The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S14E11

Episode Date: April 26, 2020

It’s Episode 11 of Season 14. This week we conjure spells for you about the horrors that come in and out of our lives. “He Didn’t Leave Alone” written by S.H. Cooper (Story starts around 00:05:00) TRIGGER WARNING! Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Birdy – Mary Murphy, Sister Mary Rose – Erin Lillis, Little Girl 1 – Addison Peacock, Little Girl 2 – Nichole Goodnight, Little Girl 3 – Jessica McEvoy “Reunion Hospital” written by Tara A. Devlin (Story starts around 00:19:20) Pr Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, David Cummings here. Now, this may shock you, but I've been spending a lot of time at home lately. Oh, it's not so bad being stuck in my home? I have all my cool stuff here, like video games and transformers and cursed objects with horrifying backstories. And the best thing about being at home, even though it might be frustrating or boring at times, is knowing that you're safe. But while I've been hanging around the house, I've been thinking, maybe I could make my home even safer. After all, I do live between the abandoned summer camp, the cursed cemetery, and the haunted bingo hall. There's always trouble going down in my burb. Just last month, I had to fight off a gang of

machete-wielding maniacs on a mission of vengeance. And I am tired of it. And I'm sure you are too. That's why I want to talk to you about Simply Safe home security. They're longtime friends of the No Sleep podcast, and for good reason. Simply Safe has made it easy to finally get comprehensive of protection for your home. There's no technician or salesperson that needs to come out and disrupt your home. You don't need to pay any outrageous monthly fees or sign a two-year contract. No, no, you just order online. Set it up yourself in under an hour. Being able to set the system up yourself is so important right now. And Simplicef allows you to find peace of mind without risking a breach of your self-isolation. And once set up, your home is protected 24-7 with emergency dispatch for

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Shut down slasher killers before they even think about looming large in your garden. It probably can't help with the ghosts in the basement, though. You're going to need an exorcist for that. Or just learn to live with them, like I have. Ah, thanks, Undead Ursula. So remember, that's Simply Safe. S-I-M-P-L-I-S-A-F-E dot com slash no sleep for free shipping and a 60-day risk-free trial. From Simple-Safe and all of us here, we're wishing you safety and good health.

And now on with the horror. In our world, there is magic in the darkness. Sorcery and incantations which bring us closer to the essence of the night. Come enter our black magic shop where we will conjure up tales to frighten and disturb. This journey will be spellbinding. Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. Welcome visitors to the No Sleep Magic Shop.

I'm your proprietor, David Cummings. This week we conjure spells for you about the horrors that come in and out of our lives. As always, we hope you and yours are staying safe and healthy during these trying times. Just a reminder to check out our SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com slash the no-sleep podcast, for our stay sleepless at home playlist. Lots of great stories there for you.

And our YouTube channel for weekly live via Zoom performances. YouTube.com slash the no sleep podcast official. All our live streams are archived there. We're doing our best to keep you sleepless and connected while we ride out this pandemic. And included in all that just happens to be this week's show. Now, close your eyes and embrace the magic. In our first tale, we join a young nurse working in the hospice wing of a hospital. She works the night shift, so naturally there are very few visitors at that time.

just a nice quiet evening with patients living out the twilight of their lives. But in this tale, shared with us by author S. H. Cooper, we discover that this particular night shift plays host to a very unusual visitor. Performing this tale are Mary Murphy, Aaron Lillis, Addison Peacock, Nicole Goodnight, and Jessica McAvoy. So who is the mysterious girl sitting on the floor of the hospital wing? what's her connection to one of the patients, and what will the outcome be when he didn't leave alone? Nursing and being a nun aren't really such different things.

As the former, I help look after the body. As the latter, I help look after the soul. Nourishing both is important to leading a healthy, happy life. When I was a young woman, fresh out of my nursing program, and fresher still out of my final, bowes. I approached the world from behind rose-colored lenses. Everyone had good in them. Everyone could repent and be forgiven. Everyone could be saved. It made me an optimistic little thing, which was always a plus when it came to bedside manners. My first job was as a hospice nurse at a

private Catholic hospital. They called me Bertie because I was always chirping away, despite the solemn cloud that often hung over our wing. We were the last stop on the way to meet the maker. When they came to us, it was because all treatment had failed, and now they just needed comfort until the Lord came calling. I did my best to make their last days as bright and positive as possible. Because I was the newbie, they stuck me on overnight shifts. It was peaceful, really.

