January 4, 2026 • 19 mins
https://www.solgoodmedia.com - Listen to hundreds of audiobooks, thousands of short stories, and ambient sounds all ad free! "Mind Webs Daily" rekindles the charm of old time radio with a daily infusion of psychological and speculative tales. Each day offers a unique journey into the enigmatic and often eerie realms of the human mind, reminiscent of classic radio storytelling but with a contemporary flair. Perfect for daily listeners who appreciate a blend of nostalgia and modern narrative depth.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Mine will.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Welcome to a half hour of mind work stories from
the worlds of speculattle fiction our mind web story this
(01:20):
time comes from the book Nebula of Word Story seven,
edited by Lloyd big Old Junior. This is the Last
Ghost by Stephen Golden. Eternity is a terrible place to
endure alone. He is the last of his kind. If
(01:42):
he is a he, gender is an arbitrary difference. All
things are eventually the same, and in eternity eventually equals always.
He must once have had a name, a handle to
his soul, but that was back before the eternity instant,
when he had existed in corporeal form. He tries to
(02:05):
think about things as he had known them, and finds
he can't. He tries to think about things as they are,
and finds he can't quite manage that either. There will
be as far beyond his powers of contemplation. He exists,
if that's the word, in an everlasting now, as a
(02:26):
state of nothingness, less substantial than a vacuum, smaller than infinity,
larger than thought. Eternity lies as far behind him as
it does a head. He drifts through this lack of
anything at infinitely greater than no speed at all. He
sees with none eyes, He hears without ears. He thinks
(02:52):
thoughtless thoughts that revolve in circles and make little eddies
of emptiness in the not quite nothing of his mind.
He searches for, he wants uh, he desires some, he
loves to. No objects remain within his mental grasp. The
(03:15):
words have been corroded by the gentle acid of time.
All that's left is the search, the want, the desire,
the love. She began to appear, slowly, a flicker at
the limits of his non perception. Why he considered her
(03:38):
as she could not be explained. There was just an
aspect about her that was complimentary to him. His unthoughts
raced in puzzlements. She was a newness in his stale cosmos,
where nothing ever changed. He watched her as she took
on a form even less substantial than his own. He
(03:58):
watched with his crumbing mind at a crossroad, afraid to approach,
even more afraid to run from her in fear, if
that is, there were any place to run in eternity.
She gained awareness suddenly and started at the alien strangeness
of her new environment. The eerie infinitude produced within her,
(04:22):
a wave of awe commingled with fear. She could as
yet perceive only herself in the barren continuum around her.
She spoke. What came out was not sound, but could
be interpreted as communication.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Where am I?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
The action was a simple one. It seemed utterly new
to him, but down somewhere among the shards of his memory,
it was all tantalizingly familiar. He trembled. She perceived his
being and turned her attention toward him. What are you?
Speaker 4 (04:59):
What happened to me?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
He knew the answers, or rather he had known them,
as it had with everything else. Infinity had eaten away
at these chunks of information too, and what was left
of his mind It had all been so important, once
so important. That was why he was what he was,
and why he wasn't what he wasn't?
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Please tell me.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Through mists that swirled down dusty corridors of memory, the
words came out unbidden. You are dead.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
No, that's impossible, I can't be loud, silence, I can't be.
Death was conquered more than five thousand years ago. After
our minds were transferred into computer banks, we became immortal.
Our bodies may fail, but our minds go on.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Nobody dies anymore.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
You are dead?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Are are you a ghost?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Well? The meaning of the word had been stolen from him,
that shread of identity remained. Yes, she brooded, and large
quantities of non time elapsed. He waited. He became accustomed
to her existence. No longer was she an alien thing
(06:27):
in his empty universe. She was now a half presence,
and he accepted her as he had come to accept
everything else with outcomings.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I suppose some sort of equipment failure might have temporarily
dislodged my personality pattern from the memory banks, but only temporarily.
