February 14, 2024 • 34 mins
Princeton, New Jersey, February 1967. In a hauntingly reflective episode of The Passage, the Ferryman, with his deep, resonant voice provided by Dan Fogler (Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, The Walking Dead), welcomes a figure whose legacy is as massive and complex as the atom itself—J. Robert Oppenheimer, voiced by Bill Rogers, the father of the atomic bomb. The Ferryman arrives in a '67 Fairlane, a vehicle reminiscent of the ones that shuttled him under the watchful eyes of the FBI during the days of the Manhattan Project.
As the car's engine ticks and cools in the spectral silence of the afterlife, Oppenheimer rides in the backseat, his eyes holding the weight of a creation that forever altered the course of human history. The Ferryman listens intently as Oppenheimer confesses his feelings of profound guilt and his struggle to comprehend the full scope of the suffering inflicted by the atomic bomb—suffering he feels personally responsible for.
Throughout the journey, Oppenheimer wrestles with his desire for redemption. He reveals a startling wish: to endure the afterlife in a manner that mirrors the agony of each soul affected by his creation. But in the realm where the Ferryman guides the lost, desires are dangerous, and the path to atonement is fraught with unforeseen consequences.
Oppenheimer is forced to confront a haunting question: In seeking to share the suffering of his creation's victims, might he instead be bound to a fate far more terrible? The episode explores the delicate balance between guilt, responsibility, and the longing for redemption, set against the backdrop of one of humanity's most profound and troubling achievements.
In this episode of The Passage listeners are invited to journey through the heart of moral ambiguity, where the lines between right and wrong, guilt and atonement, are as blurred and complex as the quantum particles that Oppenheimer spent his life studying. Written by Steven Williams.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, I am the fairy man.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The human spirit is my business. Their madness, their passion,
the wonderful and monstrous ways they burn out their brief candle.
I regret to tell you that very many American lives
in love.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
What herd to shouts from the car, He's dead. Whether
he rebird to president or four hours, people must get
up and identifica.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I am here in the in between, to collect their
spirits and carry them to what comes next. This road
is not on any map. It spans the thresholds between
their most forbidden desires and their greatest fear.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
All I ask for.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
In payment is a tale and accounting of their lives
and the great temporary that is the land we're living.
These are their stories.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
This is the passage.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Princeton, New Jersey, February nineteen sixty seven. The world is frozen,
smells of ice bleach. A winter storm passed through last week,
swallowing the township in a lovely blanket of snow, erasing
(02:40):
the ugly mud of late winter, replacing it with a
clean white palette, unblemished, pure but purity is fleeting. The
snow melts turns to the barriers of black slush, A
frozen reserme, who are a sieve for all the daily grime, debris,
(03:04):
and stench of the twentieth century, And it keeps it
on display until the spring melt. And so it is
with everything, All forms but sieves filtering the cosmic debris.
All figures are but a collection of particles caught in
a fleeting dance. All souls are but at ease in
(03:27):
the great river of time. So it is with my
next passenger, j. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the bomb,
(03:48):
a man of science, truly, a man so obsessed with
the pursuit of knowledge, so in love with the question
of how, that he pursues into a type of hell
for himself and for the Earth. No idea, no matter
how pure it appears, lives in a vacuum. It's one
(04:13):
thing to steal fire from the gods. It's entirely something
else to safeguard that power from other thieves. In this way,
humankind has continuously improved this arms technology since the Stone Age,
and now it wields a weapon so powerful it is
(04:38):
too destructive to be used. And the only way these
leaders can conceive of defending against complete annihilation is to
harness the power for themselves. It is not within range
of human imagination. What will happen when the world goes
to war with the technology it possesses Now, all of
(05:01):
the bombs dropped in the Second World War combined, a
war that wiped entire cities off the map, pale in
comparison to the destructive power of a single missile shrapped
into one nuclear submarine and wired to a trigger. Genghis Khan,
(05:22):
Alexander the Great Hitler, none of these had such power,
a weapon of gods in the hands of human beings.
As another of my brilliant passengers said, when such a
(05:45):
war happens, the one after that will undoubtedly be fought
with sticks and stones. Robert Oppernheimer was the father of
this nuclear age. On its surface, bright clean energy for
healthy families and a strong, secure nation, pure as the snow.
(06:09):
But beneath this blanket of white, this nation royals with
unsatiable lust forevermore power, ignited by fear and fueled by madness.
Oppenheimer sat at the starting line of this gray and
terrible arms race. He held the starting gun to the sky.
