We come to this new podcast to tell stories.
To be inspired. To listen to.
Voice. Here, stories are power.
And power is dice and. Dice is the essence of water.
And what is the ocean but a multitude of dice of dice?
This preview that you were about to listen to holds special
meaning for the future of humanity.
We will save the world with our voices and our personalities.
You will leave. This podcast changed and
unrecognizable to your peers and family.
You will be an outcast with immense strength.
The power that you are about to gain, it will change the world.
But at a terrible cost. When you look in the mirror, you
will no longer see the man, woman or person or rodent or
dice you once were. Thank you for coming to a
theatre of the mind the way podcasts were meant to be
listened to, because here, magic is audio and audio is all that
matters. And podcasts are dice.
And here they are. The Flyers for the circus start
appearing before it arrives, though no one sees who posts
them. They're simply there one day,
pasted onto buildings and light posts packed up on community
Billiton boards. The Flyers say very little.
They're printed on soft, thick paper with colorful words in a
looping font declaring that the circus is coming.
It lists no day, no time, no location.
It doesn't need to. When the colorful striped peak
appears on the edge of town a few days later, the news travels
fast. There's only the one tent, an
enormous, colorfully striped thing that is held in place by
heavy wooden stakes and thick, cream colored ropes.
The stripes are all of different hues, a chaotic eyesore that
towers up in what was once an empty lot or a field and is now
a beacon of mystery. But no one sees it being set up.
No one sees the circus train pull into the station.
No one sees the cargo unloaded. No one sees the stakes pounded
into the ground. No one sees the ropes uncoil.
No one sees the fabrics soar high into the air, hoisted by
the tent pole in the center. No one sees it, but it happens
anyway. In front of the circus tent,
there's a puppet theater blocking the way in.
Inside, carved wooden puppets dance to a hurdy gurdy tune
playing out in miniature. What will happen later that
night? Acrobats tumble on their
strings, Amanda's tricks with tigers and lions.
A clown with a painted face juggles first 3, then 5, then a
dozen marbles, and in the center the ringmaster dances.
There's a sign hung on the front of the puppet theater which
reads. The Miracles begin at dusk.
Eager and rude patrons attempt to catch a glimpse of the
tireless puppeteer who keeps the little wooden dolls moving all
day long. However, there's no one behind
the curtain. Mechanical, someone says.
It must be a very sophisticated bit of machinery.
Miracle, another person says as they watch the clown juggle the
tiny glass spheres. It could only be a miracle.
As the sun prepares to set, the puppets exit their stage 1 by 1,
each putting a little show on of hurrying off to prepare for
their performance. The acrobats fly up and out of
the frame. The lion tamer is chased by his
cats. The clown's marbles vanish 1 by
1 to the last one is dropped and rolls off the puppet stage, and
the clown runs after it. Then all is left is the
ringmaster and his little wooden form turns towards the gathered
audience. A voice rings out over the din
of the crowd. Are you ready for the most
magical night of your life? The puppet theatre bursts apart,
and where it's at, the ringmaster now stands on a
wooden box. He is tall, with a black
moustache and ice Gray eyes that seem to look directly at you no
matter where you stand. His coat is a brilliant Crimson
trimmed in sparkling gold, and his tall black boots are
polished to a shine. He holds a silver baton which he
tosses up into the air, and fireworks shoot above the tent,
bathing the crowd in bright colors.
As the flaps of the tent open behind him, he catches the baton
and points towards the entrance. Welcome to the never know where,
Friedrich Vice. I'm pronouncing that right, yes.
Yes. Friedrich, in your world, the
city is awash with smoke and the sounds of engines.
These new automobiles putter and sputter through the streets,
spooking the horses that still pull carts coming in from the
country. People hurry through the busy
metropolitan scene. It is the turn of the century
and this is your city, and it has electric lights which
illuminate the many stone statues, carved freezes, artful
pediments that adorn the buildings and streets.
The people, too, are illuminated as they bustle in cafes and
salons, drinking imported coffee and listening to lectures on new
sciences, new philosophies from university men with bright
ideas. You could have been one of these
men, Friedrich, if many things had been very different.
But now everything is in flames, and the smoke that surrounds you
is not the smoke of a city of progress.
It is personal, it is chemical, and in your hands a brick, and
on your hands blood of Friedrich.
How did this happen? It wouldn't have happened if
Katarina's damnable father hadn't forced her into the
engagement and I. The engagement, is that what
caused this? Well, I, I had to prepare.
