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Leanne:

Wasting Company Time presents Tell No Tales, Episode Twenty: Eye of the Storm

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[SFX: Recording Begins]

[SFX: Mouse clicks, classical music begins playing]

Leo:

Audio diary of Leo Quinn, assistant to Frank Williamson, director of Better Place. Nothing to report, just yet. Not for lack of trying. The only people in the whole Better Place building who look more worse for wear than me are Riley and Julia. If Frank hasn’t been bugging my office already, he’s got to be getting suspicious for sure now. We might not exactly be best buds but I mean, you employ someone for seven years you get to know then well enough. I doubt he’s buying that these persistent bags under my eyes are just from one too many late nights at the pub. But, I’ll keep plugging along. Because what else can I do? Riley’s still managing to send case files my way at least, helping me smuggle copies out of the office. Even in spite of all the research they’re doing with Julia out of hours. Which, hey, at least if there’s any kind of silver lining to this, it’s that nothing seems to have bonded those two quite like shared research. So that’s something. Now it’s kind of just… me being the third wheel now, I suppose. No. No, I’m being ridiculous. This isn’t about me. It was never about me, it’s about doing right by Better Place’s victims. And if the best way to do that is to keep interviewing spirits while Julia and Riley research together then that’s what I’ll do. Yeah, I’ll er…

[SFX: Case file being picked up, pages turning]

Here’s one I stole earlier. Looks like someone from Transport for London reached out about a haunting on one of the buses, so customer services got in touch with the bus driver for a proper account of the spirit activity.

Case RM#2255, Category 2, case status-active. Reported by Amir Morales via email. Initial report:

Dear Allison, thanks for getting in touch. Happy to tell you more about the issue. It seems to be is

olated to the upper deck of the bus. I believe upper management gave the exact details of which bus in their earlier email. It started as just a feeling really. A handful of passengers mentioned it over the years. Which I know doesn’t sound like much but it really does take a lot to get most Londoners to talk to their bus driver. Unless they’re, y’know, shouting abuse at me. So a handful of people feeling it strongly enough to say something must have meant a lot more people staying quiet about it. It took a few years before it progressed to full-blown complaints though. Mostly the complaints were about people missing their stop, staying on the bus for much longer than they meant to. So, obviously they were dismissed. It happens sometimes, people zoning out on their commute, forgetting to press the stop button and somehow it’s the driver’s fault. Never mind that not making unnecessary stops is what gets you to your stop on time. Though, you work customer service, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you about bizarre complaints. It wasn’t until someone took the time to write in about it that we really flagged it as an issue. The passenger who wrote to us mentioned having had experience with a haunting before, and immediately recognised it. Apparently the chill, the feeling of being watched, it was all fairly textbook, though the feeling of zoning out and missing stops seems specific to this ghost. That was the only official complaint we’ve had, besides the occasional passenger shouting at me, so we’ve found no need to take the bus out of service, but if you think there might be any danger at all please do let me know and I’ll put some pressure on management. Let me know if you need any more info, thanks, Amir.

I mean, honestly, god bless Riley. Even with all the extra work they’re doing outside of office hours, they still managed to fast-track their research so that they could get this case file to me before the dispatchers. And I truly believe nobody but Riley could have found this spirit. There were too many possibilities, too public a place, too many passengers on each route. But they managed it. They found that this exact bus was one often taken by a Josh Fraser. A relatively young consultant-something who chose a ninety-minute bus commute to and from his job in central London every day over a tube journey that would’ve only taken half an hour. He spent three hours of his day on this bus every single day. Three hours. That’s… Five days a week that’s, what… fifteen hours a week? Shut up I know that shouldn’t have taken me so long, I’m tired. But, it’s weird, right? Like, I spend a hideous amount of my day commuting too but I doubt my eternal soul would stay behind there, you know? I’m not exactly attached to the central line at rush hour. In fact, pretty sure I’d take eternity in the warehouse over an eternity on the central line. Nope. No, too soon to joke about that.

Anyway, maybe there’s a good reason. Maybe he… I don’t know, met the love of his life on that bus. Maybe that was where he got a life-changing phone call. I dunno, I’ll be able to ask him soon enough, I suppose. But since TFL have been reluctant to take the bus out of… I don’t know what you’d call it, active duty? It means it’s going to be a lot harder for me to access. But Riley was provided with all the scheduling info as part of their research, so I know the route that the exact bus should be on tonight. All I’ve got to do is hunt it down. And then, you know, find a way to conduct an interview with enough subtlety that nobody tries to get the crazy person with an EMF recorder kicked off. Thankfully, rush-hour is well over by now. It’ll be another late night for me, I think. Love that for me. Alright, wish me luck, I suppose.