(06:31):
He pulled the trigger. Ah, Robert Appernheim.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Ah, so you've arrived I had not imagined you would,
But the world holds more than mere imagination can contain.
Are you death?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I'm here to offer you passage.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
Interesting? Well, though I was a man of science, I've
become increasingly open minded since the first attack. A nice
car as well, no doubt, an illusion down to the
tint of the windows in design. The same bacon FBI
(07:43):
agent would escort me in, though I've certainly fallen out
of their favor these past years. Amazing how the destruction
of innocence is applauded with patriotic fervor, but warnings from
scientists are only cause for condemnation and ridicule. Come, do
(08:19):
you know how long the contamination dust from a single
nuclear test remains radioactive? How long it will be before
any nuclear sight can possibly hope to be habitable. Bombs
we dropped in World War Two were one one thousandth
the power of the devices tested to day, and the
(08:42):
devastation those first bombs cost. Do you hear them? You do,
don't you? The cries, sound of the wind on jagged rocks,
(09:04):
the sounds of broken bodies crushed by rubble ribs protruding
his pierced lungs fail to gather breath. I see all
of them, My God, I am all of them are I,
of course, and they are me. There is a woman
(09:28):
holding her child. She can't know what's happening. How could
any one? She only has time for instinct as she
clutches the child to her chest. The eyes are the
first to bear blest. It is she that could not
watch her child dissolve in her arms. To the outside world,
(09:50):
it would seem their suffering ended in no time at all.
But we physicists know that time is simply an abstraction.
It exists only as a convenient wa to denote our
shared ongoing entropy. And I tell you our collective decay
and destruction is more intertwined than I ever thought possible,
(10:12):
the interconnected structure of the universe. But I have made
mistakes in my life. No, to call them mistakes would
(10:35):
be disingenuous. I intended, worked towards, and accomplished what I
set out to do. I have begun to pay for
those actions, and believe we are a short distance from
where I will suffer for a time eternal, if there
be any justice. Now that I've died, the pain is worsened.
(10:58):
It seems to have taken on a more minute physical quality.
No longer does a simple nervous system, easily dulled with medicine,
quickly overwhelmed and protected by the brain's defenses, solely carry
the burden in parts of me unknown, I feel the
atomic fires that have killed thousands of people over I
(11:22):
am their collective anguish. Yet I observed myself too. Why
not me? Why did my life bring me to this
vantage point? What are the chances of the billions of
people who have ever lived and died? What are the
chances that I would end up on this side of
(11:42):
the bomb? Why did I not drown with those burning
as they sought relief by flinging themselves into the river's currents.
Why did I not vomit irradiated blood in such quantities
I shouldn't be possible. Why was I faded to only
observe from the safety of the far shore of position
(12:04):
and stature? But even still, there is another aspect. I
witness the loss of the survivors, and I know it
will never cease. Whole families disintegrate it into their constituent parts.
But how much worse is it for those who survive
(12:26):
their mourning? They're guilt. It's not even the eventual suicides,
the poisonings, the self inflicted gunshot wounds. Those are a relief.
I witness the unending grief of those left behind. I
(12:53):
don't suppose you'll tell me where we're going until we
get there, and do not worry if you are capable
of such a thing. I have no protestations as to
my fate. I long for it. I imagine these voices
are a manifestation of my guilt. The human psyche is
(13:14):
capable of infinite fantasy and metaphor. Why is it then
that empathy escapes us? Can't you hear the anguish in
their voices? I suppose guilt is a sort of penance,
But the sickles of their screams continue to rip away
whatever noble intentions remain within me. When it began immediately
(13:40):
after Hiroshima, I awoke screaming, thinking the culprits tore it
my flesh. I soon realize the truth. Their punishment cuts
much deeper than box. And what can be done about
my agony? My oppressors rend fundamental matter through the terrible
(14:00):
strength of their collective emotion. Is there any wisdom, consciousness,
any evolution? At all, any evolution at all, it can
be achieved through such absolute suffering. H excuse me, my blood,
(14:29):
it seems sharpness in my throat, like a rusted blade.
My executioners are infinite in number, an infinitesimal in size.
I posit that they are not comprised of matter, but
of the vast empty space between matter. As the misshape
(14:51):
and nuclei of our experiments wrapped their way round Earth,
buried themselves into our crops, our water, our bodies. The
lamentation of those I damned came in their wake. Those
who tear me asunder speak no words, for anguish is universal.