I'm only half dead so far. As soon as the
trouble is fixed, I'll be all right again.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
I will be all right.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Won't I?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
He didn't answer. He knew nothing about equipment failures, or
had forgotten if he ever had known.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Equipment failures are supposed to be impossible.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
She prattled on, trying desperately to convince herself that her
comfortable reality would return again.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Still in thousands of years, even a trillion to one
shot might happen.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
But they'll fix it soon. They've got to, they must,
won't they, won't they?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
She stared at her impassive companion with none, eyes widened
by panic.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Don't just stand there, help me.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Help. That word found a niche somewhere in the haunted
cavern of his mind. He was supposed to help, to
help the who or what or how he was supposed
to help, He looted in that is, if he ever
had known. They drifted on through the void together, his
(07:52):
side by side, ghost and almost ghost. The un thoughts
of the elder spirit were tangled more than you, owing
to the presence of another after such a lonely period
of timelessness. But it was not a bad thing. In fact,
it was rather nice to share the universe with someone
else again. She was a pleasant aura besiding in an
(08:17):
otherwise insensate world. They had both existed for over five
thousand years. He wasn't doubtedly the older of the pair,
but the real difference between them was that while he
had existed alone for so long that solitude had nibbled
away at a Swiss cheese mind, she had lived though
(08:39):
centuries with other people, other minds, a situation that either
cracks one completely or produces near total stability. The latter
was the case with her, and so Eventually, her initial
panic subsided in the clinical attitude she had held for
thousands of years.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Returned, Well, where's I'm going to be here for a while,
so I might as well get acquainted with this place,
And since you're the only thing around, I'll start with you.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Deadly? Obviously, her non voice managed to handle even sarcasm.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Lastly, well don't you have a name of some kind? No,
that's impossible. You must have had a name sometime.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I don't, I don't, I don't his broken record attempt
to answer, it was so pathetic that had touched the
maternal instincts that she had thought long dead within her.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
I'm sorry, let's talk about something else.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Where are we? We are dead?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Lord, help me have patience with him. He's worse than
a child. Yes, I know you're dead, but I mean
our physical location.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Does it have a name?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
No?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Stymied again, her companion was obviously not inclined to conversation,
but her analytical mind felt an urgent need to talk
to try to hold on to her sanity under such
adverse conditions.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
All right, then, if you don't want to talk, do
you mind if I do?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
No? So she did. She told him about her earliest life,
when she had had a body, and about the things
she had done and the children she had had. She
spoke of the mind transferral breakthrough that had finally enabled
man to conquer death. She told him about the first
(10:49):
thousand or so years she had spent in the computer bank,
when exhilarated by the thrill of immortality, she had occupied
animated robot bodies and engaged in death defying supports and
exciting activities. And she related how even this had paled
with time, and how she had passed into the current
(11:10):
mature phase of her life, the search for knowledge and wisdom.
She told how ships had been built to take these
computerized people to the stars and what strange and wonderful
things they had found there. He listened. Most of it
was incomprehensible to him, for the words were either unfamiliar
(11:33):
or forgotten. His sieve like mind retained very little of
what she said. But he listened, and that was important.
He soaked in the experience, the thrill of another pseudo
being communicating with him. At last, she paused, unable to
(11:54):
think of anything else to say.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Would you like to talk now?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Good? What would you like to talk about?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
He tried hard to think of something, anything, but once
again his brain failed in. She sensed his difficulty.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Tell me something about yourself.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
I am dead, Yes, I know that.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
But what else?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
He thought? What was himself that he could tell something about?
I search for, I want, I desire some I love
(12:46):
to what?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
What?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
What?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
But there was no answer. Frustrated, she continued.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Let's try something else. Did everyone who died become a
ghost like you?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Where are they? All? Then?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Gone?
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Gone? Where?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Away? Almost she lost her patience again, but her millennia
of training saved her.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
They all went away?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yes, all except you? Yes? How long had it been long?
She hadn't felt closer to crying and nearly five thousand years,
both out of sympathy for this pathetic creature and frustration
at being unable to.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Solve his riddle, why didn't you go with them?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I I was left behind? Why? His answer came much
more slowly this time, dredged from the silt at the
bottom of his pool of consciousness to to to point
(13:57):
the way for those who follow your guide?