If a patient couldn't sleep, I'd sit with the same. them for a while, sometimes chatting, sometimes reading to them. If I wasn't needed, I'd busy myself with cleaning and stocking supplies while manning the phones. Mostly I didn't see anyone other than my co-worker, Sister Mary Rose. Given the nature of our work, we weren't directly staffed with a doctor. We'd have to call one another from another floor if we needed assistance. And we didn't get visitors. So when the elevator doors opened one night, I expected to see Mary Rose wheeling in a bin of fresh linens or a maintenance man step out. Instead, there was no one. The doors remained open for a moment and then slid closed. The result, no doubt, of someone hitting the wrong button and getting off

on one of the floors below, it happened. I looked back down at the chart I was inputting into our system. I jerked upright again and leaned further over the desk for a better view down the hall. The landing in front of the elevator was deserted. But upon looking the other way, I discovered a little girl with short black curls and blue overalls, dragging her hand along the wall as she walked toward the patient rooms. Hey, sweetie, you shouldn't be up here. She ignored me and continued her slow journey away from the nurse's station. She was nearing one of the open doors where Miss Matilda, an elderly woman with end-stage breast cancer, was sleeping. Sweetie! She was almost to Miss Matilda's door. I hurried around the desk, losing sight of the child for only the seconds it took me to

come around the corner. But when I did, the hallway was empty. A quick check of each of the six rooms on the floor likewise proved fruitless. The little girl was gone. Concern that she might have gotten into somewhere she shouldn't, I called security to see if someone had reported a child missing. I was told no, that it had been quiet that night. I advise them to keep an eye out for a child with short black hair and blue overalls before ringing down to pediatrics. Did they have an empty bed they weren't aware of? Nope. All of the kids were accounted for. confused. I hung up and did another slow circle of the unit. It was still just me and the patience. When Sister Mary Rose returned shortly after, I told her what I'd seen. Long nights can lead to

wandering imaginations. Say a prayer. ease your mind. And go check Mr. McAfor's bedpan. I accepted her advice and instruction with a bob of my head and went to the supply closet to grab a fresh bedpan before walking to room Boro 6. The room was dark, save for the light that came in with me from the doorway. Mr. McAffer was barely past middle-aged, but in the final throes of liver failure after a life of hard drinking. With no options left to him, he'd been admitted to our wing with only weeks left. I crouched beside his bed while speaking softly to him to let him know what I was doing. Soon.

Soon. I straightened with a gasp, looking over Mr. MacArthur. He remained asleep, his chest rising and falling with brittle breaths. There was no one else in the room. I was quick to return

to the well-lit nurses station and Sister Mary Rose. The children would have had to come by there. Did anyone walk past here? No. Why? I swear, I. I just heard children in Mr. McApper's room. Are you feeling all right, Bertie?

Not coming down with something, are you? No. I was still on probation and didn't want to put my job at risk. I guess the atmosphere is getting to me a bit. That happens. The quiet plays tricks. We chatted a bit while sorting medications and cleaning the station until it was time for Mary Rose to take her lunch.

I can bring it up and eat it here if you're not comfortable. I told her I'd be fine. I had my Bible to keep me company if things got too spooky. She patted me on the shoulder and told me to buzz the cafeteria if I needed anything. After she'd gone, I busied myself by making the midnight rounds. A vital check here, a shot of painkiller there, working my way one room at a time, until I was in the one beside Mr. McAffers. A footstep squeaked in the hall, two or three sets.

at least. No longer slow, but hurried, a pack on the hunt. The thought came suddenly and sharply into my mind, and I shuddered. Dark shapes flit past the half-closed door. I froze. The IV bag I'd been switching out half-raised. Hello? The patient I was treating stirred slightly in their sleep. I quickly finished what I was doing, and crept on my tiptoes to the door. Soon. I slipped out of the room I was in, and with my breath held, and one hand clutching the crucifix hanging around my neck, I inched toward Mr. McAfor's door.

Four girls were standing shoulder to shoulder beside his bed with their backs to me. The one with the blue overalls was in the middle. They were all holding hands and staring at him. It is quiet. It settled over the room. A dark anticipation. It sent goosebumps running up my arms, and my heart fluttered toward my throat. Mr. MacArthur remained oblivious to his young visitors.

They stood still, more so than any child I'd ever met. It was unnatural, predatory. Alarm bells rang in my head, ordering me to run. But my first priority was to my patient, and I couldn't just abandon him. You can't be in here. The children remained at his bedside. You need to leave. Do you want some candy, sweetheart?

I've got a new puppy. Would you like to see? Don't you remember me? I'm your friend's dad. I can give you a ride home. The girl in the overalls didn't speak. The beep of Mr. McApper's heart monitor had become irregular. It quickened and then slowed and then became quick again.

Come on now Leave It will only hurt for a little while The heart monitor jumped But soon it will be over Soon I made the sign of the crossover myself And gripped the doorframe

The air had become oppressive and humid And I tugged at the collar of my habit Trying to alleviate the suffocating feeling That was closing around my neck Who are you? What do you want? Mommy, daddy and Nana? Otis.

The girl in the overalls let go of the other girl's hands and pointed to the bed. Where her face should have been was bare, exposed skull. She grinned at me through cracked and broken teeth. The door to Mr. McApher's room slammed shut. I ran back to the nurse's station and called down for security. and then for Sister Mary Rose in the cafeteria. When they all came rushing upstairs, I yelled about the children with Mr. McAffer and how one had no face.