It should be me too, endlessly torn apart adam by
(15:16):
anam neurons, screaming all the while I have witnessed each
death a hundred times over, every second of the day.
No even in the spaces between seconds, in the gaps
between perceptions. They tears what is me, the electricity between synapses.
(15:40):
But these horrors do not twist or mutate my DNA
I into it in every detail, the horrors and atrocities
that we, the members of the project, our government, and
our people have freely distributed. Perhaps my soul is at
the very flash point of fault, the ground zero of blame.
(16:06):
But I do not see myself as a martyr for
some higher cause. I am not so vain to think
that I am the only one due to be held responsible,
or that my suffering is the inevitable path to some
sort of deliverance. Though if this were impossible, I have
spent the vast majority of my life trying to be
(16:27):
of benefit to humanity. And what has that gotten us?
Absolute destruction. Three weeks exactly from the Trinity test to
the annihilation of Hiroshima, irrationalized our work to ourselves. Scientists
are good at that. It should be blasphemy for me
(16:48):
to even speak of heaven. If I, for all my crimes,
am not destined to be an inmate in a Hadean cell,
who among us is? The molecules that comprise the victims
of my crimes disperse across the Earth, searching on the westerlies.
(17:09):
They have found me. The energy interlaced between their elemental
bonds is anguish, plain and simple. These atoms are pulled
from infants, mothers, tests, subjects. They cling to my bones
and sing to me of every life destroyed. The truth
(17:31):
of physics is this there is malice between atoms. Nations
agree not to blow each other to hell. Pinkies swearing
on crossed fingers while they wear the smile of a
spider in hiding. Perhaps human suffering itself is a form
of energy. And I am a conduit. I was there
(17:54):
when the bomb fell. I am there now. With every scream,
I inhabit the body of another victim, another soul whose
blackened skull is still perhaps hidden in the debris. In
this moment, I am a baker. There are plains overhead.
(18:18):
Do you hear them? There were always so many. We
tuned out their ceaseless droning. What else could we do?
Even in war? You have to live. I am at work.
When the world ends, my body slams to the floor.
(18:45):
The shop becomes upturned and throws itself apart, And yet
I hear no sound. The end of the world seems
so quiet. Glass and dust rains sideways through burning air.
The customer that had just left the front door of
(19:06):
my shop becomes a silhouette against the wall. I do
not yet know that this is the quietest it will
ever be in my life. Again, then the first sound
(19:27):
I see people running, the fires, the collapsing homes, that
they remain silent at first. Anyway, it's not that the
ringing in my ears is fading, but that suffering becomes louder.
(20:01):
But I am not him.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
I am me.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
I did not stumble out of my front door with
blood pouring from my ears. No, I only witness arm
my captain, bodies and parts of bodies caked with ash
and blood, people aflame and begging for death. I find
(20:26):
myself in a trance, sleep walking, almost following a familiar path,
and I realize I am headed for home. But I
will never arrive. I can't find the path, how can I?
The world is a burning snow globe. The only semblance
(20:47):
it holds to the place I knew before is in
the skeletons of buildings still burning. But I am not them.
I am not still wandering in a day. When I
notice black paint, begin disdain the horrors that surround me. No,
not paint rain. Yes, a black rain is washing overall.
(21:12):
A thought occurs to me. This is a uniquely human torture.
No vengeful God would have dared drenk this up. It
is not I who looks upward to see where the
rain could come from, and that blackened sky is not
the last thing I see. That radioactive mixture of debris,
moisture and human ash falls not into my eyes and
(21:36):
takes not my sight. It does not burn, and I
do not scream until consciousness fads. I do not die.
And yet this will happen to them after two hellish
weeks in a military hospital, as they poke and prod
what remains of them, but not me. I won't become
(22:01):
a festering mass of idiot cells, never properly dividing, oozinging
to themselves, all the while not me. I can only
imagine I was there when the bomb fell. This ride,
(22:22):
I wish I could say that it's comforting. It reminds
me much of my time with the project, A silent
driver escorting me to an unknown location, and truly only
myself for company. What progress humanity could make if we
weren't so engaged in eating our own. It may be
(22:46):
that I have become emboldened by your silence. No doubt
you've ferried your share of self loathing riders to their destination,
though perhaps none quite so guilty. Perhaps it would benefit
humanity as a collective that I be condemned to the
fires of hades. Perhaps my suffering may be able to
(23:09):
sway the physical world in some real, tangible way from
past the veil, some beneficial way. I know now that
organic and inorganic matter, life and death are ridiculous nonsense
definitions given by our prescriptivist mindset. Yet again, what can
(23:31):
be done with this knowledge? Tell me, sir? Could it be?