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Then?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (14:03):
To where?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
To to away?
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Can you show me where?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
For the first time, sadness was in his voice no. Slowly,
very slowly, using all the powers of patience and logical
reasoning she had developed over the centuries, she extracted from
him the pieces necessary to complete the puzzle long ago.
(14:36):
How long was in determinate time has no meaning in eternity.
The ghosts had discovered a new and higher level of existence.
All of them had gone over to this new evolutionary state,
all except one, one last ghost, to show the way
up for all the new ghosts who would be coming along.
(15:00):
Only the mind transveral breakthrough had changed all that. Suddenly
there were no new ghosts, and the last ghost was
left alone. Duty confined in to ghost and solitude condemned
(15:20):
him to stagnation. Her pity exploded like a pink nova,
even while some analytical portion of her mind noted that
the maternal instinct does not fade through disuse. She cradled
his pathetic nun being deep within their own shadowy self,
and whispered words of tender concern. And suddenly he felt
(15:43):
warm with a glow he hadn't felt an yans, his
noull senses tingled deliciously with the nearness of this glorious other. Happily,
he nestled himself against her. A shock ripped through her,
and another and another.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Oh dear, they're repairing the equipment failure. Soon they'll be
fixing the memory circuit, and I'll go back to being
alive again.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
In the sad stillness that followed, he uttered one word, don't.
She was startled. This was the first time he had
initiated a thought, the first time he had expressed a
preference for something. What did you say, don't be alive?
(16:34):
Why not? I need what? She could feel herself beginning
to fade from this non place.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
I need, yes, tell me, tell me what you need.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I need what? She was fading quickly.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
I don't have much time left here. Please tell me what.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I need. She disappeared forever from his non universe without
a trace. The Last Ghost wanders. He is a signpost
with nowhere to point. He is a guide with no
(17:24):
one to lead. So he drifts on with an empty
mind and a half forgotten, unfulfillable purpose. And occasionally I need,
I need, I need, As always the object eludes him.
(18:58):
The story you've just heard is titled The Last Ghost
by Stephen Golden. It appears in Nebula Award Story seven
edited by Lloyd Bagel Junior
Speaker 3 (19:15):
In Jicream
Mine will.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Welcome to a half hour of mind work stories from
the worlds of speculattle fiction our mind web story this
(01:20):
time comes from the book Nebula of Word Story seven,
edited by Lloyd big Old Junior. This is the Last
Ghost by Stephen Golden. Eternity is a terrible place to
endure alone. He is the last of his kind. If
(01:42):
he is a he, gender is an arbitrary difference. All
things are eventually the same, and in eternity eventually equals always.
He must once have had a name, a handle to
his soul, but that was back before the eternity instant,
when he had existed in corporeal form. He tries to
(02:05):
think about things as he had known them, and finds
he can't. He tries to think about things as they are,
and finds he can't quite manage that either. There will
be as far beyond his powers of contemplation. He exists,
if that's the word, in an everlasting now, as a
(02:26):
state of nothingness, less substantial than a vacuum, smaller than infinity,
larger than thought. Eternity lies as far behind him as
it does a head. He drifts through this lack of
anything at infinitely greater than no speed at all. He
sees with none eyes, He hears without ears. He thinks
(02:52):
thoughtless thoughts that revolve in circles and make little eddies
of emptiness in the not quite nothing of his mind.
He searches for, he wants uh, he desires some, he
loves to. No objects remain within his mental grasp. The
(03:15):
words have been corroded by the gentle acid of time.
All that's left is the search, the want, the desire,
the love. She began to appear, slowly, a flicker at
the limits of his non perception. Why he considered her
(03:38):
as she could not be explained. There was just an
aspect about her that was complimentary to him. His unthoughts
raced in puzzlements. She was a newness in his stale cosmos,
where nothing ever changed. He watched her as she took
on a form even less substantial than his own. He
(03:58):
watched with his crumbing mind at a crossroad, afraid to approach,
even more afraid to run from her in fear, if
that is, there were any place to run in eternity.