While Mary Rose comforted me, the security guards went to the room. They found Mr. McAfford ceased, having succumbed to his illness. After his death, I took some time off of work, and remained in the house I shared with the other nuns in my order. Sister Mary Rose had told them what happened, citing first time loss of a patient as the reason for my behavior. It's always a bit frightening the first time we encounter it. I learned a lot at that job, but nothing more important than the fact that some people are not inherently good.

Some people never repent or seek forgiveness. Not everyone can be saved. If I ever doubted that there was some kind of afterlife waiting for us when we die, it was resolved that night. And if I ever doubted that those who choose to do evil will have their day of reckoning, it was washed away by the giggle of a faceless little girl. Hello, listeners. Hold the phone. This script says I meant to begin with,

We are living in strange times. But if, like me, you've seen that phrase as the intro to just about every corporate email and communication you've received in the last six weeks, it'll make you want to scream. So I'm going to bring up Thesaurus.com to give us some. variety here. Oh yeah. We are living in bizarre, extraordinary, newfangled, oddball, unseasoned, perplexing and queer times. Thankfully, there are still wonderful delivery people out there operating during this quarantine, safely and responsibly making sure people have the food

and supplies that they need. And just because we're living in, Czech's notes, eccentric, peculiar times, doesn't mean you have to exist on mundane food. And to do that, you can use DoorDash. In 2020, delivery is more than just pizza. With a selection of your favorite flavors from across the globe, you can order delicious, interesting meals from the comfort of your living room. Ordering is easy. Open the DoorDash app, choose what you want to eat,

and your food will be delivered to you wherever you are. Not only is your favorite pizza joint already on DoorDash, but there are over 310,000 restaurant partners in 4,000. cities, so you might find a new favourite too. With door-to-door delivery in all 50 US states, Puerto Rico, Canada and Australia, you can order from your local go-toes or choose from your favorite national restaurants like Chipotle, Wendy's, the Cheesecake Factory and more. With DoorDash, you can have something elaborate or different delivered straight to your door, allowing you and your family to stay safe. There's no need to crack out the bread and dripping or sheep's size just yet.

And right now, our listeners can get $5 off their first order of $15 or more, When you download the DoorDash app and enter code No Sleep. That's $5 off your first order when you download the DoorDash app in the App Store and enter code No Sleep. So don't feel restricted. Give your taste buds a world tour without even leaving your living room. And don't forget, that's code No Sleep for $5 off your first order with DoorDash. When we lose a loved one, it's hard to accept they're gone. It doesn't seem real.

And because it's so hard to grasp, it's understandable why. people find themselves believing in other things they otherwise wouldn't entertain. In this tale, shared with us by author Tara A. Devlin, we meet a man who's convinced that an urban legend can return his beloved to him. Performing this tale are Atticus Jackson and Addison Peacock. So enter that run-down building, head up those crumbling stairs, and don't take your eyes off the prize. That would be an extremely bad. idea in Reunion Hospital. The stairs loomed high above me, rusty and falling to pieces. At the top stood my goal, waiting for me to reach out and take it, if I dared.

In an abandoned hospital deep in the countryside, there stands a single staircase. Those who managed to climb all the way to the top and look down from its uppermost reaches, We'll see the person they most desire waiting for them at the bottom. But you must not break eye contact, for if you do, they will be gone forever. Once you make contact, however, you will be together forever. Was it true? Would Amanda really be there if I climbed my way to the top and looked back down? Her screams echoed in my mind.

I shook my head to clear them. Forty-four steps were standing between me and seeing the love of my life again. It had been too long. Nothing would stop me this time. I gripped the handrail, and it trembled. The staircase was all the remained of the hospital basement it stood in, rising high into the sky like a drill piece abandoned by the giant who once wielded it. Finding the hospital was no easy matter.

Finding a way into the basement was even harder. Now, the only thing standing between myself and success was my own fear. 44 steps, one at a time I climbed, whispering for my own benefit. One, two, three. The metal clanged beneath my boots, and the handrail wavered on uncertain steel. Most of its supports had rusted and broken off. sticking out like jagged needles as I ascended. Fourteen.

Fifteen. I disliked heights, hated them to be more precise. I glanced over the edge and swallowed. I was barely three meters in the air and only a quarter of the way there. What good would chickening out at this early stage do me? I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and continued. Twenty-two. Thirty-three.

Halfway there. Thirty. Thirty-one. The handrail shook more violently, and a piece of metal slashed my leg as I planted my foot. It burned, but I gritted my teeth and continued as the blood soaked through my jeans. Just a few more steps. The entire staircase wobbled precariously. I was a monkey balancing atop a needle.

Too far to either side. And I would topple. 41. 42. Two more steps. This was it. I really did it. Left foot.

Right foot. Then all I had to do was look down. Amanda would be there, smiling and waiting for me. I would never take my eyes off her again. Not like last time. Jonas! My name echoed off the walls. I shook my head.