Could it be that the altruism of a species dictated
by eternal reward and punishment is at least in some
way correct? Could my suffering grace thus yet unborn to
(23:54):
an even greater happiness?
Speaker 6 (23:57):
Our country is one steeped in fear.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
America down to its roots grow stronger through fear. We
are powerful and reactionary bunch, and if there are no
witches to find, we will always make our own. We
(24:31):
are built on such malignant ideals, and it's absolutely what
has strengthened us. I spent my life in pursuit of
understanding and discovery, but I have discovered first and foremost
is this. Whatever knowledge you gain, you give to the
(24:55):
best of humanity, and you simultaneously give to the worst
of us. What exponential power we grant evil and so
so quickly the more we collectively discover the farther behind
each individual is in the whole scheme of things. So
(25:19):
we put our minds together like ants to solve some
massive problem. And by God, do we solve these problems
we've created, we will be the end of ourselves, I've
no doubt. And when we do, when our molecules coast
on the trade winds and pool under the currents around
(25:39):
the Sargasso Sea, we all of us will know the
pain beneath it. All victims upon victims will try to
find comfort, safety, refuge, and retribution. Radioactive elements that used
to make up our our loved ones will smash into ourselves,
(26:03):
tearing us asunder. Even more, This is beyond neurance, beyond
chemical signals in the brain, electrical impulses. Agony is the
one unifying function of the universe. I know there isn't
(26:25):
an escape nor an end. Do you know how many people,
discovering their loved ones strewn about the street try to
collect the pieces more than you would expect. I have
not been that mother collecting slippery pieces of her proudest creation.
(26:47):
I have not been those pieces. Please, dear driver, take
me to hell punishment can be worse than what I
feel now. This may be my hubris speaking, but could
unceasing pain be any less of a punishment than what
(27:11):
humanity puts the smallest and the weakest of us through
the old gods know that it's the respite that hurts
the most. Sissyphus must rue the walk down the mountain.
There's a joy in suffering, there's a fear in safety.
(27:31):
When Prometheus passes out from the pain every night, how
he must dread that temporary calm empathy, it seems, is
not some frightened bird in our hands. It does not
escape us, but erodes, bit by bit with each choice
we make against it. It becomes a burden, an obstacle
(27:54):
in our path towards that unobtainable idea of a more
complete understanding. We run toward this idea, never moving, yet trampling,
all the while those we imagined to be against us.
I should be made to suffer like them. I should
(28:15):
be torn apart, particle by particle for eternity like them.
If destruction is the ultimate destination of our species, if
the human race is doomed to transfer our energy into tragedies,
so be it. Let me scream from the depths of hell.
(28:36):
Let my DNA melt, Let me grieve in an endless howl.
Perhaps my voice, made manifest in the guilty consciousness of
my co conspirators, would help to keep a finger from
a trigger or a bombay closed. Had me tells chorus,
(29:06):
I deserve nothing more. Ah, we seem to be stopping.
I hope my words have swayed you. What is this, ferryman?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
This is your stop, Robert.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
This cannot be right.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
This was my desk, my chair, and I recognize this place.
This is where we the first tests explain well.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
This, Robert, is where you are meant to wait for what?
For the end?
Speaker 5 (30:15):
What end?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
For the end of the damage done by your invention.
You will sit, observe and wait, wait for the last
fallout of the last bomb to dissipate, for the background
radiation levels to decay, until all nuclear contamination, of every
(30:39):
nuclear test, every detonation is gone, and for the world
to heal around it. You sat at this desk and
did the work to create it, and now you will
sit until your work is undone. By time you will
(31:02):
not get the catharsis you crave.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Until then, what am I to do until that time.
It could be centuries. Yeah, and when the waiting is done,
it's not my decision to make so the purgatory of
(31:41):
my own guilt before the flames, so be it.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
The destroyer of worlds has moved on. He brought a
great understanding to mankind. But this understanding came with a
terrible costs and blood and despair. So many worked on
this Adam bomb. Blame has often spread thin in these circumstances.
(32:36):
It is rare to see someone take the weight of
it so squarely on his shoulders. The technology that he
left behind will continue to haunt mankind for generations to come.
More and more of the bombs will be constructed and
stockpiled and used to threaten and control.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
And then.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
One day, yeah, well you see this madman Willa come
along and wow, But that's a sale for another day.
