Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - All I want for Christmas… - Stephanie’s Mystery Book & Dave Makes Snow

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

“It will snow. And it will be deep and crisp and even.”Some alternate approaches to festive gift giving on this week’s pod. In our first story a mysterious parcel keeps the family guessing, while in our second, Dave will go to any lengths to give Morley her Christmas wish. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. So, are you ready? Is your shopping done? Or are you one of those crazy people? You can't see it, but my hand is raised here. Are you one of those crazy people who's already finished wrapping all your presents? We're all about Christmas gifts this week on the pod. We have two Dave and Morley stories for you, two stories about alternate approaches to gift giving. Let's start with this one. This is Stuart McLean with Stephanie's mystery book.

So, it was two weeks before Christmas not this Christmas this was a few years ago Stephanie was in university but only in first year living in residence and Sam her little brother Sam was still a little guy so it was night, about a half hour before the stores closed, and Stephanie was standing near the back of a little bookstore not far from Raz. It had been snowing since supper, three hours straight. One of those rare snowfalls that gives winter a good name. Big powdery flakes blanking the city in, well, silence as much as anything. If you happened by that night and glanced into the bookstore through the snow, you would have caught Stephanie's profile through the books and through the window.

She was wearing a gray and brown tweed coat, her tall fry boots, and knitted leg warmers. One of the great benefits about being Stephanie's age is that you can wear stuff like that as if it's vintage. If something about the store, or perhaps even her, had caught your attention, if you had stopped and gone inside because you thought you knew her, or perhaps thought you'd like to, or maybe because a book caught your eye, whatever the reason, if you went in and brushed the snow off your coat at the door and looked back to where she was standing, you would have seen her big green bag on the floor beside her and her green wool gloves resting on top of it. And if you were good at this sort of thing, you would have deduced by the puddle at her feet and around the bag that she had been standing there with that book in her hand for a good time before you came in.

Lost to the world. And so absorbed in the book she was holding that you weren't going to be getting her attention if her attention was even what you wanted in the first place. And if you did that, if you walked into that little bookstore on that snowy night just before Christmas a couple of years ago, and you walked by Stephanie, and you glanced at the book she was holding, this is what you would have seen. and you glanced at the book she was holding, this is what you would have seen. An oversized book, the kind people put on coffee tables with a deep blue cover. And though it would have been hard to pick out details in the light,

you might have picked out the picture of the dragon or the winged horse. There was a ship, too, a sailing ship, and a skull. You might have seen them, but you wouldn't have caught the title, that's for sure. But I can tell you the title. The book she was pouring over was called An Atlas of Myths and Legends. She was working her way through it from back to front. It would have probably been around the G's when you walked in, somewhere around gnomes, goblins, and gremlins. It was one of those books that presented these things as if they exist, with lovely illustrations and maps all laid out very convincingly. Stephanie had already read about watchers and witches, Rakshashas and Sakharabra.

On another day, at another time of the year, she wouldn't notice the book. She'd been in that very bookstore often and had never noticed it. And if she had noticed it, that is, she wouldn't have picked it up. But it was, as I've said, almost Christmas. And that book reminded her of another book. A book that had arrived in her life at this time of the year, many years ago.

of the year many years ago. It had come in the mail wrapped in brown paper a package addressed not to her but to her entire family. Her mother morally had waited until after supper to open it until Dave got home. Stephanie doesn't remember that part she was just a small girl after all. What she did remember, however, or thought she remembered was a flurry of paper and then a great humming and hawing because the book had arrived without a card or note or return address. Even the postmark was smudged. There was absolutely nothing to give any clue as to where or, more importantly, from whom the book had come. Could have come from anyone. But there wasn't anyone ready to admit it.

Morley, not wanting to let the gift go unacknowledged, checked with everyone she could think of. She checked with all her family and Dave Dave's mother Margaret in Cape Breton, and his sister Annie in Halifax, and cousin Dorothy in England, she asked, each of them about the book, and a whole bunch of others. And no one seemed to know what she was talking about. Dave asked around too, or said he would. And he did think about doing that. But, well, when you thought about it, when you considered all of the people in his past

who were capable of this sort of thing, of sending something off without a card or anything, either on purpose or more likely not. Not on purpose, I mean. Where were you going to start? Or more worryingly, where were you going to stop? So eventually they gave up and the book sat on the dining room table through the holidays and it nagged at them every time they walked by it. Why them? And why that book? They took to calling it the mystery book. But that wasn't what it was really called. The book's title was The Encyclopedia of Forgotten Places.