No, not this time. Forty-four. My breath caught in my throat, and I closed my eyes. The staircase swayed like a pendulum, and my lunch fought its way back up my stomach. When I opened my eyes, she would be there. She had to be there. What if she wasn't? What if it was all just a rumor, and I came all this way for nothing?

My leg burned, my stomach lurched. My eyes swam in the back. back of my head. You came all this way. All you got to do is open your eyes. Come on. You can do it. I pumped myself up.

Open your eyes. Just open them. It would all be over. But nothing would happen until you opened your eyes. I opened them. Amanda was there, waiting at the bottom of the staircase. It was true. My heart flip-flopped.

I wanted to call out her name, but the sight of her smile stole the words from my lips. I had to reach the bottom without breaking eye contact. I never wanted to take my eyes off her again, so that was not a problem. Her black hair shone raven, and her smile lit up the room. She looked just how I remembered her. In better times, anyway. One foot after the other, I stepped down, not taking my eyes off her for a little. second and soon realized my problem. It was a winding staircase. There was no way to descend and

keep her in my sight the entire time, not unless I walked backwards for part of the way. I'm coming! My voice echoed off the walls and I flinched. Amanda beckoned for me to join her. I wanted nothing more. I took a few more steps, one foot after the other. I kept her in my vision. but then the staircase curved to the right. I took one step and then another, but my neck wouldn't turn any further. The railing shook. I shifted and keeping my eyes on Amanda, searched for the next step with my foot. It was only a few steps.

I could do it, and then I could descend facing forward again. Each step took me closer to the ground and closer to her. My foot slid from underneath me, and the railing snapped. I threw my hands out to halt my fall and grabbed onto the step before me with all my might. I kept my eyes on Amanda, but my vision swam, and my heart threatened to burst out of my chest. I was lying in something wet. It was my own blood. Amanda!

She said nothing, and the smile remained unwavering. on her face. A section of railing fell to the side, and she showed no reaction to it. I swallowed and pushed myself onto my knees. My hands were slippery with my own blood, and the impact reverberated up through my bones. There was no rail to grip onto, and my own blood on the metal steps made them slick. Would I die if I fell from such a height? I didn't like my chances.

I swallowed and on my knees searched for the next step. I could crawl. Crawling was fine. I stood up as the stairs rounded again and descended as fast as I could. Over halfway there, Amanda was so close I could almost reach out and touch her. I could smell her perfume, that pleasant scent of vanilla that filled the room whenever she stepped into it. My heart beat faster with each step, and I called out her name again. Amanda!

Silence. I turned and searched for the stairs. I stood on something sharp and screamed. But I could deal with it later. She was right there. I'm coming, Amanda. I was never more focused on anything in my life. My eyes were glued upon her, taking in all the features I had memorized.

in life. The way her lips curled just a little higher to the right than the left when she smiled. The dimple in her left cheek. The scar under her right eye. Fight with a cat when she was a child, she said. The hair tucked behind her left ear and the gaping hole in her throat. My foot hit the step hard and shuddered. A small piece of railing snapped off in my hand. Ten more steps and I was clear. We could be together again. Not like this. My knuckles turned wide as I gripped the rested piece of railing and I took an unconscious step backwards. It wasn't just her throat. Blood trickled down her forehead, into her eyes and out her ears. Her clothes were torn and ribs poked through her blood-stained shirt. No, this wasn't how it was supposed to be.

Her voice washed over me for the first time in months. Just a few more steps. What was supposed to be honey was instead poisoned nettles poking me over and over and setting my skin on fire. This is wrong. I took another step back. She rounded the staircase and stood by the bottom step. Why do you say that, Jonas? My name on her lips was venom.

That wasn't my Amanda. Who are you? I'm Amanda. Who else would I be? Blood dripped onto the stairs. Metal stuck out the other end of her throat. No, no, you can't be. She took a step up, and then another step.

I couldn't take my eyes off of her. But this time, out of fear. but I am. You know it to be true. I am what you made me after all. I shook my head, refuted her words. She was lying. The sound of metal against metal, scraping and bending, warping against the force of the impact, pierced my mind. It wasn't my fault. I didn't see the other car coming. I took a step back. She took a step forward. No, it wasn't your fault, was it Jonas.

Poison, venom upon her tongue. What did you expect me to do? The other car was driving with no lights on. How was I supposed to see it? I never expected you to see it. Flashing lights, crushing pain, fire, heat, metal. But I never expected you. you to leave me there either.

I shook my head. No, I didn't. She took a step closer, and her approach grew more steady. With each step she took forward, I in turn took a step back. It wasn't long before I slipped and landed on my back, pain shooting up my elbow. She loomed over me, the gaping hole in her throat dripping blood onto my shirt. You were scared, yes, you were panicked, I know. But there's one thing I really want to know, Jonas.

What's that? Why did you pay them to hit us? I shook my head. No, no, I never... Don't lie to me. Not now. I struggled to find my voice. The stench of her rotting flesh made it difficult to breathe.