Speaker 7 (33:24):
The Passage stars Dan Fogler as the Ferryman. This episode
features Bill Rogers as Robert Oppenheimer. Written by Stephen Williams,
with additional writing by Dan Bush and Nicholas Dakoski. Our
executive producers are Nicholas Dakoski, Matthew Frederick, and Alexander Williams,
First assistant director, script's supervisor and production coordinator Sarah Klein.
(33:45):
Music by Ben Lovett, additional music by Alexander Rodriguez. Casting
by Sunday Bowling, Kennedy and Meg Mormon. Editing and sound
designed by Dan Bush, Dialogue editing and sound mixing by
Juan Campos. Additional sound editing by Racket Sound. Our supervising
producer is Josh Thane. Created by Dan Bush and Nicholas Takowski.
Produced by Dan Bush. The Passage is a production of
(34:07):
iHeartRadio and Cycopia Pictures.
Yeah, I am the fairy man.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The human spirit is my business. Their madness, their passion,
the wonderful and monstrous ways they burn out their brief candle.
I regret to tell you that very many American lives
in love.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
What herd to shouts from the car, He's dead. Whether
he rebird to president or four hours, people must get
up and identifica.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I am here in the in between, to collect their
spirits and carry them to what comes next. This road
is not on any map. It spans the thresholds between
their most forbidden desires and their greatest fear.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
All I ask for.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
In payment is a tale and accounting of their lives
and the great temporary that is the land we're living.
These are their stories.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
This is the passage.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Princeton, New Jersey, February nineteen sixty seven. The world is frozen,
smells of ice bleach. A winter storm passed through last week,
swallowing the township in a lovely blanket of snow, erasing
(02:40):
the ugly mud of late winter, replacing it with a
clean white palette, unblemished, pure but purity is fleeting. The
snow melts turns to the barriers of black slush, A
frozen reserme, who are a sieve for all the daily grime, debris,
(03:04):
and stench of the twentieth century, And it keeps it
on display until the spring melt. And so it is
with everything, All forms but sieves filtering the cosmic debris.
All figures are but a collection of particles caught in
a fleeting dance. All souls are but at ease in
(03:27):
the great river of time. So it is with my
next passenger, j. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the bomb,
(03:48):
a man of science, truly, a man so obsessed with
the pursuit of knowledge, so in love with the question
of how, that he pursues into a type of hell
for himself and for the Earth. No idea, no matter
how pure it appears, lives in a vacuum. It's one
(04:13):
thing to steal fire from the gods. It's entirely something
else to safeguard that power from other thieves. In this way,
humankind has continuously improved this arms technology since the Stone Age,
and now it wields a weapon so powerful it is
(04:38):
too destructive to be used. And the only way these
leaders can conceive of defending against complete annihilation is to
harness the power for themselves. It is not within range
of human imagination. What will happen when the world goes
to war with the technology it possesses Now, all of
(05:01):
the bombs dropped in the Second World War combined, a
war that wiped entire cities off the map, pale in
comparison to the destructive power of a single missile shrapped
into one nuclear submarine and wired to a trigger. Genghis Khan,
(05:22):
Alexander the Great Hitler, none of these had such power,
a weapon of gods in the hands of human beings.
As another of my brilliant passengers said, when such a
(05:45):
war happens, the one after that will undoubtedly be fought
with sticks and stones. Robert Oppernheimer was the father of
this nuclear age. On its surface, bright clean energy for
healthy families and a strong, secure nation, pure as the snow.
(06:09):
But beneath this blanket of white, this nation royals with
unsatiable lust forevermore power, ignited by fear and fueled by madness.
Oppenheimer sat at the starting line of this gray and
terrible arms race. He held the starting gun to the sky.
(06:31):
He pulled the trigger. Ah, Robert Appernheim.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Ah, so you've arrived I had not imagined you would,
But the world holds more than mere imagination can contain.
Are you death?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I'm here to offer you passage.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
Interesting? Well, though I was a man of science, I've
become increasingly open minded since the first attack. A nice
car as well, no doubt, an illusion down to the
tint of the windows in design. The same bacon FBI
(07:43):
agent would escort me in, though I've certainly fallen out
of their favor these past years. Amazing how the destruction
of innocence is applauded with patriotic fervor, but warnings from
scientists are only cause for condemnation and ridicule. Come, do
(08:19):
you know how long the contamination dust from a single
nuclear test remains radioactive? How long it will be before
any nuclear sight can possibly hope to be habitable. Bombs
we dropped in World War Two were one one thousandth
the power of the devices tested to day, and the
(08:42):
devastation those first bombs cost. Do you hear them? You do,
don't you? The cries, sound of the wind on jagged rocks,
(09:04):
the sounds of broken bodies crushed by rubble ribs protruding
his pierced lungs fail to gather breath. I see all
of them, My God, I am all of them are I,
of course, and they are me. There is a woman
(09:28):
holding her child. She can't know what's happening. How could
any one? She only has time for instinct as she
clutches the child to her chest. The eyes are the
first to bear blest. It is she that could not
watch her child dissolve in her arms. To the outside world,
(09:50):
it would seem their suffering ended in no time at all.
