October 4, 2023 • 13 mins
"There is No Such Thing as a Ghost in the Machine. Really." by Kendra Jackson
Thou shalt pay retail for toner
Author
Kendra Jackson -
Kendra Jackson on x.com
Kendra Jackson on Instagram
Kendra Jackson lives and works in Ireland. By day she crunches numbers for a living. By night (and sometimes into the early hours of the morning), she expresses her pent up creativity by crunching words instead.
Cast
Mary-Kate Ultra - Narrator -
Mary-Kate Ultra's Podcast "Homegrown Hits"
Mary-Kate Ultra's Mastodon Profile
Mary-Kate Ultra is just happy to be here! Passionate about silly voices, alternative media, and the community of independent artists she's thankfully found herself in. She co-hosts a decentralized music podcast, Homegrown Hits, on Thursdays at 8 pm ET and plays party games as one half of Hyper Spaceout every other Sunday.
"The Eyes Have It" by Philip K Dick
One man discovers a secret invasion
Author
Philip K Dick
PKD's Wikipedia
Cast
D.E. Medus - Narrator - david.medusmedia.com
Music
Into the Unknown by Oddsprite
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David (00:09):
Hello and welcome to me as pod I'm your host Medus quick
announcement and call to actionbefore we get into the stories.
Me this pod is a value for valuepodcast. That means if you get
value from it, please feel freeto return the value in whatever
way you see fit. It can besharing a link telling a friend
or supporting the showfinancially. From here on out
anyone who helps produce anepisode of MedusPod will be
(00:31):
putting in the value splits forthat episode unless they opt
out. That means when you supportthe show via Lightning Network
and a modern podcast app likefountain pod verse or curio
caster to name a few. Yoursupport will be split among
everyone who worked on thatepisode. Everyone who
contributes gets a split of theBitcoin donations received
through streaming or boosts, andwe've received some boosts since
(00:53):
our last episode. We received333 cents from Baris let them
live for episode 22. Build afire with a message beautiful
and heartbreaking. I agree. Andthank you. We received 133,333
SATs from Dred Scott. Dr. is amassive supporter of the metus
(01:13):
Media Productions. And we can'tthank you enough trip. We
received another 333 sets fromBaroness Love and Light for
episode 19 When you find anecklace, thank you for that.
Our first story comes to us fromKinder Jackson. Kendra lives and
works in Ireland. By day shecrunches numbers for living by
(01:33):
night and sometimes into theearly hours of the morning. She
expresses her pent up creativityby crunching words instead. Her
links will be on screen rightnow if your podcast player
supports chapters. And also inthis episode shownotes Mary Kate
Ultra will be performing thisstory for us. Mary Kate altra is
one of our new regular castmembers. You can find out about
(01:54):
her and our other regular castmembers on our cast page and
meet us pod.com. And in the shownotes for this episode. Without
further ado, our first story.There's no such thing as a ghost
in the machine, really, byKendra Jackson.
Unknown (02:17):
I just want to say that it wasn't my fault. Yes, I know,
I've cursed up that printerplenty of times. But so is
everybody in the office. Youcan't go a single day without
somebody threatening it withdefenestration. Well, that in a
bit of percussive maintenance,but like I said, I'm not the
only one who hated that machine.And I'm sure the feeling was
mutual. Molly was in tears onlyyesterday when she was trying to
(02:38):
copy some documents and they gotjammed in the theater. They were
nearly destroyed by the time shegot them out. And last month,
Jan was only going to shake thetoner cartridge to get a bit
more use out of it when itpractically exploded in her
face. And she had to go homelooking like she'd been sweeping
chimneys. I had to order a newcartridge. And the price of them
goodness me, it'd be almostcheaper to get a new machine I
(03:02):
don't mind telling you. But Idid find a supplier that had an
amazingly good offer. I can seeit in your face. If it sounds
too good to be true, then itprobably is. But they offered
next day delivery. And I know wedon't print a copy that much
these days. But we can't affordto not have it when we need it.