Not exactly the same as the book Stephanie came across in the bookstore on that night I was telling you about. Not close, really, but sort of close. They were both compendiums. So perhaps you can understand how the one book would remind her of the other. you can understand how the one book would remind her of the other. The one that had arrived mysteriously all those years ago was a compendium of the forgotten, the lost, erased, and effaced. Ghost towns, big and small, small towns, past and present. Some places that weren't, and some that still were. An entire town that had been brushed by history or some small place. The table in the little cafe where a murder occurred. The tiny

bedroom where the famous Swiss clown Grock was born. Places large and places small, places that had been for a moment at the very center of the turning circle and had spun off into the ether like forgotten spaceships. The dusty bodies of the astronauts locked forever in the orbit of the obscure. Well, that's a bit hyperbolic. orbit of the obscure. Well, that's a bit hyperbolic. There were no dead astronauts. But there were these places, places that once were known to everyone, that no one knew anymore. It was so mysterious to her. She used to think that everything was forever. And now it was as if everything was a black and white photograph fading away in the sun. You probably wouldn't have thought that. You probably would have thought it was an altogether ordinary book.

The Encyclopedia of Forgotten Places was something you would flip through as opposed to read through. Unless, of course, like Morley, you happen to have received it anonymously in the mail. Then it was something to worry about too. But after Christmas, after Morley had flipped through it and worried about it. Morley put it away in the upstairs bookshelf outside the kids' rooms and more or less Morley forgot about the book about forgotten places. Stephanie found it a year later. It was an afternoon in autumn. She was upstairs playing with her collection of stuffed animals, or stuffed up animals as Dave liked to call them. And she was bored of her animals and she was lying in the hallway by the banister trying to eavesdrop on her mother who was on the telephone.

And she was getting bored of that too. So she rolled over and over and then over again. And when she couldn't roll over anymore, it was because she had rolled into the bookshelf. Soon enough, she was lying on her back, peering peevishly at the books that had halted her rolling. Soon enough, she was sitting up and peering at them, even though she knew they weren't good books.

They were her parents' books. She certainly didn't intend on reading any of them. None of them looked remotely appealing to her until she recognized the mystery book, the book that had caused such a stir that Christmas. And bored of her stuffed up animals and bored of her mother's boring telephone conversation, Stephanie reached up and pulled the mystery book off the shelf. It landed with a heavy thud on the carpet beside her. She would have probably been eight by now, no more than that. She hadn't yet read a book she would remember or talk to people about. Anyway, she pulled out the Encyclopedia of Forgotten Places, the mystery book, and she

opened it randomly. And soon enough, she was staring at a picture of a baggage room in an abandoned railway station. There was a dusty luggage wagon and a clock on the, and a little office with a glass window. But most of all, there was a suitcase in the corner. An abandoned suitcase in an abandoned railway station. What could possibly be in it? It could be full of jewelry, or fancy clothes that she could dress up in.

Or better than jewelry or clothes, stickers. Maybe even scratch and sniff stickers. She stared at the suitcase for a long time. And then she carried the book into her bedroom and laid it on her bed. She spent an hour leaning against her bed as if it were a table, her little foot tapping up and down, not exactly reading, more looking. She was mesmerized by it, by the photo of the railway station and the one of the forgotten but not quite gone amusement park and the photo of the railway station, and the one of the forgotten but not quite gone amusement park, and the one of the 17th floor ledge of the Gotham Hotel in New York