I, I had to offer her an alternative and I was on a
timeline. So of course I, I took matters
into my own hands. I I I accelerated my research.
Your research to do what? To cure my affliction.
Your affliction. That's right.
Because Katarina, She hates smoke.
Yes, she's afraid. Terribly afraid.
And you? Are you a smoker?
Well, I I I quit, but I suppose that's not what you're trying to
say. No, Friedrich.
And now all of this has happened, and your reflection,
it's worse than ever. And on your hands, the blood of
the Dean of the university, your employer, and as you mentioned,
tragically, the father of the girl you claim to love.
Somewhere in the distance, you hear the bell of the trolley as
it rolls through the street, and then a scream, and through the
smoke you see her. Like a golden Angel descending
down to the depths of hell. Katerina runs through the smoke
toward the crumpled body of her father.
You have time. You could run to her, hold her
in your arms, turn her eyes from this tragedy.
But while the blood from your hands would mar her perfect
face, and she would see Friedrich, what would she see?
She can't see me like this. And what is like this?
Friedrich is short. I suppose he might cut a dapper
little figure, but he exudes an energy of bitterness that
suffuses his small frame. His hair is wild composer like,
with a stripe of white that's always been there.
He has well defined cheekbones giving him a sort of skeletal
look and a little parted pencil mustache.
He's dressed in shades of dark green.
His manner of dress is a bit outdated and old fashioned.
He looks professorial at the moment.
Silvery smoke is streaming out of his mouth and his delicately
rotten nose. Ah, yes, your affliction.
And yet she runs towards you. What do you do?
There's got to be a place I can hide in here.
Everything is a flame, no place to hide, but well, the walls
aren't what they used to be. Plenty of places to run.
I run. All right, Pepper pendergrass.
For the past few days, the train has been stopped in a city by
the sea. Well, it's always stopped in a
city by the sea. It's just that the sea isn't
always a sea. Sometimes it's a very large
lake, or a river, or a rippling ocean of sand, or a frozen sheet
device, or the void of space. But as often as not, it is the
sea. What was the sea like in the
world you came from, Pepper. Oh well, it now.
What did it look like? Oh, wet.
That's right. It must have been like that.
It must have been wet. I mean, it must have been right
it. Must have been. 9 out of 10
places we go, it's wet. It must have been like that,
yeah. And like moving.
Moving. Not all of them are moving I.
Think mine was moving. Well, that's not important
really is it? Now this is a very picturesque
sea in front of you, with cheerful fishing boats bobbing
in the bright blue water and calling seagulls Wheeling above.
Big fluffy clouds drift across the sky as it is painted gold
and orange and pink by the quickly setting sun.
It has been a good day, a very good day, which is always nice
when the train will be pulling out of the station soon.
It's always nice to end your time in a new world on a high
note. What was your good day like,
Pepper? Well, I woke up and I didn't
fall off the train with any of my arms or feet.
All the same people I remember from yesterday are still here, I
think, and I went into the city. What'd you do in the city?
Well, I played a show, of course.
That's right, but not a circus show.
A what? No, I, I.
I'm a singer. A singer.
Did you make a lot of tips today?
Yes, extra tips and the people at the bar were not bad looking.
If I do say so myself. Very good.
You've had a great day. When you arrive at the top of
the hill, you see that the circus is just beginning.
It's slow Hemming in, the last of the patrons are being ushered
out, dazed and starry eyes while the performers pack up their
acts in preparation for this strange and magical train to
pack up the circus in the last hours before dawn.
Night in this world is very short, and you found that out on
your first day here. The sun stretched out, long and
languorous and then dropped from the sky all at once, only to re
emerge a mere hour later. It's a bit funny, but you've
seen Stranger, you've been with the train for some time now,
right? How long?
Oh, yeah, I've, I've been here for, well, weeks.
Months has to be years. Yeah, Years and years and years
and years and years. Years.
And how did it all start? How did it all start?
It started the Lil Wayne. Most things start with A.
Song. With a song, do you remember how
it goes? Oh, you know, a little bit of
and you know. There's a melody missing, or
maybe a harmony. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. Yeah, that melody or harmony has
been gone a long time now. Years and years one might.
Say. Years and years and years, but
that's not important right now. While the rest of the circus is
packing in, you head towards the side of the train.
