August 31, 2026 • 26 mins
A deal is made, a contract signed, time unravels, a birthday arrives and the bill comes due in this classic.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie. And Smitha. And welcome to Stuff
I Never Told You, a production of iHeartRadio. And today
we are bringing back a classic that is a fiction.
We love to do these fiction episodes that have sound
(00:27):
effects in them. We took a break for a while
and hopefully we'll get back into it soon because we
love to do it. I don't know if there's any
particular reason you suggested this one, Samantha, or if you
just were like the title.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I remember the story.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
So I was like, oh, I think we should do
this one. Okay. Well, I listened to it again last
night and I kind of was laughing at it because
I was laughing at my intro and outro because I
was definitely concealing some things in here. Number one. There
(01:05):
is a knocking trope. I frequently use a knocking trope
when I write fiction. This one in particular is inspired
by Doctor Who. I know exactly what I was thinking of.
It was funny when I was listening to it. I
was like, I can't believe you didn't tell them this
was Doctor Who inspired. But there is a plot line
(01:26):
in Doctor Who where it's like prophesied he'll die when
he hears four knocks. And when he finally hears the
four knocks, it's really upsetting. So that is one thing.
Number two, Charmed. There's a Charmed reference in there that
I didn't say anything about. But the line, maybe we've
(01:50):
been here before, maybe we will be again, that is
from Charmed. I was not being completely upfront with some
of this. That's okay. It's good to have inspirations. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And I know I said at the end of this
episode that sometimes you get those stories that are more vision,
(02:14):
like you're trying to, it's like an idea. But actually
writing the story is difficult. And this one was one.
So I'm not mad at myself. I was actually kind
of surprised I didn't say anything. Normally, I'm very upfront
about this stuff. But yeah, it was fun to listen to,
and all of the sound effects, as always, were great.
And I'm excited to bring these back. I'm glad you did. Yes. Well,
(02:41):
I hope you enjoy it, too, listeners. Please enjoy. Hey,
this is Annie. And Samantha. And welcome to Stuff Mom
Never Told You, a production of iHeartRadio. Wow, my voice
(03:04):
kind of gave out in that intro. Things to come.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
What? I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
What? Please don't put a curse on my moneymaker.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Your moneymaker.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
My moneymaker. I love it. I love it. So this
brings us to another edition of Sminty Fiction. I have
a little teaser for you all. We are at the
end of my one-shots, which means... We're going to move
into a longer form, continuous one. What? Yes, which I'm
(03:39):
very excited and nervous about. It's kind of nervous putting
these things out there. But I am excited. I think
it'll be great. As always, if this is not your deal,
totally cool. We only do this once a month. It
won't hurt my feelings. If you're like, nope, not for me. Also,
as always, Christina. Amazing. Thank you. These would not happen
without Christina.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
She brings it to life.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Love it. She does. She does. So Samantha and I
have a lot of stuff going on in our personal lives.
I know we've alluded to some. I know everybody does.
So this one might be a bit shorter because there's
some moving. There's some vacation, perhaps.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, yeah. So a lot's going on right now. This
one might be a bit shorter. So this one is
interesting for a couple of reasons. We've talked before about
dreams and dreaming and how women, gender differences in dreams,
but also how in the pandemic my experience has been.
(04:41):
My dreams have become more vivid and more wild than
they ever have been. And as of late, I've noticed
I have a lot more sleep paralysis happening where dreams
are happening with the sleep paralysis. And it's terrifying. It's
so scary. But I do get what I feel like,
(05:06):
and I know that's kind of a trope and people
make fun of it, really good ideas from my dreams. Hey,
that's even better though. Yeah. There's been so many I've
written down where I just have like the title and
the basics and they are in our like Svinti fiction
folder because I might come back to them. I had
one last night where Sebastian Stan tried to kill me.
(05:30):
Did you watch Fresh again? No, I didn't. I didn't.
And then he became best friends. He was mad about
my Winter Soldier costume. And so I guess that was
the grounds to kill me. And then he became best
friends with one of my best friends and I became
very jealous. But anyway, this story comes from that because
(05:52):
this is actually a really vivid dream that I had.
And my love of time travel horror. Do you have
any thoughts, opinions on time travel?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I love a good trope on time travel, for sure.
I like that whole perspective because I really lived wishing...
And again, this is very much me being a part
of white culture, not realizing how damaging it was. But
in the 1930s, 1940s, because I loved the old school musicals.