She gained awareness suddenly and started at the alien strangeness
of her new environment. The eerie infinitude produced within her,
(04:22):
a wave of awe commingled with fear. She could as
yet perceive only herself in the barren continuum around her.
She spoke. What came out was not sound, but could
be interpreted as communication.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Where am I?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
The action was a simple one. It seemed utterly new
to him, but down somewhere among the shards of his memory,
it was all tantalizingly familiar. He trembled. She perceived his
being and turned her attention toward him. What are you?
Speaker 4 (04:59):
What happened to me?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
He knew the answers, or rather he had known them,
as it had with everything else. Infinity had eaten away
at these chunks of information too, and what was left
of his mind It had all been so important, once
so important. That was why he was what he was,
and why he wasn't what he wasn't?
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Please tell me.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Through mists that swirled down dusty corridors of memory, the
words came out unbidden. You are dead.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
No, that's impossible, I can't be loud, silence, I can't be.
Death was conquered more than five thousand years ago. After
our minds were transferred into computer banks, we became immortal.
Our bodies may fail, but our minds go on.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Nobody dies anymore.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
You are dead?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Are are you a ghost?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Well? The meaning of the word had been stolen from him,
that shread of identity remained. Yes, she brooded, and large
quantities of non time elapsed. He waited. He became accustomed
to her existence. No longer was she an alien thing
(06:27):
in his empty universe. She was now a half presence,
and he accepted her as he had come to accept
everything else with outcomings.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I suppose some sort of equipment failure might have temporarily
dislodged my personality pattern from the memory banks, but only temporarily.
I'm only half dead so far. As soon as the
trouble is fixed, I'll be all right again.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
I will be all right.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Won't I?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
He didn't answer. He knew nothing about equipment failures, or
had forgotten if he ever had known.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Equipment failures are supposed to be impossible.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
She prattled on, trying desperately to convince herself that her
comfortable reality would return again.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Still in thousands of years, even a trillion to one
shot might happen.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
But they'll fix it soon. They've got to, they must,
won't they, won't they?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
She stared at her impassive companion with none, eyes widened
by panic.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Don't just stand there, help me.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Help. That word found a niche somewhere in the haunted
cavern of his mind. He was supposed to help, to
help the who or what or how he was supposed
to help, He looted in that is, if he ever
had known. They drifted on through the void together, his
(07:52):
side by side, ghost and almost ghost. The un thoughts
of the elder spirit were tangled more than you, owing
to the presence of another after such a lonely period
of timelessness. But it was not a bad thing. In fact,
it was rather nice to share the universe with someone
else again. She was a pleasant aura besiding in an
(08:17):
otherwise insensate world. They had both existed for over five
thousand years. He wasn't doubtedly the older of the pair,
but the real difference between them was that while he
had existed alone for so long that solitude had nibbled
away at a Swiss cheese mind, she had lived though
(08:39):
centuries with other people, other minds, a situation that either
cracks one completely or produces near total stability. The latter
was the case with her, and so Eventually, her initial
panic subsided in the clinical attitude she had held for
thousands of years.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Returned, Well, where's I'm going to be here for a while,
so I might as well get acquainted with this place,
And since you're the only thing around, I'll start with you.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Deadly? Obviously, her non voice managed to handle even sarcasm.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Lastly, well don't you have a name of some kind? No,
that's impossible. You must have had a name sometime.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I don't, I don't, I don't his broken record attempt
to answer, it was so pathetic that had touched the
maternal instincts that she had thought long dead within her.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
I'm sorry, let's talk about something else.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Where are we? We are dead?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Lord, help me have patience with him. He's worse than
a child. Yes, I know you're dead, but I mean
our physical location.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Does it have a name?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
No?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Stymied again, her companion was obviously not inclined to conversation,
but her analytical mind felt an urgent need to talk
to try to hold on to her sanity under such
adverse conditions.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
All right, then, if you don't want to talk, do
you mind if I do?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
No? So she did. She told him about her earliest life,
when she had had a body, and about the things
she had done and the children she had had. She
spoke of the mind transferral breakthrough that had finally enabled
man to conquer death. She told him about the first
(10:49):
thousand or so years she had spent in the computer bank,
when exhilarated by the thrill of immortality, she had occupied
animated robot bodies and engaged in death defying supports and
exciting activities. And she related how even this had paled
with time, and how she had passed into the current
(11:10):
mature phase of her life, the search for knowledge and wisdom.