City where John Ward had perched in 1944 for 12 hours before leaping into the crowd at 10,000 that had gathered in the street below. Morley found the book on the bedroom floor that night and put it back on the bookshelf. A month later, she found it in the TV room and returned it again. Over the next few months, she kept finding it around the house and putting it away until she stopped finding it. And when that happened, Morley forgot about it once and for all. Stephanie didn't. Stephanie read it nearly every night. She read it under the covers with a flashlight. The best kind of light to read about things that are fading away. Each night when she was finished, she stuck it down the edge of her bed. She never talked to anyone about it. She was worried that she was too young for this sort of book. She didn't want to risk having it

taken from her. But there was more to it than that. And she couldn't have verbalized this. She also liked it because it was her own, completely her own. Her father had music, her mother had theater, and she had the big book hidden down the edge of her bed. Mostly she read it in bed under the covers, But sometimes she read it in her closet. She'd take her tea set in there. The teapot filled with milk. That's when Stephanie fell in love with reading. It happened almost overnight.

Like a great love affair. Suddenly she loved everything about books. Everything. She loved the feel of them. The everything. She loved the feel of them, the paper. She loved the smell of them, the ink. She liked to carry them around. She dreamed of going to high school where she imagined she would have to carry a big backpack stuffed with books wherever she went. That would be so fun. Suddenly reading consumed her. She specialized in mysterious books about mysterious places.

It was like being on a giant scavenger hunt. One book led her to another book. The book about forgotten places led her to a book about a phantom toll booth, which led her to a book about the bridge to Terabithia, which led her to the diary of Anne Frank. She was lost in books. She read and she read and she read, but the book she read over and over and over was the Encyclopedia of Forgotten Places. She took it with her to summer camp in her trunk. The summer she went tree planting, she took it with her at the bottom of her pack. And then when she went to university,

she took it with her to university too. The dust cover was long gone. She had repaired the spine with duct tape. Book was all battered up and she liked it all the more for it. She wondered if she hadn't found it that afternoon on the bookshelf in the hall, if she would have found books. She wondered if the person who had sent it to her house knew this would happen or was hoping this would happen, that the mystery book would lead her to so many others. Of course, you wouldn't have known any of that if you had wandered into that little bookstore

half an hour before closing on that snowy night that week before Christmas. You wouldn't have known that she was looking at that book about myths and legends and thinking about the one about forgotten places. But if you'd stayed until closing, you would have seen her buy it. If you'd stayed until closing, you would have seen her pick up her big green bag and her wool gloves and carry her bag and her gloves and the atlas of myths and legends to the little desk by the door. And when she got there, take out her wallet

and carefully count out some bills and hand them to the lady and stand there while she rang the sale in, looking both possessed and excited at the same time. And beautiful, really. Not at all like a little girl who would read in her closet with a toy tea set. Not at all like a little girl who would read in her closet with a toy tea set. Not at all. More like a young woman who you would want to know. Someone who you'd think you would like. So you might know that she bought the book. But there's one thing that you wouldn't know, something no one knows and no one will ever know.

That night when she got home, she sat on the floor of her dorm and she wrapped the book carefully in pale blue paper. Then she wrapped the blue paper again in brown paper and she wrote a name and address on the brown paper. And the next morning when she left for school, she took the brown paper package with her, and she stopped at the post office, and she bought stamps, and she put the stamps on it, and then she handed the wrapped book to the lady. How long will it take to get there, she asked. The lady looked at the

address and smiled at her. It'll be there before Christmas, she said, in a couple of days. And Stephanie smiled and said thank you and she walked away. It was addressed to her brother Sam, 10 years old, and there was no card and no letter and no return address. She used to hate what Sam did to books. Her copy of Good Night Moon looked disgusting, like it would be gnawed on by a little rodent. Sam had ruined all her favorite books with his grimy, snotty little hands.

But it didn't bother her anymore. Now when she saw her old books, they reminded her of those nights when she sat in the big maroon chair in the living room on her father's lap. And he would doze off when he was supposed to be reading to her and she would poke him. She wanted her brother to grow up to love books the way she did. She imagined talking to him about books someday in the future when they were finally the same age. She was hoping that the book that she was sending him would be a mysterious and magical thing. She knew that she would probably never know that, and that Sam would only decide that with time.