So any of that, 1950s, really wanted to be a
(06:22):
part of that. Not realizing... as an Asian woman, I
wouldn't have done much. But, yeah, like, there are moments.
And then also because the unknown of way back when feels, like, interesting. Like,
you can get some good stuff, like witchcraft and all
of that. Like, that is us today. And we know
good horror can be... But when we talk about the
witch and stuff like that, when it throws it back,
(06:44):
it feels even more ominous.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah. Yeah. And I also... I'm somebody who loves puzzles,
and I feel like a good time travel movie or story...
I like trying to put together the pieces. And I
think there's a horror in thinking you can go back
and fix something and then it makes everything so much worse.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Even worse, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Okay, so with all this in mind, let us get
into the fiction portion of this episode. When I was
11 years old, a man knocked at my door. Four crisp,
(07:29):
demanding knocks, and goosebumps broke out over my skin. The
hair on my arm stood up. He wore a long
black coat. His skin was pale, strikingly so. His eyes dark.
Had no hair. Cold permeated the room. The heavy kind
(07:49):
of cold that froze everything in its tracks, that slowed
time itself. My mom, a small, petite woman, was swallowed
in his shadow. He smelled like vinegar. It was overwhelming.
He looked out of place in our small apartment, a
(08:09):
specter looming in the doorway. They spoke in hushed tones,
his voice a void. I watched out of the corner
of my eye from behind my couch. I thought he
might be a tax collector. or there to evict us.
There was a seriousness about my mom's shoulders that reminded
me of how she held herself when she spoke with
(08:31):
the bank on the phone. She stepped back to let
him inside. The way he moved was unnatural, as though
he was gliding. They went into the small kitchen, my
mom taking a seat at the table as the man
stood in the corner. The harsh fluorescent light of the
kitchen painted shadows on his face, obscuring his features. From
(08:54):
his jacket, he produced a piece of paper, sliding it
onto the table, followed by a pen. I watched my
mom as she read it, her head in her hand.
He stood in silence, watching, waiting. My mother's shoulders slumped.
She signed the paper. In the corner, the man smiled.
(09:15):
A thin, garish smile in the light. Something shifted in
the air. A shiver. I couldn't see his eyes, but
I knew he was looking at me. He collected the
paper with reverence, pocketing it in his long, black jacket.
He murmured something, stepping out of the kitchen and into
(09:38):
the dining room. My mom followed behind him, her arms
wrapped around her middle. For the first time, I looked
into his eyes. They were empty. Though I desperately wanted to,
I couldn't look away. Ten years from now, your life
is going to change, he said. The statement was flat. Lifeless.
(10:03):
The moment passed. He showed himself out, walking out of
our lives. I assumed forever. I hoped forever. I stared
at the door until my mom came and knelt in
front of me, blocking it from view. Happy birthday, sweetheart.
Over the years, I asked my mom about this incident,
(10:25):
but she just got the same guarded smile with a
vague explanation about a mortgage before she changed the subject.
Not one birthday went by I didn't think about it.
My 21st birthday and the life-changing promise loomed larger and
larger the closer I got to it. That wasn't the
only reason I could never forget that day. I saw him.
(10:47):
The man. I saw him everywhere. Sometimes it was just
a flash, a reflection in a window, in the TV.
Others it was more of a peeling, a pervading sense
of dread and cold, always accompanied by the strong smell
of vinegar. Once I was in a movie theater and
(11:07):
this presence was so strong, I swore there was a
hand on my shoulder that I could feel his empty,
vacuous smile next to my ear. I ran out of
the theater. My friends made fun of me for it
for years. Sometimes I saw him, not a shadow, not
a reflection, standing there, watching, smiling. I pretended I couldn't
(11:33):
see him until he went away, but he never truly
went away. I jerk awake in the middle of the night,
convinced someone had been standing over me only moments before.
I only told one person about this, My best friend, Katie.
We jokingly called the apparition Feingar. There are things you
(11:57):
don't question as a kid. We moved into a house,
a big one. After so many years in a small
apartment worrying about money, it was the height of luxury.
My mom became increasingly distant. It hurt, but her armor
was seemingly unyielding. Soon after the move, my friend Katie
(12:18):
bought a Ouija board over for a sleepover. With nervous anticipation,
we laid it out, giggling, unsure what to do. We
asked it about boys, jerking away and laughing at the
first signs of tentative movement, asking each other if the
other moved the cursor, and both vehemently denying it. Let's
(12:38):
talk to Vinegar, Katie asked, excited. To her, the specter
that followed me around was a source of morbid curiosity.