She told how ships had been built to take these
computerized people to the stars and what strange and wonderful
things they had found there. He listened. Most of it
was incomprehensible to him, for the words were either unfamiliar
(11:33):
or forgotten. His sieve like mind retained very little of
what she said. But he listened, and that was important.
He soaked in the experience, the thrill of another pseudo
being communicating with him. At last, she paused, unable to
(11:54):
think of anything else to say.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Would you like to talk now?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Good? What would you like to talk about?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
He tried hard to think of something, anything, but once
again his brain failed in. She sensed his difficulty.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Tell me something about yourself.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
I am dead, Yes, I know that.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
But what else?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
He thought? What was himself that he could tell something about?
I search for, I want, I desire some I love
(12:46):
to what?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
What?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
What?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
But there was no answer. Frustrated, she continued.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Let's try something else. Did everyone who died become a
ghost like you?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Where are they? All? Then?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Gone?
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Gone? Where?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Away? Almost she lost her patience again, but her millennia
of training saved her.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
They all went away?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yes, all except you? Yes? How long had it been long?
She hadn't felt closer to crying and nearly five thousand years,
both out of sympathy for this pathetic creature and frustration
at being unable to.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Solve his riddle, why didn't you go with them?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I I was left behind? Why? His answer came much
more slowly this time, dredged from the silt at the
bottom of his pool of consciousness to to to point
(13:57):
the way for those who follow your guide?
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Then?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (14:03):
To where?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
To to away?
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Can you show me where?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
For the first time, sadness was in his voice no. Slowly,
very slowly, using all the powers of patience and logical
reasoning she had developed over the centuries, she extracted from
him the pieces necessary to complete the puzzle long ago.
(14:36):
How long was in determinate time has no meaning in eternity.
The ghosts had discovered a new and higher level of existence.
All of them had gone over to this new evolutionary state,
all except one, one last ghost, to show the way
up for all the new ghosts who would be coming along.
(15:00):
Only the mind transveral breakthrough had changed all that. Suddenly
there were no new ghosts, and the last ghost was
left alone. Duty confined in to ghost and solitude condemned
(15:20):
him to stagnation. Her pity exploded like a pink nova,
even while some analytical portion of her mind noted that
the maternal instinct does not fade through disuse. She cradled
his pathetic nun being deep within their own shadowy self,
and whispered words of tender concern. And suddenly he felt
(15:43):
warm with a glow he hadn't felt an yans, his
noull senses tingled deliciously with the nearness of this glorious other. Happily,
he nestled himself against her. A shock ripped through her,
and another and another.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Oh dear, they're repairing the equipment failure. Soon they'll be
fixing the memory circuit, and I'll go back to being
alive again.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
In the sad stillness that followed, he uttered one word, don't.
She was startled. This was the first time he had
initiated a thought, the first time he had expressed a
preference for something. What did you say, don't be alive?
(16:34):
Why not? I need what? She could feel herself beginning
to fade from this non place.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
I need, yes, tell me, tell me what you need.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I need what? She was fading quickly.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
I don't have much time left here. Please tell me what.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I need. She disappeared forever from his non universe without
a trace. The Last Ghost wanders. He is a signpost
with nowhere to point. He is a guide with no
(17:24):
one to lead. So he drifts on with an empty
mind and a half forgotten, unfulfillable purpose. And occasionally I need,
I need, I need, As always the object eludes him.
(18:58):
The story you've just heard is titled The Last Ghost
by Stephen Golden. It appears in Nebula Award Story seven
edited by Lloyd Bagel Junior
Speaker 3 (19:15):
In Jicream
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The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.