Things take time, or worthwhile things do. or worthwhile things do. They start with a small moment and slowly the small moments add up to something big without anyone realizing. Until one day, thought Stephanie, like the places in her book, they fade away. She was feeling pleased with herself as she walked along she was remembering not forgetting and that made her happy but she was feeling something else too something stirring inside

of her that she hadn't felt before ever she could feel all these good thoughts building up inside of her. And they were making her feel like she was going to burst. Funny thing was that she felt if she did burst, that she was going to burst into tears. And that had never happened to her before. To cry from happiness. She never thought it was possible. Though she had read about it once in a book. That was Stephanie's mystery book. We recorded that story in 2009.

We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with another Christmas story. This one is hilarious, so you've got to stick around. Welcome back. Time for our second story now. This is Dave Makes Snow. It was the middle of December, and it still hadn't snowed. That wasn't the half of it. It hadn't threatened snow. It hadn't even rained.

It was the middle of December, and all the clouds on the horizon were... Well, that was the problem. There were no clouds on the horizon. I know, said Dave. Is this great or what? It's kind of weird, said Morley. When Morley was a little girl, winter had always announced itself by the end of November, that dark month of ravens, rain, and rings around the moon. You could feel it in your bones.

One afternoon, you'd be out burning leaves, wool mittens in a toque, and the clouds would gather and the temperature would drop, and pretty soon the whole sky would be gray. Feels like snow, your dad would say. Morley's dad used to start their rink in December, standing in the backyard after supper, his mittens frozen to the hose.

Morley used to watch through the kitchen window, wiping the steam with her sleeves. There were no rinks this December. Here it was, mid-December, Christmas coming. It hadn't snowed and there wasn't a cloud on the horizon. Hope we get snow for Christmas, said Morley. She was in her PJs, standing by the bedroom window, looking out at the night street. Dave was sitting in bed, looking at her and thinking how beautiful she looked. Morley said, what are the words from that hymn?

The one about the snow. Dave said, good King Wenceslas? Right, said Morley. Where's good King Wenceslas? Right, said Morley. Where's good King Wenceslas when we need him? They were lying in bed a few days later, reading. And Morley put her book on her lap and she said, I really want it to snow. And Dave didn't even look up. It will, he said.

Promise, said Morley. How about Christmas Eve? Could you arrange that? Done deal, said Dave. And then he looked at her earnestly and he said, It'll snow and it will be deep and crisp and even. And so the days closed in on Christmas and the decorations went up and all the old carols came on the radio and cards came in the mail, but no snow came. They were all going through the motions, but no one was in the spirit of it, except for Mary Turlington, of course.

The weather didn't seem to bother Mary Turlington one little bit. The weather didn't seem to bother Mary Turlington one little bit. Christmas was coming, and Mary, God bless her oblivious little heart, had been full steam ahead since June. Victorian Christmases are so passé, said Mary one afternoon in September. I'm working on an Elizabethan theme this year. Mary kept calling Morley over to show her things that she had picked up. A lute and a mandolin for the twins. An exquisite midnight blue crushed velvet floor-length dress with faux pearls for herself.

And for Bert, well, she got Bert what every man wants to wear on Christmas morning. A leather jerkin. One Saturday night in early November, Dave ran into Bert near the park. Do you mind, said Bert. Dave and Bert don't have a lot in common, but they both walk around the neighborhood at night. Dave and his dog, Bert and his caseload. Be my guest, said Dave. They both enjoy these nocturnal collisions. Bert's a defense attorney. Dave, his surrogate judge and jury. But Bert wasn't thinking of legal arguments this night. She doesn't think I'm committed to Christmas, said Bert. Bert didn't look happy, not one bit.

All I said was I wanted turkey and gravy for Christmas dinner. That's right, said Dave. Now Dave knew he didn't have to say much here. Dave's role in these conversations is to play the part of a Southern Baptist congregation. play the part of a Southern Baptist congregation. It's not like we have turkey and gravy every week, said Bert. That's right, said Dave. If I was Elizabethan, said Bert, I wouldn't want turkey and gravy. Tell me, said Dave. What I'd want, said Bert, is wild game. True that, said Dave. Then Bert shook his head morosely. Bert said, she found a page of Elizabethan menus online.

Bert said, she wants me to find her a swan. She wants to roast a swan. Dave said, amen. Amen. Dave said, Amen. Christmas presents. Christmas shopping. A husband looking for the perfect presents like a knight from the round table on the quest for the Holy Grail.