Where she felt excitement, I felt fear. I wanted to
know more about him too, though. And whatever he'd spoken
to my mom about. Whatever contract they signed that left
(12:58):
me with his shadow. Is Vyngar here? She asked. The
cursor stayed resolutely still. My friend tried again. For a
long moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, surely, it slid across
the board, the window coming to a stopover. Yes. We
(13:23):
both stared at it, then at each other, shaking our
heads at the silent question. Neither of us had moved it.
What do you want? Another pause. We waited with bated breath.
The familiar cold settled heavy in the air. the faintest
sound of a whisper. The smell of vinegar. We read
(13:47):
the letters aloud as the cursor skittered across the board. S-O-O-N.
My stomach clenched with fear. Then, the cursor twitched, and
we both jerked away from it as it burned. It
began moving erratically on its own as we watched in
(14:07):
growing horror. With jerky movements, the indicator darted and halted
over a string of numbers. The date of my 21st birthday. Suddenly,
he was right behind me. I knew if I turned around,
I'd see his too pale face and two empty black eyes.
(14:28):
I froze in terror, the cursor's movements growing even more frantic.
My heart pounded against my ribcage, racing out of control. Panicked,
I threw the board against the wall. Silence descended, interrupted
only by my gasping breaths. Then, my friend laughed. Awesome,
she declared it. I never used the Ouija board again.
(14:54):
By the time I was 20, my mother and I
may as well have been strangers. My impassioned fee for
her to talk to me, to look at me, was
met with silence. Her expression unmoved. The specter was an
almost constant now, a shadow I'd been forced to accept.
Dread saturated my life and I became a shadow of myself,
(15:15):
a certainty taking stronger hold every day that I was
getting closer and closer to my execution. And then, scientists
announced that they'd discovered time travel. That they were working
on a machine and training their first travelers, as they
called them. Everything was about to change, they said. Jubilant,
(15:39):
they set the date for the first voyage. The same
date as my 21st birthday. I was in my apartment
when I found out. My stomach dropped. I tried to
swallow and couldn't. This couldn't be a coincidence. Could it?
(16:02):
The news reported on their progress as the day ticked closer.
They speculated about the date they'd go to, forward or back.
I already knew what date they'd choose. Ten years earlier,
the same day the mysterious specter first knocked on my door.
When my 21st birthday arrived, the entire world watched with
(16:24):
excitement as they powered up the machine, wires and coils whirring,
a steady hum filling the room as scientists gave updates
on the status of the machine. The travelers stepped in
the glass case. Four men and women, excited, nervous, determined.
A countdown blared. The humming intensified. Zero. A tearing sound
(16:55):
rent the air, one that you could feel in your bones.
The travelers were screaming horrific, primal sounds as they were
ripped apart and reassembled, again and again until they seemingly
were shorn out of existence, the broadcast cut out. The
world ended that day. I'm not sure how long I
(17:16):
stared blankly ahead, waiting. There was a knock on my door.
Four sharp knocks. Dreamlike, I answered it. The man who
had haunted me for years stood there, fully corporeal, just
as he had a decade ago. Behind, where once the
(17:39):
landscape had been verdant, it was now desolate. The sky
purple and angry, even though it was the middle of
the day. Strange creatures, twisted, all teeth and claws and
tentacles snarling, shambling and galloping and screeching. The man smiled
that lipless smile. his eyes brighter than I'd ever seen them,
(18:02):
some unidentifiable quality burning within. With purposeful movements, he reached
into his jacket pocket and pulled out a crisply folded
piece of paper. He held it out to me. Shock
dictated my actions. I reached out and took it. When
I unfolded it, certain words stuck out to me. Tethered. Fixed. Point.
(18:28):
My mom's signature. The date of collection, today's date. You're
one of the travelers, I said as the fabric of
reality was torn asunder behind him. He smiled. Images invaded
my head as he stared at me, sharing his memories,
images of a cavernous darkness and screaming and pain of
(18:50):
being reputedly torn apart. Impossibilities and monsters and demons as
time lost meaning and reality collapsed in on itself. Gigantic creatures, roaring,
evolving and unnatural, the answer to our summons, rushing into
the tear we created. Watching, existing, aging, unending pain, loss
(19:15):
of self, mutating. And then, arriving, finally, to the location
and time they'd sought after. No longer quite human. Aged
and monstrous. Unable to return home. Furious. Ten years to
(19:36):
wait seemed like nothing compared to the near eternity they'd
spent in a hellscape, exposed to so much horror as
the world was unmade. But they were unmoored from time,
outside of it. Discordant. the contract was only meaningful and
that the intent inherent in it provided a thread for
a lost traveler to follow a guiding light my mother
(19:59):
signing that contract rang across the universe until it reached
its terminus a fixed point in a destabilized universe He'd
followed me, shifting in and out, a shadowy constant in
my life, tethered to me as I guided him back home.
