About

(Music fades in)

Welcome back. Last week, I tried to condescence my experiences in the real world into something that I would be comfortable with other people hearing. Easier said than done. Once I pulled out all the details I didn’t like…. Well, I’m not sure what I was left with. Maybe only fear. As evidenced by a weird almost run-in I had in the coffee shop that I told you about. 

I don’t know what you would call that, exactly. Nothing makes much sense anymore. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Modern life evolved much more quickly than language has. And I feel like I’m paying the price. Me and some other people. We all go through experiences that don’t have easy words or descriptions, and it makes it hard for other people to understand what we’re feeling And I--in particular--am left scrambling. 

Because podcasting or--I guess--being able to consider yourself a podcaster is one of these things. It’s an inexplicable existence. It doesn’t fit easily into the categories of the past, but that’s all we have to look towards. Previously, the barrier of entry to all forms of media meant not necessarily that you were good--because let’s be real, here nepotism is definitely a thing among other things--but that you knew a lot of who you were prior to that initiation was stripped away or going to be stripped away as you cross that threshold. 

It was a practical thing, and maybe it was meant to only be temporary as you created and more effectively marketed this service you were able to provide, a utility wrapped up in your physical person. You had to become your own caricature or mascot, but all the same, people loved and were cheering for who they thought you were as if it were actually you, regardless of the reality of who you were. Your face was on the body of what could maybe be considered a very different person, and because of that, because of this illusion of familiarity, your existence--you the person you actually are--became a consumable commodity almost as collateral damage. I mean, a lot is lost in the course of that. Privacy principally but other things as well. 

And I wonder sometimes if anyone ever bothers to explain the details when a transformation like that happens. It doesn’t seem all that likely, if I am to be completely honest. But there has to be some sense in which you knew it was happening. You knew that when you started to create people were going to get pieces of yourself and all that you are in exchange for the fame you got. And all around you, you see the skeletal remains of those who get swallowed up in this fashion. 

But you have made peace with it. You knew it could happen, and you came to accept the price because of all that came with it. You chose this. Even if you chose wrong, you chose this. You weren’t stripped of that power. You simply misused it. And that’s a not uncommon tale.

Power, authority, whether it be over ourselves or other people, these are things that are abused all the time. We hate it, but it does happen. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

I don’t know if this power, sense of agency thing is still here with podcasting. I don’t think I could say that this sort of thing happens on any new media platform. It’s not a choice. It’s not a cost-benefit analysis. I mean, maybe it is on YouTube, considering the commercialization of that platform, and the many attempts of those who run it to recreate that which brought in quite a bit of advertising and the related wealth. But podcasting isn’t and may never be like that. There’s no fame or fortune to be found. And if there is, it’s so negligible and rare that I think it should be considered nothing. Rounding and all that. 

To a great extent, we’re just a bunch of people who wanted to tell stories or we wanted to hear a certain kind of story that wasn’t being made so we just did it ourselves. But when media consumption is always coupled with that traditional sense of ownership over that which gave you the thing that you love, well, I guess we’re kind of stuck, aren’t we?

I’m not… I’m not as freaked out by the coffee shop thing as it might look like. I promise. I just have… other stuff to deal with. It could have been that but best case scenario it’s the podcasting thing which is still not great my bar is just way too low.

(Pause)

I don’t know if I should go back to that coffee shop. If I should see for myself if… if anyone I knew was there or if it was just a case of being recognized, I guess. I keep thinking I should go. I know how to get there, and sometimes the only way out is through.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

Aishi wanted to know all about this new hometown I was thrusted into, but I told them that I hadn’t really had much of a chance to make a first impression just yet. We had just arrived the night before. And then I got fed up with the domestic life and fled to the library where… well, where everything might be happening all at once. Knowledge is knowledge, no matter where it is house. We all need or could use it from time to time. But the presence of it has never been much of an equalizer. We just made do. 

I asked Aishi if there was anything new on The Forum, but I called it… Or I said it like, “Is there anything new with our friends?” 