I gagged. I didn't think you'd be in the car. with me that night. I tried to stop you. I did. You stay here. I'll be right back. I'm just going to grab a few beers from the convenience store. Oh, I want to come, too. There's a new drink I've been meaning to try. No, no, you stay here. I'll get it for you. I'm tired of sitting around here. I want to go out for a bit and get some fresh air too. You can get some fresh air on the veranda. And yet, you let me get in the car. Knowing full well that a shady pan you found on a shady website that promised a quick and painless insurance scam would get you the money you so desperately needed, the money you wanted even more than me. It wasn't like that.

Her face was centimeters from my own. A piece of glass stuck out of her eye, and her hair was matted with blood and dirt. And do tell, Jonas, what was it like? I had no answer. She wasn't supposed to be in the car. I was supposed to be safe in the driver's side. I knew the car would be coming from the left, but I let her get in anyway. I hoped that she would be okay.

I wanted that money. I wanted. I closed my eyes. That would be enough to break the spell. When I opened them, she would be gone. For good this time. The tear rolled down my cheek, but I clenched my eyes as tight as possible and braced myself.

If I had insisted she'd stay home. If I hadn't wanted that money so damn much, Amanda would still be alive. I wouldn't be alone, falling into a spiral of darkness from which I knew no escape. She was right. She was always right. It was all my fault. I opened my eyes. You're not getting out of it that easily.

Amanda yanked me up by the front of my shirt and threw me over the edge. Concrete rose to meet me as the stairs grew further away. She watched me fall over the edge as I fell, grinning the whole time. The legend was right. soon you would be together forever Having strict parents can be tough Being forced to follow their dogma while you have plans and ambitions of your own It can take its toll

But kids can be ingenious and find their own ways to get around the simple problem Of being forbidden from doing something In this tale, shared with us by author C. M. Scandrith We meet a girl with a simple goal to make an impossible object. Performing this tale are Sarah Thomas, Mike Delgadoo, and Nicole Doolin. So fire up that 3D printer and make sure Dad isn't snooping around because dreams can become nightmares,

at least if you're trying to craft the Babylon Ring. I never understood the expression, poor as a church mouse. The church I grew up with was a cavernous, modern, cathedral, filled with projectors, giant speakers, and teared seating. Money flowed into that place as slickly as biblical milk and honey, and any mouse who lived there would surely be fatter, glossier, and sleeker than a politician. Deeply religious was a term I did understand, but it inadequately described my family. Their fanaticism was so profound that even the self-proclaimed deeply religious, thought we were weird. My mother's mobility scooter was bedecked with crosses and

honk if you love Jesus stickers, her Bible never far from her hand. She would proselytize a stranger at the drop of her huge, fake-flowered hat, asking if they knew Jesus and if they went to church, meaning, of course, our mega-church. My father, by contrast, was an ascetic man. He habitually wore black slacks, hat and shoes, and a white shirt starched nearly to cardboard. Hollow-cheeked and hollowed-eyed, he was one of those men who seemed animated only by the promise of heaven, the flickering fear of hell burning around his soul, a boiler for the engine of his being. I was homeschooled, of course.

At least I was until my mother grew too asthmatic to teach. Most of her days spent hooked up to an oxygen machine to make sure the massive expanse of her chest continued to rise and fall. Sending me to school worried her. She'd kept my soul so pure for so long, only for it to finally risk being corrupted by the wickedness of the wide world. At age nine, my hair braided tightly and my uniform stiff as my father's shirts, I was sat in the car and driven to the local school,

while my father told me of the dire and voracious evils of boys, how their eyes and hands would seek me out to despoil me and my purity. His warnings fell short, and I quickly became enamored of school, including the other girls, and even some of the boys. But worst of all for my parents, the religious ardor they had attempted to instill in me all my life was promptly replaced by a craving to know how the world worked, beyond parable and preaching. I fell in love with science. Smart children read their parents well, and even smarter teachers learn to trust those children where, their parents are concerned. My school reports told the tale of an unremarkable child, average enough to please her parents while still passing all her classes. But outside the stiff

scholastic markers, I gained a reputation as one of the brightest minds amongst the children. Facts fell into place in my mind like interconnected webworks of information, dredging scientific secrets to the surface faster than I could be taught. Knowing my parents would disapprove should I linger longingly in libraries, I learned to read at a blistering pace so I could absorb as much knowledge as possible, as fast as possible. Soon, I was devouring whole books in my lunch hour, committing their delicious facts to memory even as I knelt beside my bed in prayer, before falling into fractal dreams of physics and philosophy. As I grew older, I worried for my future and began to plan my escape from the religious cage I dwelt in.

Only by promising to give the bulk of my earnings to the church was I allowed to get an after-school job, but waitressing was a good choice. Some days, tips came in thick and fast and were easier to hide, so I slowly built up a small amount of cash. My other job was assisting my father with his hobby, which in truth was more of an obsession, and needs some explanation.