He can saddle up his trusty steed and head off gamely into the Christmas chaos. And he can set off with courage as his trusty companion. But as soon as he leaves the comforts of home, you'll find that his old pal Doubt has saddled up the mule of confusion and is clip-clopping along at his side. And before he even gets to the malls, that traitor conviction will have turned and fled, and deep in his anxious little knight heart he will begin to wonder if the thing he's looking for really exists. Oh, he's heard the rumors. There was a man once who said he heard of a fellow who told a story about a guy who

found the perfect present. But that's just a legend. guy who found the perfect present, but that's just a legend. One of those Christmas stories people tell to promote hope among the recklessly faithful. If you ever tracked him down, you'd find out the man who found the perfect present was just another poor sod alone in his bedroom on Christmas Eve with a roll of wrapping paper, some scotch tape, and a waffle iron. But just like Arthur's nights, men head out every year. And just like last year and the year before, Dave picked up his sword and shield this December and headed out to join them. Dave looked at Bert Turlington and said, I promised Morley I'd make it snow. Does she have a waffle iron? You could get her a waffle iron. You can find just about anything on

the internet. Bert ordered a side of duck bacon, two young grouse, three Irish brown hair, four boar hind shanks, five Scottish wood pigeons, six venison chops, and two pounds of ground kangaroo. Dave downloaded plans for a snowmaking machine. Turns out if you want to make snow, all you need is a garden hose, an air compressor, and less than $100 worth of plumbing fittings. Dave assembled his machine at his record store in an afternoon, whistling while he worked. Good King Wenceslas. Good King Wenceslas. Dave was on the road to gift-giving perfection. Before you knew it, it was the day of Christmas Eve, and just as predicted, the temperature dropped,

and just as predicted, there was no sign of snow anywhere. Mary Turlington showed up at Dave and Morley's early that afternoon. She looked exhausted. I've been up since 4 a.m., said Mary. Mary was holding a platter covered in wax paper. That's homemade wax paper, said Mary. On the platter, there were a dozen shimmering nuggets of gold, each one about the size of a golf ball. Hazelnut truffled praline, said Mary. Then she said, that's edible gold leaf.

Mary had made the dessert from scratch. She had roasted the chocolate herself. She had toasted the hazelnuts. Mary had been up since dawn, before dawn, dipping the nuts into the silky chocolate. She'd used tweezers and a magnifying glass to cover each truffle with the edible gold leaf. It's not, she said, pushing a strand of hair off her forehead, it's not as easy as it looks. It didn't look easy. They look fit for a queen, said Morley. No queens work this hard, said Mary. Dave didn't begin making snow until the middle of the night. He waited until everyone was asleep, and then he slipped out of bed and snuck out of the bedroom. Arthur, asleep on top of the heat vent, cocked his head.

When he saw Dave heading downstairs, Arthur stood up, shook, and followed. The lights on the Christmas tree were still on. Dave got dressed in their glove he loved this the secret quiet of Christmas Eve all the little colored lights all the boxes and bags spilling across the living room

it wasn't the presents that were important it was the impulse behind them the the spirit they represented, the spirit of giving. Christmas gives you permission to say things out loud that you might otherwise not say. As Dave pulled on his socks, he felt a surge of emotion. It was like love, except bigger. It was like love, except bigger. And it extended beyond his house and family and included everyone. Dave shook his head.

He was feeling love for people he had never met. People he'd probably hate if he got to know them. He went outside. Arthur stood by the back door and whined. When Dave didn't come back for him, Arthur went upstairs and climbed quietly onto the forbidden bed. He settled into Dave's place, his head on Dave's pillow. It was cold outside and dark. Dave pulled his chute Clo and got to it.

He wrestled his new air compressor out of the trunk of the car and pushed it down the driveway. He fetched the black garden hose from the basement. He got his snow gun from its hiding place in the garage. According to the instructions, making snow would be surprisingly easy. The air pressure would convert the water into misty droplets, and as the mist sprayed across his property, it would freeze in the chilly night. And if all worked as it was supposed to, that is, if the air was just the right temperature and the droplets were just the right size, they would freeze and fall onto the ground like snow. Dave stood by the back porch, his breath coming in smoky puffs.