But we physicists know that time is simply an abstraction.
It exists only as a convenient wa to denote our
shared ongoing entropy. And I tell you our collective decay
and destruction is more intertwined than I ever thought possible,
(10:12):
the interconnected structure of the universe. But I have made
mistakes in my life. No, to call them mistakes would
(10:35):
be disingenuous. I intended, worked towards, and accomplished what I
set out to do. I have begun to pay for
those actions, and believe we are a short distance from
where I will suffer for a time eternal, if there
be any justice. Now that I've died, the pain is worsened.
(10:58):
It seems to have taken on a more minute physical quality.
No longer does a simple nervous system, easily dulled with medicine,
quickly overwhelmed and protected by the brain's defenses, solely carry
the burden in parts of me unknown, I feel the
atomic fires that have killed thousands of people over I
(11:22):
am their collective anguish. Yet I observed myself too. Why
not me? Why did my life bring me to this
vantage point? What are the chances of the billions of
people who have ever lived and died? What are the
chances that I would end up on this side of
(11:42):
the bomb? Why did I not drown with those burning
as they sought relief by flinging themselves into the river's currents.
Why did I not vomit irradiated blood in such quantities
I shouldn't be possible. Why was I faded to only
observe from the safety of the far shore of position
(12:04):
and stature? But even still, there is another aspect. I
witness the loss of the survivors, and I know it
will never cease. Whole families disintegrate it into their constituent parts.
But how much worse is it for those who survive
(12:26):
their mourning? They're guilt. It's not even the eventual suicides,
the poisonings, the self inflicted gunshot wounds. Those are a relief.
I witness the unending grief of those left behind. I
(12:53):
don't suppose you'll tell me where we're going until we
get there, and do not worry if you are capable
of such a thing. I have no protestations as to
my fate. I long for it. I imagine these voices
are a manifestation of my guilt. The human psyche is
(13:14):
capable of infinite fantasy and metaphor. Why is it then
that empathy escapes us? Can't you hear the anguish in
their voices? I suppose guilt is a sort of penance,
But the sickles of their screams continue to rip away
whatever noble intentions remain within me. When it began immediately
(13:40):
after Hiroshima, I awoke screaming, thinking the culprits tore it
my flesh. I soon realize the truth. Their punishment cuts
much deeper than box. And what can be done about
my agony? My oppressors rend fundamental matter through the terrible
(14:00):
strength of their collective emotion. Is there any wisdom, consciousness,
any evolution? At all, any evolution at all, it can
be achieved through such absolute suffering. H excuse me, my blood,
(14:29):
it seems sharpness in my throat, like a rusted blade.
My executioners are infinite in number, an infinitesimal in size.
I posit that they are not comprised of matter, but
of the vast empty space between matter. As the misshape
(14:51):
and nuclei of our experiments wrapped their way round Earth,
buried themselves into our crops, our water, our bodies. The
lamentation of those I damned came in their wake. Those
who tear me asunder speak no words, for anguish is universal.
It should be me too, endlessly torn apart adam by
(15:16):
anam neurons, screaming all the while I have witnessed each
death a hundred times over, every second of the day.
No even in the spaces between seconds, in the gaps
between perceptions. They tears what is me, the electricity between synapses.
(15:40):
But these horrors do not twist or mutate my DNA
I into it in every detail, the horrors and atrocities
that we, the members of the project, our government, and
our people have freely distributed. Perhaps my soul is at
the very flash point of fault, the ground zero of blame.
(16:06):
But I do not see myself as a martyr for
some higher cause. I am not so vain to think
that I am the only one due to be held responsible,
or that my suffering is the inevitable path to some
sort of deliverance. Though if this were impossible, I have
spent the vast majority of my life trying to be
(16:27):
of benefit to humanity. And what has that gotten us?