His energy manifesting in starts and stops as he grew
(20:20):
more powerful the closer we both arrived at our destined
meeting at the end of the world. And in return,
I was not unmade. As humans all around us screamed,
transformed as their cells destabilized and reconstituted into twisting, mindless,
pained creatures. What now? I asked. He smiled and held
(20:45):
out his hand. Haven't we been here before? Maybe we
will be again. And we're back. I hope you enjoyed
(21:14):
that fiction bit. Okay, so a couple things on this one.
Like I said, this was based on a very vivid
dream that I had and my love of time travel.
So I believe I've talked about it before on the show,
but Vinegar is a real thing. I hesitate at real,
but it is something that I... believed that I saw
(21:37):
as a child. And I'm sure it was like the
creepy child from a movie who can see ghosts that
they can't see or whatever. I am very, very confident
that I was just dealing with trauma. And also I
had a friend who would really prop up... We both
(21:57):
liked horror. We both liked these kinds of things. And
she would really prop that up. So I... would smell
this vinegar and I would see this figure. And my
friends knew. They knew about Weingar. And the Ouija board
incident is also true. And I just want to, you know,
(22:22):
put out there, I love horror. I don't particularly believe
in ghosts or anything, but I don't dismiss that I
was going through something and it felt real at the time.
But yeah, it did feel like something always hanging over
me and always watching me. And I, again, I think
that was my trauma. But that was part of the
(22:44):
inspiration of this story too. The title I got from, again,
I love these technological, applying these technological terms to these human,
deep human experiences that we all go through is, Delete
culture is a term that refers to an idea that
(23:07):
you can just post something and then delete it and
it's gone, but it's never actually gone. And so this
idea in terms of contracts and time travel, I don't know.
I just really like the title. I do think it's interesting,
the idea of a parent selling the future of their child,
(23:29):
knowing that in like a 10 years time in this case,
their life is going to go terribly wrong. But in
that 10 years, you're going to have your fame, your fortune,
or whatever it is. I find that really fascinating, especially
in our culture of... And this is broad generalization, but
in our culture of seeing, kind of like pushing kids
(23:49):
from a very young age to be Olympic athletes or
actors or whatever it is, the parents kind of making
this decision and then really pushing... And in the best
case scenario, that works out great for everybody. But it
doesn't always. It doesn't always. So that is one thing
(24:11):
that I've just been thinking about, I guess, on my mind.
And kind of that whole signing of a contract and
not worrying, like, we're not going to worry about that now.
We'll deal with that later. We'll find a way out
of it. We'll find a way out of it. And
then you can't. And clearly I have a whole thing
about knocking and somebody being there that is mysterious. So
(24:37):
I'm getting like vibes just thinking about it. But also,
and I'm going to be real honest and admit this
because I bet some of you picked up on it.
I can't remember how it ended. The dream, I don't
remember how the dream ended. So I made up, like,
I remember all the stuff leading up to it, but
(24:59):
it's kind of without an ending. And it felt appropriate
for a time travel story.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Oh, so those are my nightmares. When something doesn't end,
like when something doesn't end in the movie, I need
an ending. I need closure, which is one of the
ways I prevent from being scared from a movie is
I need to see an ending. So, ooh, that's even worse.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Right. No, it is. It's upsetting. There's no real ending.
And I just wanted to put that out there. I'm
going to be real honest because I'm sure some of
you were like, wait a minute. What? I'm not the
only one that does it. There are plenty of movies
that just sort of end. Oh, absolutely. So, as always,
(25:37):
we hope you enjoyed. And yeah, look out for more
interesting fiction content in the future. And, as always, too,
if you have suggestions for something in the public domain
we could read, that would be awesome. So, Please send
those our way. Our email is stuffmediamomstuff at iheartmedia.com. You
can find us on Twitter at MomStuffPodcast or on Instagram
at Stuff Mom Never Told You. Thanks as always to
(25:57):
our super producer, Christine.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Making the magic happen.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yes. And thanks to you for listening. Stuff Mom Never
Told You is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie. And Smitha. And welcome to Stuff
I Never Told You, a production of iHeartRadio. And today
we are bringing back a classic that is a fiction.