He opened the faucet. He ran back to the compressor and flicked it on. It was louder than he'd imagined. It sounded like a train. Upstairs, Arthur lifted his head. Morley stirred restlessly, she reached out in her sleep for her husband. Her arm landed on the dog instead. Arthur sighed and cuddled beside her. Morley sighed and drifted back to sleep. Outside, Dave was holding his snow wand in front of him, and wonder of wonders, the mist that was hissing from the nozzle was arcing into the sky and floating onto his driveway.

His driveway was turning white. Dave was making snow. Upstairs at the Turlington's, Mary was trying to wake her husband. Burp! It sounds like a gas leak. Mary turned on her bedside lamp. Bert rolled over inside. It did sound like a gas leak. Bert got up and walked toward the bedroom window. He was reaching for the curtain. Bert, don't make sparks. Bert jerked his hands back and rubbed them against

his pajamas. And then he pulled the curtain back. A shaft of light spilled across the driveway. Dave looked up and saw Bert's silhouette. He smiled, turned, and he blasted the window with a snow wand. Whoa, said Bert, jumping back with surprise. It's really snowing. What? It's a blizzard, said Bert, peering out the window. It's one of those freak storms.

If this keeps up, the city will be buried by morning. Then Bert padded back to bed. Bert, said Mary. What's the sound? It's the wind, said Bert. It's wicked out there. I couldn't even see the driveway. It sounds like a train, Bert. Bert was already falling back

to sleep. Bert said, that's what they always say about hurricanes. After he blasted Bert, Dave danced down his driveway, holding the snow wand over his head. He was pretending to be Gene Kelly and singing in the rain. He was turning the world white. He had kept his promise. Three hours later, Dave had stopped dancing. Three hours later, he was standing in the driveway as cold as a February gravestone. His feet were numb, his fingers wet. He was chattering and dithering. He took a glove off and blew on his fingers. He was going to freeze

to death out there. He fetched a stepladder from the garage and he tied his snow wand to the very top rung. The higher it was, the further the spray had to travel before it hit the ground. The further it traveled, the more time it had to freeze. He propped the ladder against the Turlington's porch. He pointed the nozzle towards his property, and then he went inside. It was 8 a.m. when Morley woke up. She reached out to Dave and said, Merry Christmas. Dave opened one weary eye. He was surprised to find himself in bed. Merry Christmas, he said, unsure, trying to assemble what had happened through the fog of his sleep. And then he remembered it all and he sat up. He had finally got the perfect present. He had finally hit the ball clear out of the park. For once, Christmas was about to go off without a hitch. Dave said, why don't you go and check?

dave said why don't you go and check why don't you go see if it snowed morley looked out the window the entire neighborhood was green except for her yard morley's yard was a winter wonderland there was snow everywhere. Dave, she said. And Dave, who was still sitting in bed, said it again. Merry Christmas, said Dave. I love you. They woke the kids and they ran outside. His snow machine had toppled over on its back, but it was still running. The snow was a little slushy, but there was so much of it,

there was a big drift between their house and the Turlington's. They opened their presents. Then they went outside again and they played in Morley's snow. Sam started to make a snowman. Dave hurled a snowball at him and they had a snowball fight. And so the day went by. It was Sam who eventually climbed to the top of the snowdrift. It was getting dark when Sam climbed up and looked and pointed. Hey, he said. Look. He was pointing at the Turlington's house. The Turlington's house had been hidden by the drift. There wasn't a window or door that hadn't been frozen

shut. The Tur thing Dave saw was the Turlington's ice-encrusted power lines lying in the backyard. What he couldn't see was Mary Turlington, behind the ice-covered windows in her floor-length Elizabethan gown and large white-powdered wig. Determined Mary, never say die Mary, was kneeling in front of the living room fireplace trying to cook Christmas dinner. She was holding a stick over the flames, roasting a frozen pigeon like a marshmallow. It took Dave and Morley nearly an hour to chip their way through the ice that had sealed up the Turlington's front door. Bert and the kids standing on the other side, cheering them on the whole time.