There's a group of six people, all of whom you know, you
remember, and they're loitering, keeping an eye on the circus as
it packs up. They're dressed in a variety of
mismatched and threadbare clothes.
One of them raises her hand in greeting to you, calling out.
Hey girl, any luck today? Pepper pulls out a sack of coins
and jingles jangles it. And goes.
You know it. And she laughs and claps.
The woman's name is Sally, and she hopped aboard just a little
while ago. Pepper, what does Sally see as
you come towards her? She sees a beautiful woman, but
what? Peppered, looks like kind of
medium height red hair, buxom lady.
She has like long hair but it's kind of like pinned up on the
sides like a faux mullet because the sides are pinned back and
the top is like curly and crazy. She's wearing like patched up
clothes that are mostly blue but with like some white and on her
back she has. A loot.
But the back of it is like reinforced with steel and
there's like spikes on the bottom.
So she can play it, but it's also her weapon.
Sally waves you over happily. As I said, she joined the train
recently, but she didn't join the circus.
She wasn't invited. None of you were invited,
Emperor Valerian. In this version of the city, the
towers of the castle cast a long shadow across the houses and the
quiet streets. From the very tops of those
towers one can look out and see deep craters in the earth, the
lasting scars of an awful war which still haunts the
population as they hurry through the dark and shadowed avenues.
There are some who say, whisper really, that goodness died on
the day the emperor won the war, that all hope died when the
Prince was struck down. There are many who have given up
hope of ever lifting the boot from their throats and live
their lives with their heads down, wishing only that they
will get through each day unnoticed by the cruel tyrant
who has taken their Kingdom. And yet, new graffiti has been
popping up, a splash of yellow paint and the words written in a
hurried scrawl. The dawn will come.
Emperor Valerian, you stand in front of this graffiti.
How do you feel about it? There is a sense of loss, but
also I knew this day would come. Tonight you have left behind
your scepter, your crown, and your fine furs.
You, the dark emperor of these choked lands, have slipped from
the castle walls in disguise. Tell me, how have you hidden
yourself from your own guards? What have you disguised yourself
as? Valerian is in a peasant's tunic
and he is wearing more of a hood.
He has very, very bright, like salmon pink hair and it's
extremely noticeable. He has his hair braided back
behind his head and he has a hood over his head to hide the
hair away. But he's dressed as a rat
catcher. So he he has friends among the
rat catchers. Like he makes sure that he is
always kind of well acquainted with at least one person in
every profession that works in the palace.
And so he has procured a rat catcher uniform, which has a
little basket on the hip for rats.
I and. Alive rats.
Whatever. I almost hate to ask, is there a
rat in the basket? Now do.
You want to look close. I am, I am.
There's a rat. He did not catch it himself, and
that's what he had his friend for.
And the rat is alive and it's squealing and squeaking and he's
in a stoop faked, and he's kind of limping around.
And every few minutes he bangs on the cage and he says hush to
the rat whenever somebody looks at him weird.
I have so many questions. Emperor Valerian, why have you
done this? Why have you come out of your
palace? Well, I've seen the writing on
the wall. I mean, there is very little
that I can do to stop it. I know how these cycles
manifest. I manifest them myself and I'm
bored with this. The people, they hate me, which
is. Fine.
They hate me. The people's ire has been long
building against me and my regime, and I'm ready for
something different, something new.
I have no ties binding me to this place.
Well, no ties but your throne and your government, but they're
meaningless. I can rebuild my throne, I can
rebuild government, easy. What I need is stimulation.
I don't have that here anymore. Ah, but stimulation has come to
you in the form of a circus. A circus that arrived very
suddenly and which none of your spies or advisors could give you
any information on. Each day your agents have
returned more confused and frustrated than the last, unable
to even accurately describe to you what goes on inside the
colorful tent that stands defiant against the darkness of
this city. They could tell you nothing
about the people who run the show or where they had come
from. All that they can say is that
they came in on a strange train which they haven't been able to
find a way to board. And so you've come to see for
yourself. Inside the tent, all of the
noises that should have echoed on the silent streets burst
forth all at once. Your citizens oh and ah, and
laugh in delight as they watch a small dog do backflips.
They drink concoctions that smell divine, familiar, and
otherworldly all at once. They watch as two men run across
a contraption of spinning wheels, jumping and flipping,
always moving in tandem to keep the wheels in motion.
And so, Emperor, what shall you do on your night in the circus?