Absolute destruction. Three weeks exactly from the Trinity test to
the annihilation of Hiroshima, irrationalized our work to ourselves. Scientists
are good at that. It should be blasphemy for me
(16:48):
to even speak of heaven. If I, for all my crimes,
am not destined to be an inmate in a Hadean cell,
who among us is? The molecules that comprise the victims
of my crimes disperse across the Earth, searching on the westerlies.
(17:09):
They have found me. The energy interlaced between their elemental
bonds is anguish, plain and simple. These atoms are pulled
from infants, mothers, tests, subjects. They cling to my bones
and sing to me of every life destroyed. The truth
(17:31):
of physics is this there is malice between atoms. Nations
agree not to blow each other to hell. Pinkies swearing
on crossed fingers while they wear the smile of a
spider in hiding. Perhaps human suffering itself is a form
of energy. And I am a conduit. I was there
(17:54):
when the bomb fell. I am there now. With every scream,
I inhabit the body of another victim, another soul whose
blackened skull is still perhaps hidden in the debris. In
this moment, I am a baker. There are plains overhead.
(18:18):
Do you hear them? There were always so many. We
tuned out their ceaseless droning. What else could we do?
Even in war? You have to live. I am at work.
When the world ends, my body slams to the floor.
(18:45):
The shop becomes upturned and throws itself apart, And yet
I hear no sound. The end of the world seems
so quiet. Glass and dust rains sideways through burning air.
The customer that had just left the front door of
(19:06):
my shop becomes a silhouette against the wall. I do
not yet know that this is the quietest it will
ever be in my life. Again, then the first sound
(19:27):
I see people running, the fires, the collapsing homes, that
they remain silent at first. Anyway, it's not that the
ringing in my ears is fading, but that suffering becomes louder.
(20:01):
But I am not him.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
I am me.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
I did not stumble out of my front door with
blood pouring from my ears. No, I only witness arm
my captain, bodies and parts of bodies caked with ash
and blood, people aflame and begging for death. I find
(20:26):
myself in a trance, sleep walking, almost following a familiar path,
and I realize I am headed for home. But I
will never arrive. I can't find the path, how can I?
The world is a burning snow globe. The only semblance
(20:47):
it holds to the place I knew before is in
the skeletons of buildings still burning. But I am not them.
I am not still wandering in a day. When I
notice black paint, begin disdain the horrors that surround me. No,
not paint rain. Yes, a black rain is washing overall.
(21:12):
A thought occurs to me. This is a uniquely human torture.
No vengeful God would have dared drenk this up. It
is not I who looks upward to see where the
rain could come from, and that blackened sky is not
the last thing I see. That radioactive mixture of debris,
moisture and human ash falls not into my eyes and
(21:36):
takes not my sight. It does not burn, and I
do not scream until consciousness fads. I do not die.
And yet this will happen to them after two hellish
weeks in a military hospital, as they poke and prod
what remains of them, but not me. I won't become
(22:01):
a festering mass of idiot cells, never properly dividing, oozinging
to themselves, all the while not me. I can only
imagine I was there when the bomb fell. This ride,
(22:22):
I wish I could say that it's comforting. It reminds
me much of my time with the project, A silent
driver escorting me to an unknown location, and truly only
myself for company. What progress humanity could make if we
weren't so engaged in eating our own. It may be
(22:46):
that I have become emboldened by your silence. No doubt
you've ferried your share of self loathing riders to their destination,
though perhaps none quite so guilty. Perhaps it would benefit
humanity as a collective that I be condemned to the
fires of hades. Perhaps my suffering may be able to
(23:09):
sway the physical world in some real, tangible way from
past the veil, some beneficial way. I know now that
organic and inorganic matter, life and death are ridiculous nonsense
definitions given by our prescriptivist mindset. Yet again, what can
(23:31):
be done with this knowledge? Tell me, sir? Could it be?
Could it be that the altruism of a species dictated
by eternal reward and punishment is at least in some
way correct? Could my suffering grace thus yet unborn to
(23:54):
an even greater happiness?
