she appeared behind me in the mirror.
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Once I saw her at the far end the chapel
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after midnight, sitting in the front pew, as if she
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had arrived early for Mass.
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She never attacked me.
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That became part of the problem. You can build defenses
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against an attacker, you can hate an attacker. A witness
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is harder. She watched me become myself. Years later, when
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Chloe Higgins hid inside another closet and told me there
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was a woman in there with her, I felt twenty
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years at old again. Before she finished that sentence, I
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felt them. This is why I made mistakes in that house.
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I knew better. I made them anyway. But we will
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get there.
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For now, understand this, the woman was not trapped in
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a closet. I spent years thinking that was the haunting.
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It was not.
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The closet was simply the first place where the darkness
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learned how to reach me. And I made the mistake
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of thinking that because she had never hurt me, she
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was not dangerous. I have made that mistake more than once.
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There is another detail I left out of the very
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public version. The bishop was not pounding on the closet
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door like a monster. He knocked like three small taps.
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That made it worse.
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Monsters in movies announced themselves because movies respect your schedule.
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Real authority lowers its voice and makes you come closer.
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I remember the rule of my trousers scratching my knee.
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I remember the splinter under my left arm. I remember
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Daniel's note folded in my pocket, the one that said
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I was allowed to want things.
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I was allowed to want things.
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I remember thinking that if the Bishop found it, the
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note would become evidence, not evidence that Daniel loved me,
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editence that something was wrong with me. That is what
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Shane does. It takes tenderness and labels it counterback. The
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woman watched all of this without blinking. When she whispered names.
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She did not sound cruel, she sounded curious. That was
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the part I could not explain later. If she had
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mocked me, I could have hated her. Instead, she handled
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my secrets like someone's cataloging objects in a museum. Daniel Miguel,
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a bartender whose name I had never learned.
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The boy Inquire, who rolled his sleeves to his.
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Elbow, little stupid human wants.
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She knew exactly which one's had teeth.
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You have been listening to Paranormal Salad, The Dressing the
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Ember Timeline written by Robert Jerome Pagan, performed by Jax Ember, created, directed,
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edited and produced by Robert Jerome Pagan, Sound design and
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production by RJPC Studios. Audio. Paranormal Salad the Ember Timeline
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00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:34.519
are productions of RJPCS Studios LLC. Follow Paranormal Salad wherever
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you listen to podcasts for the next Confession