Aishi’s response was about as instant as you could expect it to be given the internet at the time. 

“No,” they said. “Color is different. But the prompts are all the same.”

“I need to see this for myself,” I answered.

“Well, that’s not my job,” Aishi point out.

Fair enough on that retort, I guess. It wasn’t their job. They were just all I had in that regard. 

“Hopeful soon,” I replied. “Maybe tomorrow.”

But it wasn’t tomorrow. I don’t think I should have left home that day. My aunt wasn’t happy with me for doing so. My parents hadn’t cared before, but then people came by looking for me. People are always looking for me. And the act of searching for me gives me plenty of reasons to not be found by anyone.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

Being online in a social capacity was much the same thing as being famous in the classic sense, or so I’m inclined to think. Maybe I’m wrong, but when you logged on, you entered this space, setting aside aspects of who you were in favor of whatever goods the internet promised you. In many ways, though, it was a blank check. But that didn’t matter. 

For so many of us, we were just happy to check our baggage at the door. And to us, it wasn’t a real price of admission. There was no loss there for some of us, or that’s what we told ourselves because it was all things we wanted to lose, but you never knew what else this might take. On your way into the door. This figurative door. This threshold of whatever type with a nondescript cost of admittance. 

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

Three days passed before I was able to get onto The Forum. It was in the darkness of a new bedroom without a functioning lamp. I had a lamp, once upon a time. But I did not any longer. Or I did not that night. I would have a nice one in a couple days. My dad special ordered it for me. That’s the only problem, though; it takes a few days between the ordering and it getting here. Even if he ordered it right after it happened, right after the first lamp broke, which he did. He did try to make things right when he could. I just… 

No, stop. It doesn’t matter.

I needed The Forum more than I needed the Funhouse Hallway. And at the time, that surprised me, but in hindsight, it makes sense. We all have this need for a sense of companionship. A battery, you could almost call it, that charges for each of us is filled in different ways. I didn’t have too many power sources for charging it, but regardless, there was this deep-seated need for other people not just to co-exist in a space with me, but to meaningfully be there beside me. To be connected to me, even if consoling me was not possible nor a thing I could necessarily seek out. 

At first Aishi was not online, but then they logged on, and I felt a sense of relief. Not fully. It didn’t help, of course, that we had been experiencing some turnover on The Forum for a while. It comes and goes in waves. Disinterest in something that never offers anything in the vein of clarity is inevitable, but sometimes you could be persuaded to hold on for the sake of other members of The Forum. By many standards, they were your friends, and this was the only context in which you could meet with them. 

Given the nature of The Funhouse Hallway, it was hard to build the sense of camaraderie necessary to take the all important step of sharing personal information. So you stuck around for them. In this place where you felt safe and not threatened but still connected. One day, the people you cared about were gone. And then you were gone too. The Forum was then left with the void. Even after new visitors and new members trickled in, you were still gone. And that… That hurt me way more than it should have.

I did cry when the Wizard left. I should not have done that, but admittedly I did. I missed him. And all the reports of his stupid band that may or may not have actually been any good. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

People don’t have to be perfect. They just have to be there. And then they aren’t. Then they aren’t. 

Aishi was online, though. And I felt better. I felt better about everything when I could tell that Aishi was a few keystrokes away. That we could talk. That they would listen. 

Of course, the rest of The Forum was quieter than it had been. The excitement of the color change had washed back out to sea, and my absence was longer than I had told them it would be. And given that I had potentially, maybe, kind of,started this whole thing, my absence did not bode well, at all. It took them all of twelve hours to realize that the game was not different beyond the color change. And then no one knew what to do.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

April 21st.

We are lost. We are hopeless. Nothing in the game is different. There is no hint to what the color means. And I am in a new location. I might not find that lead again. 

The roster looks normal. Everyone is here. But if nothing happens, people will leave again.

We are lost. We are hopeless. We do not have a plan. Do we keep playing? Do we keep hoping? Or do we surrender.