Speaker 6 (23:57):
Our country is one steeped in fear.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
America down to its roots grow stronger through fear. We
are powerful and reactionary bunch, and if there are no
witches to find, we will always make our own. We
(24:31):
are built on such malignant ideals, and it's absolutely what
has strengthened us. I spent my life in pursuit of
understanding and discovery, but I have discovered first and foremost
is this. Whatever knowledge you gain, you give to the
(24:55):
best of humanity, and you simultaneously give to the worst
of us. What exponential power we grant evil and so
so quickly the more we collectively discover the farther behind
each individual is in the whole scheme of things. So
(25:19):
we put our minds together like ants to solve some
massive problem. And by God, do we solve these problems
we've created, we will be the end of ourselves, I've
no doubt. And when we do, when our molecules coast
on the trade winds and pool under the currents around
(25:39):
the Sargasso Sea, we all of us will know the
pain beneath it. All victims upon victims will try to
find comfort, safety, refuge, and retribution. Radioactive elements that used
to make up our our loved ones will smash into ourselves,
(26:03):
tearing us asunder. Even more, This is beyond neurance, beyond
chemical signals in the brain, electrical impulses. Agony is the
one unifying function of the universe. I know there isn't
(26:25):
an escape nor an end. Do you know how many people,
discovering their loved ones strewn about the street try to
collect the pieces more than you would expect. I have
not been that mother collecting slippery pieces of her proudest creation.
(26:47):
I have not been those pieces. Please, dear driver, take
me to hell punishment can be worse than what I
feel now. This may be my hubris speaking, but could
unceasing pain be any less of a punishment than what
(27:11):
humanity puts the smallest and the weakest of us through
the old gods know that it's the respite that hurts
the most. Sissyphus must rue the walk down the mountain.
There's a joy in suffering, there's a fear in safety.
(27:31):
When Prometheus passes out from the pain every night, how
he must dread that temporary calm empathy, it seems, is
not some frightened bird in our hands. It does not
escape us, but erodes, bit by bit with each choice
we make against it. It becomes a burden, an obstacle
(27:54):
in our path towards that unobtainable idea of a more
complete understanding. We run toward this idea, never moving, yet trampling,
all the while those we imagined to be against us.
I should be made to suffer like them. I should
(28:15):
be torn apart, particle by particle for eternity like them.
If destruction is the ultimate destination of our species, if
the human race is doomed to transfer our energy into tragedies,
so be it. Let me scream from the depths of hell.
(28:36):
Let my DNA melt, Let me grieve in an endless howl.
Perhaps my voice, made manifest in the guilty consciousness of
my co conspirators, would help to keep a finger from
a trigger or a bombay closed. Had me tells chorus,
(29:06):
I deserve nothing more. Ah, we seem to be stopping.
I hope my words have swayed you. What is this, ferryman?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
This is your stop, Robert.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
This cannot be right.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
This was my desk, my chair, and I recognize this place.
This is where we the first tests explain well.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
This, Robert, is where you are meant to wait for what?
For the end?
Speaker 5 (30:15):
What end?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
For the end of the damage done by your invention.
You will sit, observe and wait, wait for the last
fallout of the last bomb to dissipate, for the background
radiation levels to decay, until all nuclear contamination, of every
(30:39):
nuclear test, every detonation is gone, and for the world
to heal around it. You sat at this desk and
did the work to create it, and now you will
sit until your work is undone. By time you will
(31:02):
not get the catharsis you crave.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Until then, what am I to do until that time.
It could be centuries. Yeah, and when the waiting is done,
it's not my decision to make so the purgatory of
(31:41):
my own guilt before the flames, so be it.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
The destroyer of worlds has moved on. He brought a
great understanding to mankind. But this understanding came with a
terrible costs and blood and despair. So many worked on
this Adam bomb. Blame has often spread thin in these circumstances.
(32:36):
It is rare to see someone take the weight of
it so squarely on his shoulders. The technology that he
left behind will continue to haunt mankind for generations to come.
More and more of the bombs will be constructed and
stockpiled and used to threaten and control.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
And then.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
One day, yeah, well you see this madman Willa come
along and wow, But that's a sale for another day.
Speaker 7 (33:24):
The Passage stars Dan Fogler as the Ferryman. This episode
features Bill Rogers as Robert Oppenheimer. Written by Stephen Williams,
with additional writing by Dan Bush and Nicholas Dakoski. Our
executive producers are Nicholas Dakoski, Matthew Frederick, and Alexander Williams,
First assistant director, script's supervisor and production coordinator Sarah Klein.
(33:45):
Music by Ben Lovett, additional music by Alexander Rodriguez. Casting
by Sunday Bowling, Kennedy and Meg Mormon. Editing and sound
designed by Dan Bush, Dialogue editing and sound mixing by
Juan Campos. Additional sound editing by Racket Sound. Our supervising
producer is Josh Thane. Created by Dan Bush and Nicholas Takowski.
Produced by Dan Bush. The Passage is a production of
(34:07):
iHeartRadio and Cycopia Pictures.
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