He often told me how my mother, had been very beautiful, how he had been the envy of all the men in town when they were courting and first married. He also told me how childbirth, my birth, had wrecked her body beyond repair. He told me that so thoroughly had I destroyed my mother with the wickedness of my birth, the doctor had told her she would never bear another child. The fact that he would never have a son, and that his sole progeny was a girl, had broken my father in some deep, fundamental way. And with her legs partially paralyzed by my birth and her husband grown distant, my mother swelled, eating constantly to fill the emptiness inside.

Every other aspect of her physical self-care ceased. And so with her beauty fading, her womb barren, and her legs all but useless, she became nothing but an obligation to my father. The church would never allow him to divorce her, and if he allowed her to die from neglect, he'd go to hell. So he suffered, all his desires bound up by the church, unable to have the sun he'd always prayed for, and unable to sate his carnal appetites. All of that misplaced energy was turned to his hobby, collecting religious texts. The library was an addition to the house, built off the garage, and was filled with every kind of Bible and religious text you can imagine.

The bulk of it was Christian, but not all. Various versions of the King James rubbed spines with Qurans and Tanakhs, as well as volumes of European mythologies, describing pagan godlings far removed from the writing of the Old Testament. I wondered for a long time what he sought in all these musty myths, what he hoped to find other than an outlet for his tortured energies. At first, I assumed he must be seeking some higher truth, some cobbled together grand mythos that unified all religions.

But I was wrong. My father didn't have a mind like mine, and he wasn't seeking any higher truth. He was seeking some ecumenical loophole that would get him out of the life he had trapped himself inside, some bold parable or scripture that would give him the dogmatic reasoning to petition the church to annul his marriage

and to abandon his wife and child. I realized this when I found, his carefully penned petitions, detailing peculiar points of ancient religious law, and the way he believed these would free him from his familial responsibilities forever, without divine penalty. He was nothing more than a shoddy biblical lawyer, trying to free himself on a technicality. But, while he grubbed and slogged through didatic stories and stilted scriptural stances, his daughter was reading too, speeding through all of his collected texts, finding little bits of truth here and there,

and little clues and pointers into something quite different, the early development of the sciences. And then, one day, I found the Babylon ring. A lot of my father's library was garbage or gibberish. There were handwritten texts and notebooks, the ravings of homeless prophets, and madmen, and faded, untranslatable scrolls that were probably fakes. I gleaned three references to the Babylon ring before I found it.

It was perhaps alternatively called the Ishtar Gate, although I couldn't be certain the text referred to the same thing, or if one was housed within the other. In any case, it was a curiosity, an architectural cipher, created to amuse some clever Mesopotamian with a taste for mathematics and forced perspective. It was an impossible thing, a circle that couldn't exist, like Escher's waterfall. It looped and folded in on itself. Mobius and Klein all rolled into one crinulated, contiguous circle that defied reality. I would draw it in class when I'd finished my lessons, turning it this way and that inside my mind,

this puzzle without a solution, that tickled something in my consciousness where kinematic equations and calculus did not. I unspooled its shape and reconstructed it, daring it to become real. The old writings I found intimated that it had been real, despite the impossibility of it, and that someone had planned to construct it but was stopped. That really piqued my interest, and when the 3D printer I'd ordered online, via the school library, finally arrived, an idea sprouted in my mind for my final school science project. All of my initial prints were failures, and I was badly hampered by the old hardware I'd hooked the printer up to, an ancient laptop found in a store full of second-hand electronics.

But I persisted, tweaking and retweaking all the settings, and I patiently drew the Babylon ring line by line using open-source software I'd modified myself. I told my parents I was printing jewelry to give to my friends. My colorful failures looked exactly like the gaudy toys found in some cheap packets of candy, and they let me carry on. Though my failures grew more wild, I couldn't escape the feeling that it was possible to print the ring. That there was a trick to it I couldn't quite perceive,

and if I only found it, I could somehow bend the rules of reality very slightly, and probably to my advantage. The breakthrough came by accident, just as it has multiple times in human history. history. A piece of my printer, a critical cog, broke, and I had no replacement. Beside the printer sat one of my failed Babylon rings, alluringly bright and very cog-like. So, without any other option, I filed it into shape and put it into the printer as a makeshift replacement part. My next print was closer than I'd ever come. When I lifted the cool component from the printer bed, the hole in the

center seemed to shimmer when held at a very specific angle. It was probably just a trick caused by the strange noir patterns thrown off from the inner surface of the ring, but it felt like glimpsing something just beyond my eyes' reach. It was then that I knew what I had to do. Retrofitting the printer with Babylon cogs was a long and tortuous process of trial and error, of printing and reprinting. And when I wasn't working on my printer project, I had endless tables to bus and piles of dishes to toil through. All my spare earnings sunk into printer filament.