I want to know. I want to find out. But I don’t want to leave. More than all. I do not want to leave.

There’s always more game, I say. We just never know how to find it until we do. 

Unpredictable, Aishi says. That’s why we’re all here. But then Aishi has another idea.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

To explain in a way that’s better than what my diary has, Aishi took this to mean that the black background of Level 1 to mean a darkness or nighttime. And the yellow of Level 2 would have meant daylight. Like how little kids always draw the sun to be this big yellow circle in the sky. That’s the cultural symbol we have all inherited to mean sun, and we all find it acceptable enough to not challenge it.

But that left one matter, didn’t it? Or maybe that’s me being a bit narcissistic, but I had to play the game. If I changed it once before, then maybe I could change it now. Or I could find something new. Maybe the problem was that it was waiting for me. And I hadn’t been playing.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

Of course, that logic has not aged well, has it? Because computers are tracked. Online identities are determined and matched by IP address, which are--in part--determined by location. So when I moved, my IP would have changed. 

Or maybe that logic aged just fine, because whoever made The Funhouse Hallway was better at tracking people than we are inclined to think. Or I am inclined to think.

But I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m dumb for trying or dumb for second guessing. Either way, this is not a great look for me, but maybe a fitting one. 

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

The new color of the Funhouse Hallway was unnecessarily jarring. Or maybe not unnecessarily. That’s a matter of intention, isn’t it? Maybe it was meant to shake up those of us who poured so much of ourselves into the darkness. Maybe we were just never supposed to play in the dark. I can’t say either way. 

My eyes just ached when I stared at the screen and its bright color beneath the blankets I had draped over me and the computer to keep the light in. It created some other issues, I guess. Objectively speaking, I doubt a blanket could have changed much of anything. But I’ve never been a rational person, and consequently, in that moment, I felt more vulnerable. Like if something was coming, I would not have been able to sense it was coming. Or see it. I would have had no warning, just a blanket snatched from over my head and then… Then. Nothing. It’s nothing. Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing.

Insomnia was unfortunately a family trait. It afflicted all of us, though in different ways from time to time. 

(Pause)

I started the game up, and I went through the routine that I knew all too well. 

Forward. “Your eyes are greatly uneven.”

But then… Then I had a change of heart. And I wish I could explain this logic to you, but I don’t know. I just knew I couldn’t do what I had always done.

Right. “The room is quiet.”

Left. “You are sitting in the corner. You cannot move. You should not move.”

So I did not click anything. I just waited. After all, it told me not to move.

I don’t think anyone had thought about that before. Okay. I’m sorry. That’s not the whole truth. The truth is that I thought I heard something in the hallway outside. An exhale. My aunt’s distinct exhale. And I was panicked. I was scared. I could do nothing but sit there and hold my breath as I waited for this potential reckoning. I was just waiting for her to come in. And then, I just… I don’t know. I had to stop. 

And when I turned back the screen had changed. 

“You hear the screaming. You should not move.”

So I didn’t. I kept still. I did not even touch my mouse. Minutes ticked by, and there was still no change. I could not bring myself to time it, though I probably should have. I did not know if that mattered. But there was clearly more to this game than meets the eye.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

It’s no one else but me. This paranoia. This sound aversion. It’s me. It’s always me. I carry hurts and scars and fears that resist clear description. And I cannot tell someone how to break into a lock that I cannot describe. What that means for me is yet to be seen. I get it. Consequences of my choices and all that. We don’t have to pretend that this is somehow new information. I’ve heard it all before.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

In The Forum everyone confirmed that they had never bothered to pause at any screen. Pausing hadn’t seemed like an option, so I guess, I was right after all. Apparently we were given more options than we could imagine. There were more hints and clues right in plain sight. The options were suggestions and little more. We really did have to dive back into the game and shift the rules we had always known.

(Music gradually fades out)

Aishi Online is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, produced, performed, and edited by MJ Bailey with music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. If you like the show, please leave a review, tell a friend, or donate to the show’s Ko-Fi account.