We love to do these fiction episodes that have sound
(00:27):
effects in them. We took a break for a while
and hopefully we'll get back into it soon because we
love to do it. I don't know if there's any
particular reason you suggested this one, Samantha, or if you
just were like the title.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I remember the story.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
So I was like, oh, I think we should do
this one. Okay. Well, I listened to it again last
night and I kind of was laughing at it because
I was laughing at my intro and outro because I
was definitely concealing some things in here. Number one. There
(01:05):
is a knocking trope. I frequently use a knocking trope
when I write fiction. This one in particular is inspired
by Doctor Who. I know exactly what I was thinking of.
It was funny when I was listening to it. I
was like, I can't believe you didn't tell them this
was Doctor Who inspired. But there is a plot line
(01:26):
in Doctor Who where it's like prophesied he'll die when
he hears four knocks. And when he finally hears the
four knocks, it's really upsetting. So that is one thing.
Number two, Charmed. There's a Charmed reference in there that
I didn't say anything about. But the line, maybe we've
(01:50):
been here before, maybe we will be again, that is
from Charmed. I was not being completely upfront with some
of this. That's okay. It's good to have inspirations. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And I know I said at the end of this
episode that sometimes you get those stories that are more vision,
(02:14):
like you're trying to, it's like an idea. But actually
writing the story is difficult. And this one was one.
So I'm not mad at myself. I was actually kind
of surprised I didn't say anything. Normally, I'm very upfront
about this stuff. But yeah, it was fun to listen to,
and all of the sound effects, as always, were great.
And I'm excited to bring these back. I'm glad you did. Yes. Well,
(02:41):
I hope you enjoy it, too, listeners. Please enjoy. Hey,
this is Annie. And Samantha. And welcome to Stuff Mom
Never Told You, a production of iHeartRadio. Wow, my voice
(03:04):
kind of gave out in that intro. Things to come.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
What? I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
What? Please don't put a curse on my moneymaker.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Your moneymaker.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
My moneymaker. I love it. I love it. So this
brings us to another edition of Sminty Fiction. I have
a little teaser for you all. We are at the
end of my one-shots, which means... We're going to move
into a longer form, continuous one. What? Yes, which I'm
(03:39):
very excited and nervous about. It's kind of nervous putting
these things out there. But I am excited. I think
it'll be great. As always, if this is not your deal,
totally cool. We only do this once a month. It
won't hurt my feelings. If you're like, nope, not for me. Also,
as always, Christina. Amazing. Thank you. These would not happen
without Christina.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
She brings it to life.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Love it. She does. She does. So Samantha and I
have a lot of stuff going on in our personal lives.
I know we've alluded to some. I know everybody does.
So this one might be a bit shorter because there's
some moving. There's some vacation, perhaps.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, yeah. So a lot's going on right now. This
one might be a bit shorter. So this one is
interesting for a couple of reasons. We've talked before about
dreams and dreaming and how women, gender differences in dreams,
but also how in the pandemic my experience has been.
(04:41):
My dreams have become more vivid and more wild than
they ever have been. And as of late, I've noticed
I have a lot more sleep paralysis happening where dreams
are happening with the sleep paralysis. And it's terrifying. It's
so scary. But I do get what I feel like,
(05:06):
and I know that's kind of a trope and people
make fun of it, really good ideas from my dreams. Hey,
that's even better though. Yeah. There's been so many I've
written down where I just have like the title and
the basics and they are in our like Svinti fiction
folder because I might come back to them. I had
one last night where Sebastian Stan tried to kill me.
(05:30):
Did you watch Fresh again? No, I didn't. I didn't.
And then he became best friends. He was mad about
my Winter Soldier costume. And so I guess that was
the grounds to kill me. And then he became best
friends with one of my best friends and I became
very jealous. But anyway, this story comes from that because
(05:52):
this is actually a really vivid dream that I had.
And my love of time travel horror. Do you have
any thoughts, opinions on time travel?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I love a good trope on time travel, for sure.
I like that whole perspective because I really lived wishing...
And again, this is very much me being a part
of white culture, not realizing how damaging it was. But
in the 1930s, 1940s, because I loved the old school musicals.
So any of that, 1950s, really wanted to be a
(06:22):
part of that. Not realizing... as an Asian woman, I
wouldn't have done much. But, yeah, like, there are moments.