Bert told the kids it was the Red Cross coming to rescue them. So when the door opened and Dave and Morley were standing there on their stoop and they saw their green front lawn and the green neighborhood. There was a moment of confused silence. Mary was back at the fire. Mary had just removed a scorched and ash-covered carcass from the flames.

flames. When she saw Morley, Mary wiped her greasy hands on her wig, struggled up, and muttered, those Elizabethans were nuts. It was Morley who invited the Turlington's for supper. Well, sighed Mary, who had just experienced a more authentic Elizabethan Christmas than she had counted on. I still have my chocolate dessert. I could bring my dessert. And so the Turlington's, in all their greasy, soot-stained splendor, came for Christmas dinner. And as tends to happen when neighbors drop in and there are a few too many people for the family table.

Dinner took on an unexpected festive turn. Bert sat on a piano bench at one end of the table, reveling in his plate of turkey and potato. Gravy, said Bert joyfully when Morley offered, I love gravy. when Morley offered, I love gravy. Even poor Mary, whose big white wig seemed oddly appropriate at the table where everyone else was wearing paper crowns, even poor Mary seemed to be enjoying herself. When they cleared the turkey from the table, Mary said, where are the chocolates? I'll get them. And Dave said, no, no, you sit, let me do it. And Dave disappeared into the kitchen to fetch Mary's homemade chocolate dessert. And while he was gone, Mary explained to the kids about the cocoa beans from Venezuela and about

chocolate ganache and edible gold leaf. Each one is worth a fortune, said Mary. And Sam said, I get to eat real gold? What's taking so long? And Morley said, Dave? And Dave called, just a minute from the kitchen. I'm just about finished. And Mary said, what's he doing in there? And that's when Mary stood up. doing in there? And that's when Mary stood up. And that's when everything started to move in slow motion. When Mary stood up, when she stood up and walked into the kitchen, and Dave was sitting at the table beaming at her like a kid who had just made his parents their first breakfast in bed. their first breakfast in bed. Last one, said Dave. Dave was holding up one of her chocolates for inspection.

All the gold leaf had been carefully peeled off. Last one, he said. Then he said, these little gold wrappers sure are tricky. That was Dave Makes Snow. We recorded that story back in 2007. Alright, that's it for today, but we'll be back here next week with another Dave and Morley story. This is a classic. An electronic hum that had begun when Dave flicked on the PA. A hum that began like the hum of a distant train, but was growing louder and louder.

train but was growing louder and louder and people were looking around and you couldn't tell where it was coming from because now it sounded like it was coming from everywhere, like it was the hum of God himself, like the hum of creation, like the hum at the end of the world. And the kids in the audience stopped moving and babies in the front row stopped crying because it was a hum you felt now as much as you heard. And it felt like the hum was going to swallow the room. And not knowing what to do, Mike Carroll leant into the microphone and spoke his first line into the hum, his first line which was, Winter loomed. Winter loomed.

Except it didn't sound at all like Mike Carroll in grade six saying, Winter loomed. Winter loomed. Except it didn't sound at all like Mike Carroll in grade six saying winter loomed. Instead, it sounded like the voice of God himself. And when he spoke this line, winter loomed, it sounded more like God had said, you are doomed. And when he said it, Mark jumped back from the microphone, surprised at the sound of himself. And then there was a smell of smoke. And Mark looked helplessly around for Morley. but before he found her, there was a large bang from each of the large speakers on either side of the stage, and then sparks, not Roman candles,

just cone-shaped eruptions of electricity, and shrieks from the kindergarten kids who had moved into the front row and were sitting on the floor in front of the speakers and wild applause from the boys in grade six. And there was a moment of pure, dead, dark silence. Dave was staring at Gretchen Scheuler, who was at the top of the scaffold, holding her lit candle over her head as if it were an Olympic torch.

The flame only inches from the brass nozzle of the school sprinkler system. That's next week on the pod. I hope you'll join us. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network. The recording engineer is leather-jerkin' wearing Greg DeClewt. I don't want to see that, Greg. Theme music is by Danny Michelle. And the show is produced by Louise Curtis, Greg DeClude, and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.