[SFX: Recording Ends]

[SFX: Recording Begins, classical music playing]

Leo:

Huh. That was… Unusual. Not what I was expecting. Not at all. Though I guess that’s the beauty of this kind of thing, you know? It’s not just the sob stories that we need. Not just the spirits who want to watch their kids grow up or be near their partners. To prove a spirit deserves human rights, we have to prove they’re human. In all of humanity’s flawed glory. And this guy definitely fit into the category of flawed. It took me forever to find him. It was already getting late when I left, and then I had to get a tube to one of the stops on the route, and I spent almost an hour just hopping onto different buses, then getting off at the next stop when there was no sign of spirit activity. When I finally found him, it was a whole other thing working up the nerve to speak to him. I ended up waiting until the top deck emptied out completely. Because apparently I can speak to ghosts mid-panic attack but I’m completely incapable of holding a conversation with one if there’s anyone nearby to think I’m talking to myself. Somehow though, it didn’t feel so bad, waiting for the bus to empty out. It kind of felt like no time was passing at all. I think that was his effect. Josh Fraser’s, I mean.

[Ambience: Classical music fades out, dreamlike atmospheric music fades in]

The effect that makes people miss their stops and travel for far too long. Just sitting there, in the dim florescents, the seat rumbling beneath me, London passing by outside. Looking out at the dark street, it is so easy to forget that time’s passing when it’s only marked by the lights that flash by. The next streetlamp approaching inch by inch, until it speeds off behind you. A story of London in flashes of shadow and colour. The tall intricate limestone of Central settled and empty with the stillness of offices at night. The ever-present buzz of SoHo. Each car and bus just a glare of headlights, concealing the lives and thoughts of the people within. I felt more at peace on that bus than I have in… God. Forever. Which, I mean, now that I’ve had a chance to listen back to his interview, it makes perfect sense.

[SFX: Mouse clicks]

Leo (On Recording):

Uh, hi, Josh? Sorry about that, I came here to speak to you a while ago, but I think I got a bit… Lost in my thoughts. My name’s Leo, I’m here because Better Place have been called to remove your spirit, but I’d like to get a bit more information about whether or not this is something you consent to. If you’re willing to speak to me, I have this recorder, which will pick up your voice, though it can’t play back in real time. Could you start with a few basic identifying details, name, date of birth?

Josh Fraser (On Recording):

‘salright, I saw you get lost, I get it. The bus is an easy place to get lost in. It’s why I like it. Basic details of my life, eh? Josh Fraser. My wife was Sarah Fraser, my kids were Jess and Millie Fraser. My date of birth was the eighteenth of Janurary 1978. I was only thirty-two, when I died. But I felt so, goddamn, old.

Leo:

And can you tell me a bit about your life? And why you think your spirit stayed on here?

Josh:

Where do I even start. Asking me to tell you about my life is like being at one of those god awful workplace seminar icebreaker things, “tell us your name and one interesting fact about yourself,” there’s just nothing of interest to report. My life was somehow both hideously chaotic and unbearably mundane. The same messy day, just one after the other. Screaming hectic mornings, the wife yelling at the girls, fighting for the bathroom, fighting to be out on time. Then eight hours of the same boring job. Then back to chaos again. Fights about what to have for dinner and what to put on the telly and when to go to bed. Rinse and repeat. But then there was my commute. an hour and a half of peace twice a day. Ninety minutes of stillness. Of music, or a podcast, or just the sounds of the city. A ninety minute long eye of the storm. Nothing to do. Nobody to fight with. Nobody wanting anything from me. This was my happy place. Maybe it sounds sad, or pathetic, or misanthropic or whatever. But I don’t care. This was the only place I ever felt free of the crushing weight of my life. Of the days piling up one after the other and nothing to show for them. On this bus, in this in-between, none of it mattered.

Leo:

And what has your after-life been like, can you tell me a bit about that?