And then also because the unknown of way back when feels, like, interesting. Like,
you can get some good stuff, like witchcraft and all
of that. Like, that is us today. And we know
good horror can be... But when we talk about the
witch and stuff like that, when it throws it back,
(06:44):
it feels even more ominous.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah. Yeah. And I also... I'm somebody who loves puzzles,
and I feel like a good time travel movie or story...
I like trying to put together the pieces. And I
think there's a horror in thinking you can go back
and fix something and then it makes everything so much worse.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Even worse, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Okay, so with all this in mind, let us get
into the fiction portion of this episode. When I was
11 years old, a man knocked at my door. Four crisp,
(07:29):
demanding knocks, and goosebumps broke out over my skin. The
hair on my arm stood up. He wore a long
black coat. His skin was pale, strikingly so. His eyes dark.
Had no hair. Cold permeated the room. The heavy kind
(07:49):
of cold that froze everything in its tracks, that slowed
time itself. My mom, a small, petite woman, was swallowed
in his shadow. He smelled like vinegar. It was overwhelming.
He looked out of place in our small apartment, a
(08:09):
specter looming in the doorway. They spoke in hushed tones,
his voice a void. I watched out of the corner
of my eye from behind my couch. I thought he
might be a tax collector. or there to evict us.
There was a seriousness about my mom's shoulders that reminded
me of how she held herself when she spoke with
(08:31):
the bank on the phone. She stepped back to let
him inside. The way he moved was unnatural, as though
he was gliding. They went into the small kitchen, my
mom taking a seat at the table as the man
stood in the corner. The harsh fluorescent light of the
kitchen painted shadows on his face, obscuring his features. From
(08:54):
his jacket, he produced a piece of paper, sliding it
onto the table, followed by a pen. I watched my
mom as she read it, her head in her hand.
He stood in silence, watching, waiting. My mother's shoulders slumped.
She signed the paper. In the corner, the man smiled.
(09:15):
A thin, garish smile in the light. Something shifted in
the air. A shiver. I couldn't see his eyes, but
I knew he was looking at me. He collected the
paper with reverence, pocketing it in his long, black jacket.
He murmured something, stepping out of the kitchen and into
(09:38):
the dining room. My mom followed behind him, her arms
wrapped around her middle. For the first time, I looked
into his eyes. They were empty. Though I desperately wanted to,
I couldn't look away. Ten years from now, your life
is going to change, he said. The statement was flat. Lifeless.
(10:03):
The moment passed. He showed himself out, walking out of
our lives. I assumed forever. I hoped forever. I stared
at the door until my mom came and knelt in
front of me, blocking it from view. Happy birthday, sweetheart.
Over the years, I asked my mom about this incident,
(10:25):
but she just got the same guarded smile with a
vague explanation about a mortgage before she changed the subject.
Not one birthday went by I didn't think about it.
My 21st birthday and the life-changing promise loomed larger and
larger the closer I got to it. That wasn't the
only reason I could never forget that day. I saw him.
(10:47):
The man. I saw him everywhere. Sometimes it was just
a flash, a reflection in a window, in the TV.
Others it was more of a peeling, a pervading sense
of dread and cold, always accompanied by the strong smell
of vinegar. Once I was in a movie theater and
(11:07):
this presence was so strong, I swore there was a
hand on my shoulder that I could feel his empty,
vacuous smile next to my ear. I ran out of
the theater. My friends made fun of me for it
for years. Sometimes I saw him, not a shadow, not
a reflection, standing there, watching, smiling. I pretended I couldn't
(11:33):
see him until he went away, but he never truly
went away. I jerk awake in the middle of the night,
convinced someone had been standing over me only moments before.
I only told one person about this, My best friend, Katie.
We jokingly called the apparition Feingar. There are things you
(11:57):
don't question as a kid. We moved into a house,
a big one. After so many years in a small
apartment worrying about money, it was the height of luxury.
My mom became increasingly distant. It hurt, but her armor
was seemingly unyielding. Soon after the move, my friend Katie
(12:18):
bought a Ouija board over for a sleepover. With nervous anticipation,
we laid it out, giggling, unsure what to do. We
asked it about boys, jerking away and laughing at the
first signs of tentative movement, asking each other if the
other moved the cursor, and both vehemently denying it. Let's
(12:38):
talk to Vinegar, Katie asked, excited. To her, the specter
that followed me around was a source of morbid curiosity.