And they did say that the inkmight come out a little less
(03:22):
than black on the page. But whenit's mostly for our internal
use, so I thought it'd be worthgiving them a try. Besides, they
said their product was made from100% recycled materials. And
that's why their prices were soreasonable. I didn't think to
look at the fine print on thepackaging. It's usually just the
list of chemicals and ever heardof like Sangli spatula or
(03:43):
something like that. And awarning to not get it in your
mouth or eyes. If anybody wouldbe that careless. Well, okay,
maybe Jan. But we've had evenmore bad luck with that machine
since then, documents notprinting or printing with a
strange Gothic type font. Lastweek, every time we tried to
print or copy something, it cameout with the watermark, you are
(04:04):
all going to die all over it.And then yesterday, our manager
brought in their pet dog and thepoor creature went wild when he
got near the printer. He washowling like mad. The dog that
is not a manager. That's when Ithought that maybe the toner
cartridge had been contaminatedwith something. So I sent it off
to be tested. Well, you cannotbe down with the feather when he
(04:27):
told me that the main componentwas blood. Apparently it was all
there in the fine print on theirwebsite that they partnered with
the local blood bank to recycleexpired supplies. But I suppose
when you look at the pricesonline, it's still a lot cheaper
per milliliter than the regulartoner inks so we may as well
stick with them. Obviously Ofcourse, we can have it printing
(04:49):
curses on the paper or spinningthe pages halfway across the
room whenever it feels like it.So if you could just do us a
quick exorcism father that wecan all get back to work
David (05:01):
Our next story is a classic from a non science
fiction author Philip K. Dick,have a link to his bio in the
show notes. The eyes had it byPhilip K. Dick. It was quite by
accident, I discovered thisincredible invasion of Earth by
life forms from another planet.As yet, I haven't done anything
(05:23):
about it. I can't think ofanything to do. I wrote to the
governments and they sent back apamphlet on the repair and
maintenance of frame houses.Anyhow, the whole thing is
known. I'm not the first todiscover it. Maybe it's even
under control. I was sitting inmy easy chair idly turning the
pages of a paperback booksomeone had left on the bus.
(05:45):
When I came across the referencethat first put me on the trail.
For a moment, I didn't respond.It took some time for the full
import to sink in. NAFTA I'dcomprehended. It seemed odd, I
had noticed it right away. Thereference was clearly to a non
human species of incredibleproperties, not indigenous to
(06:08):
Earth, a species I hasten topoint out, customarily
masquerading as ordinary humanbeings. Their disguise however,
became transparent in the faceof the following observations by
the author. It was at onceobvious the author knew
everything, new everything andwas taking it in his stride. The
(06:32):
line and I tremble rememberingit even now read. His eyes
slowly roved about the room.Vague chills assailed me. I
tried to picture the eyes. Didthey roll like dimes? The
passage indicated not. They seemto move through the air not over
(06:53):
the surface rather rapidly.Apparently, no one in the story
was surprised. That's whattipped me off. No sign of
amazement at such an outrageousthing. Later, the matter was
amplified. Here his eyes movedfrom person to person. There it
wasn't a nutshell. The eyes hadclearly come apart from the rest
(07:16):
of him, and were on their own.My heart pounded and my breath
choked in my windpipe. I hadstumbled on an accidental
mention of a totally unfamiliarrace. Obviously, non
terrestrial. Yet to thecharacters in the book it was
perfectly natural, whichsuggested they belong to the
(07:36):
same species. And the author, aslow suspicion burned in my
mind, the author was taking itrather too easily in his stride.
Evidently, he felt this wasquite unusual thing. He made
absolutely no attempt to concealthis knowledge. The story
(07:56):
continued. Presently, his eyesfastened on Julia, Julia being a
lady had at least the breedingto feel indignant. She is
described as blushing andknitting her brows angrily. At
this, I sighed with relief. Theyweren't all nonterrestrials the
(08:20):
narrative continues. Slowly,calmly. His eyes examined every
inch of her. Great Scott. Buthere, the girl turned and
stomped off and the matterended. I lay back in my chair,
gasping with horror, my wife andfamily regarded me and wonder.
(08:41):
What's wrong, dear? My wifeasked. I couldn't tell her
knowledge like this was too muchfor the ordinary run of the mill
person. I had to keep it tomyself. Nothing. I gasped. I
leaped up, snatched the book andhurried out of the room. In the
garage, I continued reading,there was more trembling, I read
(09:06):
the next revealing passage. Heput his arm around the Giulia.
Presently, she asked him if hewould remove his arm. He
immediately did so with a smile.It's not said what was done with
the arm after the fellow removedit. Maybe it was left standing
(09:29):
upright in the corner. Maybe itwas thrown away. I don't care.