But in the end, I did it. The printer now resembled some child's peculiar project, like Lego superglued to a substructure. It wouldn't print anything normal anymore, unless you tried to print Babylon shapes and only printed junk. The software, too, no longer resembled anything. it had originally been. I'd added Cluge on top of Cluge, turning it into a sort of Babylon code of its own. The final print took only a few hours, but as I watched the printer clank and stutter, the faintly, spatially distorted cogs achieving exactly what I'd hoped, I burned with anticipation. The ring had barely cooled when I snatched it up, admiring the perfectly

impossible facets for only a moment before turning it to look through the hole. As I did so, My grip tightened and my pupils flared. Bright light was shining from the center. I lowered the ring quickly after images dancing in my vision. I was suddenly uncertain if I was afraid or just wanted to savor the moment. This is where I made my most critical, crucial mistake. In my eagerness to share my success with someone, anyone, I bunched the ring tightly in my fist and ran to my mother to show her.

And together, we made the discovery of a lifetime. Holding the ring up to her eye, she weased with excitement as she gazed into it, through it, and into another world. She saw swords of brilliant emerald grass, dotted with utterly perfect trees, through which crystalline brooks flowed, the pure water throwing off spangles of jewel-like light.

I knew what she felt when she looked upon this unearthly paradise, because in my brief glimpse I had felt it too. A deep ache of yearning, as if I were looking upon a home that had always been calling to me, but I'd never really believed it existed. My mother whispered inside her oxygen mask, her fleshy, discolored lips quivering as she gave breath to those two syllables.

Heaven. One of my mother's many great failures was her inability to keep a secret. I made her swear on her forehead, favorite Bible that she wouldn't tell father about the ring. But of course, she told him anyway. That night, he ghosted into my little bedroom workshop and found me sitting amidst all the litter of my scientific journey, the confetti of cogs and snapped scaffold from thousands of printer projects. He didn't ask me for the Babylon ring. He simply held out his pale, skeletal hand,

supplicant palm upwards, and stared at me with a fervor in his eyes like he'd discovered. a new cache of scriptural scribblings. I briefly considered lying, telling him I'd broken the ring or thrown it away, but he'd still ask for it, make me dig through the trash to find it, even if it took hours or days. I hated both of them intensely in that moment, with a sort of righteous, religious anger, the kind I'd seen displayed by the church preachers when ranting about homosexuals or abortion. For a second, just a single Pure second. The rage burned so hot I felt I could kill my father for taking away the greatest achievement of my short life. Then his bony knuckles connected sharply with my cheek, rattling my teeth,

and the murderous rage turned abruptly to cold shock. Holding a shaking hand to the throb of my cheekbone, I made a choice. Not about giving him the ring. That was a foregone conclusion. No. My instant choice was bigger than this moment. I quickly tallied up in my mind exactly how much money I had, what clothes I'd need to take with me, and how far I could get before they would decide I wasn't coming home and grudgingly call the authorities. He took the ring from me. Then he proceeded to take everything else. You are the most wicked of children. As he spoke, he tore my printed of pieces with his hard, bony hands. For no man should gaze on heaven before his time.

This is pure wickedness, the likes of which Jesus himself was not forced to suffer during temptation. And you must atone. The laptop screen snapped as he broke the back of the machine over his knee. Wires trailed like viscera from the separated hinges as he dropped its halves and stamped on them. The glass rippling and shiny circular fractures, like it homage to the Babylon ring. After he was gone, I carefully removed the undamaged hard disk,

gathered what I needed from my belongings, then climbed out the window into a rapidly chilling autumn night. Years later, I discovered that they didn't even look for me. After I ran away, my parents simply prayed for me to repent and return. It was only when I missed several shifts at the diner that they were forced to file a missing person's report for the look of the same. things, as the diner owner was the son of one of the local preachers. This worked to my advantage, as I was able to get a train ticket across state and head north to a more liberal climate where I knew

no one and where I wouldn't be beholden to ridiculous doctrine anymore. As I traveled toward my new life, in my backpack lurked the laptop drive, those hard metal edges digging into my spine a reminder of the knowledge it contained. I made a promise to myself on that train, that I would rebuild the Babylon ring. I would look upon heaven again, and this time, not even my parents would be able to take it away from me. It proved a difficult promise to keep.

The first year of homelessness wasn't what I'd expected. I'd envisaged just getting another job in a diner somewhere. Then I'd have the cash to rent a room and buy another printer. her. But nobody wanted to hire a 16-year-old runaway with bruises on her face, or even after those ones had long faded. So it was that I was unwillingly indoctrinated into two of America's less celebrated traditions, poverty and homelessness. I sold the hard disk to a flea market for change, six weeks after my escape. I knew I could recreate the software. I still drew the Babylon ring wherever I went, on sidewalks and in doorways.