Where she felt excitement, I felt fear. I wanted to
know more about him too, though. And whatever he'd spoken
to my mom about. Whatever contract they signed that left
(12:58):
me with his shadow. Is Vyngar here? She asked. The
cursor stayed resolutely still. My friend tried again. For a
long moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, surely, it slid across
the board, the window coming to a stopover. Yes. We
(13:23):
both stared at it, then at each other, shaking our
heads at the silent question. Neither of us had moved it.
What do you want? Another pause. We waited with bated breath.
The familiar cold settled heavy in the air. the faintest
sound of a whisper. The smell of vinegar. We read
(13:47):
the letters aloud as the cursor skittered across the board. S-O-O-N.
My stomach clenched with fear. Then, the cursor twitched, and
we both jerked away from it as it burned. It
began moving erratically on its own as we watched in
(14:07):
growing horror. With jerky movements, the indicator darted and halted
over a string of numbers. The date of my 21st birthday. Suddenly,
he was right behind me. I knew if I turned around,
I'd see his too pale face and two empty black eyes.
(14:28):
I froze in terror, the cursor's movements growing even more frantic.
My heart pounded against my ribcage, racing out of control. Panicked,
I threw the board against the wall. Silence descended, interrupted
only by my gasping breaths. Then, my friend laughed. Awesome,
she declared it. I never used the Ouija board again.
(14:54):
By the time I was 20, my mother and I
may as well have been strangers. My impassioned fee for
her to talk to me, to look at me, was
met with silence. Her expression unmoved. The specter was an
almost constant now, a shadow I'd been forced to accept.
Dread saturated my life and I became a shadow of myself,
(15:15):
a certainty taking stronger hold every day that I was
getting closer and closer to my execution. And then, scientists
announced that they'd discovered time travel. That they were working
on a machine and training their first travelers, as they
called them. Everything was about to change, they said. Jubilant,
(15:39):
they set the date for the first voyage. The same
date as my 21st birthday. I was in my apartment
when I found out. My stomach dropped. I tried to
swallow and couldn't. This couldn't be a coincidence. Could it?
(16:02):
The news reported on their progress as the day ticked closer.
They speculated about the date they'd go to, forward or back.
I already knew what date they'd choose. Ten years earlier,
the same day the mysterious specter first knocked on my door.
When my 21st birthday arrived, the entire world watched with
(16:24):
excitement as they powered up the machine, wires and coils whirring,
a steady hum filling the room as scientists gave updates
on the status of the machine. The travelers stepped in
the glass case. Four men and women, excited, nervous, determined.
A countdown blared. The humming intensified. Zero. A tearing sound
(16:55):
rent the air, one that you could feel in your bones.
The travelers were screaming horrific, primal sounds as they were
ripped apart and reassembled, again and again until they seemingly
were shorn out of existence, the broadcast cut out. The
world ended that day. I'm not sure how long I
(17:16):
stared blankly ahead, waiting. There was a knock on my door.
Four sharp knocks. Dreamlike, I answered it. The man who
had haunted me for years stood there, fully corporeal, just
as he had a decade ago. Behind, where once the
(17:39):
landscape had been verdant, it was now desolate. The sky
purple and angry, even though it was the middle of
the day. Strange creatures, twisted, all teeth and claws and
tentacles snarling, shambling and galloping and screeching. The man smiled
that lipless smile. his eyes brighter than I'd ever seen them,
(18:02):
some unidentifiable quality burning within. With purposeful movements, he reached
into his jacket pocket and pulled out a crisply folded
piece of paper. He held it out to me. Shock
dictated my actions. I reached out and took it. When
I unfolded it, certain words stuck out to me. Tethered. Fixed. Point.
(18:28):
My mom's signature. The date of collection, today's date. You're
one of the travelers, I said as the fabric of
reality was torn asunder behind him. He smiled. Images invaded
my head as he stared at me, sharing his memories,
images of a cavernous darkness and screaming and pain of
(18:50):
being reputedly torn apart. Impossibilities and monsters and demons as
time lost meaning and reality collapsed in on itself. Gigantic creatures, roaring,
evolving and unnatural, the answer to our summons, rushing into
the tear we created. Watching, existing, aging, unending pain, loss
(19:15):
of self, mutating. And then, arriving, finally, to the location
and time they'd sought after. No longer quite human. Aged
and monstrous. Unable to return home. Furious. Ten years to
(19:36):
wait seemed like nothing compared to the near eternity they'd
spent in a hellscape, exposed to so much horror as
the world was unmade. But they were unmoored from time,
outside of it. Discordant. the contract was only meaningful and
that the intent inherent in it provided a thread for
a lost traveler to follow a guiding light my mother
(19:59):
signing that contract rang across the universe until it reached
its terminus a fixed point in a destabilized universe He'd
followed me, shifting in and out, a shadowy constant in
my life, tethered to me as I guided him back home.