In any case, the full meaningwas there staring me right in
the face. There was a race ofcreatures capable of removing
portions of their anatomy atwill eyes, arms and maybe more
without batting an eyelash. Myknowledge of biology came in
handy at this point, obviously,they were a simple things,
(09:52):
unicellular, some sort ofprimitive single celled things
being no more developed than astarfish just starfish can do
the same thing you know, I readon and came to this incredible
revelation tossed off coolly bythe author without the faintest
tremor. Outside the movietheater we split up. Part of us
(10:16):
went inside. Hart over to thecafe for dinner. Binary Fission,
obviously splitting in half andforming two entities. Probably
each lower half went to thecafe, it being farther and the
upper halves to the movies. Iread on and shaking, I'd really
stumbled onto something here. Mymind reeled as I made out this
(10:40):
passage. I'm afraid there's nodoubt about it. Poor bibiani had
lost his head again, which wasfollowed by and Bob says he has
utterly no guts. Yet, Bibi gotaround as well as the next
person. The next person,however, was just as strange. He
(11:04):
was soon described as totallylacking in brains. There was no
doubt of the thing in the nextpassage. Julia, whom I had
thought to be the one normalperson reveals herself as also
being an alien life form,similar to the rest. quite
deliberately, Julia had givenher heart to the young man. It
(11:27):
didn't relate what the finaldisposition of the Oregon was,
but I didn't really care. It wasevident Giulia had gone right on
living in her usual manner, likeall of the others in the book.
Without hearts arms, eyes,brains, viscera dividing up into
two when the occasion demandedwithout a qualm. There upon. She
(11:50):
gave him her hand, is sick andthe rascal now had her hand as
well as her heart. I shudder tothink what he has done with
them. By this time. He took herarm, not content to wait he had
to start dismantling her on hisown flushing crimson, I slammed
the book shut and leaped to myfeet, but not in time to escape
(12:14):
one last reference to thosecarefree bits of anatomy, whose
travels had originally thrown meback on the track. Her eyes
followed him all the way downthe road, and across the meadow.
I rushed from the garage andback inside the warm house, as
if the accursed things werefollowing me. My wife and
children were playing monopolyin the kitchen I joined them and
(12:37):
played with frantic fervor. Browfeverish teeth chattering I had
had enough of the thing I wantto hear no more about it. Let
them come on. Let them invadeEarth I don't want to get mixed
up in it. I have absolutely nostomach for it
(13:02):
media spot is a production ofmade us media all rights
reserved, unless otherwisestated. All written works are
properties of their respectiveauthors. Our theme music comes
to us from odd Sprite. You cancheck them out odd sprite.com.
We'll see you next time folks.Have a good one.
Hello and welcome to me as pod I'm your host Medus quick
announcement and call to actionbefore we get into the stories.
Me this pod is a value for valuepodcast. That means if you get
value from it, please feel freeto return the value in whatever
way you see fit. It can besharing a link telling a friend
or supporting the showfinancially. From here on out
anyone who helps produce anepisode of MedusPod will be
(00:31):
putting in the value splits forthat episode unless they opt
out. That means when you supportthe show via Lightning Network
and a modern podcast app likefountain pod verse or curio
caster to name a few. Yoursupport will be split among
everyone who worked on thatepisode. Everyone who
contributes gets a split of theBitcoin donations received
through streaming or boosts, andwe've received some boosts since
(00:53):
our last episode. We received333 cents from Baris let them
live for episode 22. Build afire with a message beautiful
and heartbreaking. I agree. Andthank you. We received 133,333
SATs from Dred Scott. Dr. is amassive supporter of the metus
(01:13):
Media Productions. And we can'tthank you enough trip. We
received another 333 sets fromBaroness Love and Light for
episode 19 When you find anecklace, thank you for that.
Our first story comes to us fromKinder Jackson. Kendra lives and
works in Ireland. By day shecrunches numbers for living by
(01:33):
night and sometimes into theearly hours of the morning. She
expresses her pent up creativityby crunching words instead. Her
links will be on screen rightnow if your podcast player
supports chapters. And also inthis episode shownotes Mary Kate
Ultra will be performing thisstory for us. Mary Kate altra is
one of our new regular castmembers. You can find out about
(01:54):
her and our other regular castmembers on our cast page and
meet us pod.com. And in the shownotes for this episode. Without
further ado, our first story.There's no such thing as a ghost
in the machine, really, byKendra Jackson.