Josh:

Oh, my after-life has been a whole other story. I will never understand how the obscenely wealthy go crazy with boredom. If my life had been like this all the time, I would have been just the happiest man alive. The utter bliss of it. The absolute joy of having nothing to do. No responsibilities. Of course I do wish I’d been able to bring my phone along with me. Zoning out entirely is lovely but sometimes I do wish I had a podcast to listen to. I used to love listening to those contrarian interviewers, you know, the ones who would invite guests on just to start a fight. It was a refreshing change, like finally being able to witness the claws come out from a safe distance, not like the shouting and swearing back at home or from my boss. But I’ve got other things to occupy me, most times. People watching can be fun. Sometimes they fight, and sometimes it’s entertaining. When it’s not, it’s just as much fun to watch them zone out, watch their expression change as it all falls away and the world narrows down completely to the next thing to flash by in the window.

Leo:

Do you have any thoughts about Better Place coming to remove you?

Josh:

Well, the best part of this place, this journey, is that it’s just so… liminal, isn’t it? So if it never ends, then maybe it loses its charm. So it will need to end eventually. I need to know it’s going to end eventually. But that’s… That doesn’t mean I want it to end now. Just because you don’t want to be immortal doesn’t mean you’re suicidal. And this really is the most perfect limbo I could have asked for. So no, I’d like to stay for now. For the first time in my adult life, I’m happy. I’d like to savour it.

Leo:

Okay, thanks for talking to me Josh. Before I go, is there anything else you’d like to say? Anything you’d like me to pass on to someone still living?

Josh:

Oh, God no. I never had anything to say in life, nothing’s changed now. My family don’t need to hear from me. And I don’t want them to know I’m here. What’s the use of this perfect stasis if they’re always coming to visit me? Talking at me, expecting things from me? It wouldn’t be my happy place any more.

Leo (No longer on recording):

So, yeah, big yikes. Not a pleasant man in life, I’m sure. He sounded miserable. He probably made the lives of those around him miserable too, but, well, at least he’s happy now. For now. I wonder if… I wonder if they’re conscious, once they’ve been removed? Once a spirit is condensed into a stasis capsule? Nobody’s ever done research into it. Nobody’s ever cared. Or, no, that’s not fair. Nobody’s ever been paid to care. As an underfunded academic herself, Julia likes to remind us of the difference often. I really hope they’re not. Conscious, I mean. If it’s true, if Better Place have been storing spirits indefinitely in those capsules, then… yeah, no, it does not sound quite as perfect, as far as limbo goes. But. That’s what we’re doing. That’s what we’re working to fight. We’ll get there. Even if we’re in a kind of limbo of our own right now. I hate this, feeling like there’s so much to do, and not being able to help. But it’s got to be worse for Riley and Julia. Doing everything they can and still not getting anywhere. (SIGH). Right. No point despairing about it now. It’s almost 3am. And this isn’t even the latest night I’ve had this week. Time to get some—

[SFX: Mobile phone ringing]

Leo:

Julia, hey, everything okay?

Julia (on speakerphone):

Hi! Yes! I had a brainwave. You mentioned, ages ago, Frank’s been spending time at workshops, right?

Leo:

Er, yeah, sometimes for days at a time. At least that’s what it says on his calendar. Never much info on it.

Julia:

Right. Fab. Do you know if he’s got any more of those coming up?

Leo:

Yes, tomorrow, I think? I have his google cal on my phone let me check.

Julia:

Oh, hon, of course you do. Anyone ever tell you you need some boundaries?

Leo:

Ha, rich coming from you. What time is it Julia?

Julia:

Point made. Can you send me some screenshots?

Leo:

Yup, sure, sending them now. Why?

Julia:

Not sure yet. I’ll call you if it turns into anything. And don’t worry if I’m off sick tomorrow. I promise I’ll tell you if my hunch pays off.

Leo:

Er, yeah, okay, I mean— Of course she’s gone. Right. Well, maybe I’ll have an update on whatever that was about in my next audio diary. Until then, I suppose.

[SFX: Recording Ends]

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Leanne:

Episode Twenty of Tell No Tales, Eye of the Storm, was written and performed by Leanne Egan. You also heard the voice of Samuel Johnston as Josh Fraser, and Shannon Kelly as Julia Wilde. If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support the show is to spread the word. Leaving us a rating and review in your listening app of choice is a huge help, or you can follow us on Twitter or Tumblr @tellnotalespodLinks and information about transcripts can be found in the show notes.Tell No Tales is distributed by Wasting Company Time Productions, under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial share-alike 4.0 international license. Thank you for listening, and remember: the dead don’t bite.

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