His energy manifesting in starts and stops as he grew
(20:20):
more powerful the closer we both arrived at our destined
meeting at the end of the world. And in return,
I was not unmade. As humans all around us screamed,
transformed as their cells destabilized and reconstituted into twisting, mindless,
pained creatures. What now? I asked. He smiled and held
(20:45):
out his hand. Haven't we been here before? Maybe we
will be again. And we're back. I hope you enjoyed
(21:14):
that fiction bit. Okay, so a couple things on this one.
Like I said, this was based on a very vivid
dream that I had and my love of time travel.
So I believe I've talked about it before on the show,
but Vinegar is a real thing. I hesitate at real,
but it is something that I... believed that I saw
(21:37):
as a child. And I'm sure it was like the
creepy child from a movie who can see ghosts that
they can't see or whatever. I am very, very confident
that I was just dealing with trauma. And also I
had a friend who would really prop up... We both
(21:57):
liked horror. We both liked these kinds of things. And
she would really prop that up. So I... would smell
this vinegar and I would see this figure. And my
friends knew. They knew about Weingar. And the Ouija board
incident is also true. And I just want to, you know,
(22:22):
put out there, I love horror. I don't particularly believe
in ghosts or anything, but I don't dismiss that I
was going through something and it felt real at the time.
But yeah, it did feel like something always hanging over
me and always watching me. And I, again, I think
that was my trauma. But that was part of the
(22:44):
inspiration of this story too. The title I got from, again,
I love these technological, applying these technological terms to these human,
deep human experiences that we all go through is, Delete
culture is a term that refers to an idea that
(23:07):
you can just post something and then delete it and
it's gone, but it's never actually gone. And so this
idea in terms of contracts and time travel, I don't know.
I just really like the title. I do think it's interesting,
the idea of a parent selling the future of their child,
(23:29):
knowing that in like a 10 years time in this case,
their life is going to go terribly wrong. But in
that 10 years, you're going to have your fame, your fortune,
or whatever it is. I find that really fascinating, especially
in our culture of... And this is broad generalization, but
in our culture of seeing, kind of like pushing kids
(23:49):
from a very young age to be Olympic athletes or
actors or whatever it is, the parents kind of making
this decision and then really pushing... And in the best
case scenario, that works out great for everybody. But it
doesn't always. It doesn't always. So that is one thing
(24:11):
that I've just been thinking about, I guess, on my mind.
And kind of that whole signing of a contract and
not worrying, like, we're not going to worry about that now.
We'll deal with that later. We'll find a way out
of it. We'll find a way out of it. And
then you can't. And clearly I have a whole thing
about knocking and somebody being there that is mysterious. So
(24:37):
I'm getting like vibes just thinking about it. But also,
and I'm going to be real honest and admit this
because I bet some of you picked up on it.
I can't remember how it ended. The dream, I don't
remember how the dream ended. So I made up, like,
I remember all the stuff leading up to it, but
(24:59):
it's kind of without an ending. And it felt appropriate
for a time travel story.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Oh, so those are my nightmares. When something doesn't end,
like when something doesn't end in the movie, I need
an ending. I need closure, which is one of the
ways I prevent from being scared from a movie is
I need to see an ending. So, ooh, that's even worse.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Right. No, it is. It's upsetting. There's no real ending.
And I just wanted to put that out there. I'm
going to be real honest because I'm sure some of
you were like, wait a minute. What? I'm not the
only one that does it. There are plenty of movies
that just sort of end. Oh, absolutely. So, as always,
(25:37):
we hope you enjoyed. And yeah, look out for more
interesting fiction content in the future. And, as always, too,
if you have suggestions for something in the public domain
we could read, that would be awesome. So, Please send
those our way. Our email is stuffmediamomstuff at iheartmedia.com. You
can find us on Twitter at MomStuffPodcast or on Instagram
at Stuff Mom Never Told You. Thanks as always to
(25:57):
our super producer, Christine.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Making the magic happen.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yes. And thanks to you for listening. Stuff Mom Never
Told You is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
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