Unknown (02:17):
I just want to say that it wasn't my fault. Yes, I know,
I've cursed up that printerplenty of times. But so is
everybody in the office. Youcan't go a single day without
somebody threatening it withdefenestration. Well, that in a
bit of percussive maintenance,but like I said, I'm not the
only one who hated that machine.And I'm sure the feeling was
mutual. Molly was in tears onlyyesterday when she was trying to
(02:38):
copy some documents and they gotjammed in the theater. They were
nearly destroyed by the time shegot them out. And last month,
Jan was only going to shake thetoner cartridge to get a bit
more use out of it when itpractically exploded in her
face. And she had to go homelooking like she'd been sweeping
chimneys. I had to order a newcartridge. And the price of them
goodness me, it'd be almostcheaper to get a new machine I
(03:02):
don't mind telling you. But Idid find a supplier that had an
amazingly good offer. I can seeit in your face. If it sounds
too good to be true, then itprobably is. But they offered
next day delivery. And I know wedon't print a copy that much
these days. But we can't affordto not have it when we need it.
And they did say that the inkmight come out a little less
(03:22):
than black on the page. But whenit's mostly for our internal
use, so I thought it'd be worthgiving them a try. Besides, they
said their product was made from100% recycled materials. And
that's why their prices were soreasonable. I didn't think to
look at the fine print on thepackaging. It's usually just the
list of chemicals and ever heardof like Sangli spatula or
(03:43):
something like that. And awarning to not get it in your
mouth or eyes. If anybody wouldbe that careless. Well, okay,
maybe Jan. But we've had evenmore bad luck with that machine
since then, documents notprinting or printing with a
strange Gothic type font. Lastweek, every time we tried to
print or copy something, it cameout with the watermark, you are
(04:04):
all going to die all over it.And then yesterday, our manager
brought in their pet dog and thepoor creature went wild when he
got near the printer. He washowling like mad. The dog that
is not a manager. That's when Ithought that maybe the toner
cartridge had been contaminatedwith something. So I sent it off
to be tested. Well, you cannotbe down with the feather when he
(04:27):
told me that the main componentwas blood. Apparently it was all
there in the fine print on theirwebsite that they partnered with
the local blood bank to recycleexpired supplies. But I suppose
when you look at the pricesonline, it's still a lot cheaper
per milliliter than the regulartoner inks so we may as well
stick with them. Obviously Ofcourse, we can have it printing
(04:49):
curses on the paper or spinningthe pages halfway across the
room whenever it feels like it.So if you could just do us a
quick exorcism father that wecan all get back to work
David (05:01):
Our next story is a classic from a non science
fiction author Philip K. Dick,have a link to his bio in the
show notes. The eyes had it byPhilip K. Dick. It was quite by
accident, I discovered thisincredible invasion of Earth by
life forms from another planet.As yet, I haven't done anything
(05:23):
about it. I can't think ofanything to do. I wrote to the
governments and they sent back apamphlet on the repair and
maintenance of frame houses.Anyhow, the whole thing is
known. I'm not the first todiscover it. Maybe it's even
under control. I was sitting inmy easy chair idly turning the
pages of a paperback booksomeone had left on the bus.
(05:45):
When I came across the referencethat first put me on the trail.
For a moment, I didn't respond.It took some time for the full
import to sink in. NAFTA I'dcomprehended. It seemed odd, I
had noticed it right away. Thereference was clearly to a non
human species of incredibleproperties, not indigenous to
(06:08):
Earth, a species I hasten topoint out, customarily
masquerading as ordinary humanbeings. Their disguise however,
became transparent in the faceof the following observations by
the author. It was at onceobvious the author knew
everything, new everything andwas taking it in his stride. The
(06:32):
line and I tremble rememberingit even now read. His eyes
slowly roved about the room.Vague chills assailed me. I
tried to picture the eyes. Didthey roll like dimes? The
passage indicated not. They seemto move through the air not over
(06:53):
the surface rather rapidly.Apparently, no one in the story
was surprised. That's whattipped me off. No sign of
amazement at such an outrageousthing. Later, the matter was
amplified. Here his eyes movedfrom person to person. There it
wasn't a nutshell. The eyes hadclearly come apart from the rest
(07:16):
of him, and were on their own.My heart pounded and my breath
choked in my windpipe. I hadstumbled on an accidental
mention of a totally unfamiliarrace. Obviously, non
terrestrial. Yet to thecharacters in the book it was
perfectly natural, whichsuggested they belong to the
(07:36):
same species. And the author, aslow suspicion burned in my
mind, the author was taking itrather too easily in his stride.