It was my own personal homeless spore and a reminder to myself about what I needed to do. It took two miserable years to drag myself out of the gutter. And yes, I did things that a 17-year-old girl from the Bible Belt should never even have considered doing. But I didn't care. I was already the most wicked child in existence, was I not? Creating a loophole into heaven and incidentally proving to my father that God did truly exist. which meant that when my father died, he would be eternally punished for trying to lawyer his way out of his sacred marriage vows. When I had the money I needed, I moved states again.

I found a job doing data entry, which led to an administration job at a plastics factory. I attended night school, patchily finishing the classes I'd missed after I ran away, then applied to a community college, then for a transfer to a university. After the first rejection, I applied to two more and was eventually accepted. And so I moved states yet again. It was a new world, the academic realm, and I thrived like I'd never thought possible. I saturated myself in knowledge, living a dual life where I cleaned hotels and got yelled at in burger drive-thrus at night, then presented myself as the top student in my class during the day,

in my neat shirt and slacks, shined shoes, and a sensible brain. The scholarship shouldn't have been a surprise, but being offered a place as a teaching assistant, then as a full-time tutor, certainly was. Suddenly, money wasn't much of an issue anymore, and most of the hours I spent drudging could be put to use resurrecting my old project. It was difficult in the beginning, tuning my mind back to the old way of thinking. I wished I'd had my hard disk, with my old notes and tweaked software. But as I coaxed my mind into those old avenues and tried to ignore the trauma of my upbringing, the Babylon ring began to take shape again. And with the resources now available to me, I could improve upon it immeasurably.

I plumbed every permutation of its design, intent on unraveling its riddles. It took me another two years to bring my plans to fruition. Seven years after I'd run away from home, I sent a letter to my parents, inviting them to come and visit me where I worked at a privately funded lab in California and containing the promise of both the financial and spiritual rewards that they felt were owed to them. I like to imagine their drive across country. They still owned my father's nearly pristine Toyota Corona, washed twice a week and serviced exactly as per manufacturer's specifications.

I picture my mother, wheezing and gasping in the reclined passenger seat, her cotton-clad bulk spilling over and threatening to consume her emaciated husband. In lieu of children, strapped into the back seat are her clanking oxygen bottles, tubes snaking over the headrest and into my mother's mask, like she's some grotesque science fiction monster imagined in the 50s. When they arrive, I greet them in the foyer of the facility, a gleaming, sterile cavern of steel and white tiles, the facility logo projected onto the floor.

smiles and forgiveness, I take the handles of my mother's wheelchair and push her to the elevator, flanked by my father. I can't help but notice how worn, wan, and weary they both look, even grayer and less real than in my memories. My lab is in the middle of the facility, mostly for privacy. My mother says little, the traveling clearly having taxed her already overstressed respiratory system, and my father can't seem to find any words to address this sudden forgiveness and charity from their disowned, sinner-daughter. At the back of the lab stands the gateway, the Babylon ring. Perfect now in every respect.

The shape of it feels anticipatory, electric, even when it's covered by its heavy, sterile curtain. I park my mother's wheelchair and talk about the side projects I've been working on. Research into 3D printing entire houses and even larger structures. I can tell they're not really listening. I address my father. Take a look behind the curtain. I think you'll be quite impressed with this particular design. His bony, bird-like hands, too frail to rattle my teeth now,

twitch the curtain aside, revealing the imposing, impossible corrugations of the man-sized Babylon ring. But in that circle, there is no light. There are no heavenly meadows, no chattering streams. Instead, there is a suffocating darkness. In the very middle flickers a single burning ember. So distant, it might as well be at the center of the earth.

One sharp shove is all it takes to send my father sprawling into that fearful pit of darkness. His spindly arms windmill helplessly as he falls, his body receding, his olulating howl of terror silenced as the distant fires rise up to meet him. My mother whimpers and babbles as I take hold of her wheelchair again, pushing her towards the Babylon gate. Her pallid, dimpled hands flutter, falling far short of batting me away as I wheel her inexorably closer to damnation. The original design was created at Babli. It was called Ishtar's Gate. I inch my mother closer to the portal.

The tower of biblical legend wasn't actually designed to reach heaven physically. I believe the Tower of Babel was a sort of university, where scientists intended to find a spatial solution to the problem of ascending to heaven. We are at the edge of the ring now, her breathing ragged, her face the color of porch. But like all mathematical objects, the gate can be inverted to produce the opposite effect.

There's only one inversion of heaven. The front wheels teeter over the edge of the circle of darkness as I speak the final word. Hell. I watch her fall, tubes trailing behind her like cut parachute streams. Her fat swelled hands still clutching the armrests in terror. It feels better than when I'd first gaze through the Babylon ring and seen paradise. It feels a thousand times better.

When she is a tiny dot, lost in the distant glow of hellish flame, I turn away, satiated. I still have a lot of work to do. The second, newer gate needs to be much larger, large enough to let through an army. The spells are wearing off for now, but the magic will linger. The shop will be open again next week with more spells to enchant you. If you would like to find out how you can hear the full-length versions of our audio program, please visit the no-sleeppodcast.com to learn about our season past, program. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for listening.

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