Evidently, he felt this wasquite unusual thing. He made
absolutely no attempt to concealthis knowledge. The story
(07:56):
continued. Presently, his eyesfastened on Julia, Julia being a
lady had at least the breedingto feel indignant. She is
described as blushing andknitting her brows angrily. At
this, I sighed with relief. Theyweren't all nonterrestrials the
(08:20):
narrative continues. Slowly,calmly. His eyes examined every
inch of her. Great Scott. Buthere, the girl turned and
stomped off and the matterended. I lay back in my chair,
gasping with horror, my wife andfamily regarded me and wonder.
(08:41):
What's wrong, dear? My wifeasked. I couldn't tell her
knowledge like this was too muchfor the ordinary run of the mill
person. I had to keep it tomyself. Nothing. I gasped. I
leaped up, snatched the book andhurried out of the room. In the
garage, I continued reading,there was more trembling, I read
(09:06):
the next revealing passage. Heput his arm around the Giulia.
Presently, she asked him if hewould remove his arm. He
immediately did so with a smile.It's not said what was done with
the arm after the fellow removedit. Maybe it was left standing
(09:29):
upright in the corner. Maybe itwas thrown away. I don't care.
In any case, the full meaningwas there staring me right in
the face. There was a race ofcreatures capable of removing
portions of their anatomy atwill eyes, arms and maybe more
without batting an eyelash. Myknowledge of biology came in
handy at this point, obviously,they were a simple things,
(09:52):
unicellular, some sort ofprimitive single celled things
being no more developed than astarfish just starfish can do
the same thing you know, I readon and came to this incredible
revelation tossed off coolly bythe author without the faintest
tremor. Outside the movietheater we split up. Part of us
(10:16):
went inside. Hart over to thecafe for dinner. Binary Fission,
obviously splitting in half andforming two entities. Probably
each lower half went to thecafe, it being farther and the
upper halves to the movies. Iread on and shaking, I'd really
stumbled onto something here. Mymind reeled as I made out this
(10:40):
passage. I'm afraid there's nodoubt about it. Poor bibiani had
lost his head again, which wasfollowed by and Bob says he has
utterly no guts. Yet, Bibi gotaround as well as the next
person. The next person,however, was just as strange. He
(11:04):
was soon described as totallylacking in brains. There was no
doubt of the thing in the nextpassage. Julia, whom I had
thought to be the one normalperson reveals herself as also
being an alien life form,similar to the rest. quite
deliberately, Julia had givenher heart to the young man. It
(11:27):
didn't relate what the finaldisposition of the Oregon was,
but I didn't really care. It wasevident Giulia had gone right on
living in her usual manner, likeall of the others in the book.
Without hearts arms, eyes,brains, viscera dividing up into
two when the occasion demandedwithout a qualm. There upon. She
(11:50):
gave him her hand, is sick andthe rascal now had her hand as
well as her heart. I shudder tothink what he has done with
them. By this time. He took herarm, not content to wait he had
to start dismantling her on hisown flushing crimson, I slammed
the book shut and leaped to myfeet, but not in time to escape
(12:14):
one last reference to thosecarefree bits of anatomy, whose
travels had originally thrown meback on the track. Her eyes
followed him all the way downthe road, and across the meadow.
I rushed from the garage andback inside the warm house, as
if the accursed things werefollowing me. My wife and
children were playing monopolyin the kitchen I joined them and
(12:37):
played with frantic fervor. Browfeverish teeth chattering I had
had enough of the thing I wantto hear no more about it. Let
them come on. Let them invadeEarth I don't want to get mixed
up in it. I have absolutely nostomach for it
(13:02):
media spot is a production ofmade us media all rights
reserved, unless otherwisestated. All written works are
properties of their respectiveauthors. Our theme music comes
to us from odd Sprite. You cancheck them out odd sprite.com.
We'll see you next time folks.Have a good one.
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