0:07

Hello, and welcome to A

0:09

Nightmare Short Shot. This

0:12

is Stefan Rudnicki, producer of

0:14

the Nightmare Podcasts. I'm

0:16

delighted to welcome Annette Oliveira as

0:18

one of this month's featured narrators.

0:21

In contrast to so many of our

0:24

narrators this banner year, Annette

0:26

is new to these podcasts. But

0:29

her talents are not new to me, as

0:32

her appearance here is a kind of reunion.

0:35

More years ago than I dare mention, we

0:37

co-starred in a Columbia University

0:40

student production of Jean Giroudou's

0:42

Elektra. She has Elektra. And

0:45

I is Creon. Now listen

0:48

to Annette Oliveira's reading of There

0:51

Are Three Children Jumping Over a

0:53

Can Outside a Bodega by

0:56

Marc Galarita. Write

0:58

after this message. Calling

1:05

all lovers of mystery, prepare to

1:07

don your detective hat in June's

1:09

Journey, a free, hidden-object mobile game

1:12

that delves into the captivating journey

1:14

of June Parker, a self-proclaimed detective

1:16

who is on a quest to

1:18

unravel the mystery surrounding her sister's

1:20

untimely death. Take a

1:23

trip in time to the glitzy

1:25

twenties to play as June, deciphering

1:27

clues and unveiling secret plots within

1:29

thousands of beautifully illustrated scenes. If

1:32

like me, you get sad when a story comes

1:34

to a close, never fear. With

1:36

June's Journey, the thrill is endless since

1:38

new chapters are added weekly. And

1:41

not only can you enjoy the detective adventure,

1:43

but you can also personalize and decorate your

1:45

very own orchid island where the story takes

1:47

place. How sharp are your

1:49

detective skills? Find out when

1:52

you download June's Journey on your

1:54

Android or iOS device, or play

1:56

online via Facebook games. Your

1:58

detective journey awaits. Hi,

2:06

it's Mae Whitman, and I play Frankie in the

2:08

new Realm Podcast, The Sisters. The

2:11

Sisters is about a museum curator

2:13

of medical oddities who investigates the

2:15

origins of a mutated skeleton with

2:17

two layers of bones. Soon,

2:20

she uncovers an extraordinary mystery

2:22

that connects her present with

2:24

one family's tragic past in

2:26

hauntingly dangerous ways. Listen to

2:28

The Sisters wherever you get

2:30

your podcasts. And

2:40

now Annette Oliveira. There

2:45

are three children jumping over a can

2:47

outside of Bodega by

2:50

Marc Gallerita. In

2:52

early 2022, there was a

2:54

comedian on TikTok, or at least I thought

2:56

they were a comedian who said, and I'm

3:00

paraphrasing here, my

3:02

biggest fear living in the city

3:04

today is not crime or something

3:06

scary happening. It's actually

3:09

some person with a camera and a mic

3:11

running up to me, asking

3:13

me to do something for a

3:15

dollar or questioning my musical taste.

3:19

In the summer, around the time NOPE came out,

3:21

I was standing at the

3:23

Queens Village Long Island Railroad Station

3:25

waiting for the Manhattan train. And

3:29

across the street, I saw three brown kids

3:31

jumping over a closed iron grate

3:33

outside of Bodega. In

3:36

the fall, when the call for submissions came

3:39

about, a story involving

3:41

the first anxiety coupled with

3:43

the second image of the Bodega

3:45

kids all came together. And I

3:47

wrote and rewrote this in about

3:50

two days. M.G.

3:53

Marc Gallerita. When

3:57

a nice man with a smartphone camera...

4:00

or purchase them. It

4:02

is also the phone he uses

4:04

to record his real, real reviews

4:07

of the tacos from the authentic

4:09

food trucks in Brooklyn and the scenes

4:11

of the noble and earnest people

4:13

at the bodegas in Queens,

4:16

places where honest people hang out and

4:19

where he doesn't make friends with anyone.

4:22

But his search for truth

4:24

is not enough. His TikTok

4:26

fan base grows. All

4:29

400,000 followers across the

4:31

globe hungry, no starving

4:34

for the real, real of the

4:36

American city today. And

4:39

so it led him here, camera

4:41

in hand to Queens Village Station

4:43

in front of three brown boys

4:46

at four in the afternoon on

4:48

a Tuesday. He shines the phone's

4:50

light on the boys without

4:52

their consent. And as

4:55

he records, a hundred followers

4:57

tune in and the man smiles at

4:59

the camera with all 32 of his

5:01

perfect teeth that this

5:03

is the authentic, real

5:06

experience of brown

5:08

boy joy. The

5:11

boys stop their game to stare. They

5:14

stare because they're prepared for

5:17

men like him. The

5:19

mothers warned them about this as soon as they

5:21

were old enough to speak in

5:24

between their old traditions, giving

5:26

alms to the old gods,

5:30

those old insatiable monsters who must

5:32

be fed less they return to

5:34

the mortal world. The

5:36

mothers told the boys stories about these

5:39

men and their comfortable lives. They

5:42

were men born outside the

5:44

busy metropolis, born

5:47

from nowhere and

5:49

everywhere. Nice quiet towns

5:51

throughout the country with the

5:53

nice supermarkets and the nice

5:55

schools and the nice and

5:57

open clean air with nice

5:59

manicured, lawns, men

6:01

who had no truth in their

6:03

lives only facades and facsimiles. So

6:07

they made a life of searching for truth in

6:09

the outside world. Their

6:11

logic, why be safe with

6:13

the platter in front of you when there's a whole

6:15

world out there for the taking? Beware

6:19

these men, the

6:21

mothers said, they come for

6:23

our lives and they

6:25

will not stop until they have your

6:27

soul. The

6:30

mothers have a tiring job, but

6:32

it's a living. Keeping

6:35

the old ways in the

6:37

strange foreign land is its

6:39

own form of rebellion. So

6:42

they let the boys play, for they

6:44

know what to do when strange men lurk around.

6:47

The man with the camera does not know this.

6:50

He has abandoned his culture to

6:52

try on another, like

6:55

one tries on a new coat or a fresh set

6:57

of pants. He is

6:59

wanton in his quest for the

7:01

real, real. Something his

7:03

people in the nice quiet town did not

7:05

share with him. Now

7:08

that he is in the city, he

7:10

believes he can finally search for the

7:12

one precious thing in his life that would

7:14

bring him meaning. Authenticity.

7:18

He wants to devour the word, feel a

7:21

dance around his tongue, savoring

7:23

the experience so he can feel

7:25

something. Rage, pity,

7:27

empathy, anything. His

7:30

followers demand it. The

7:33

man approaches one of them. The

7:36

one he perceives is the friendliest

7:38

of the eight-year-olds, the

7:40

shortest, stoutest, and big-headed of the

7:43

three. He extends

7:45

one palm out in a

7:47

high-five gesture, a high-five which

7:49

signals to the young urbanite

7:52

that he is an ally.

7:56

Holiness is his snare, a Web

7:58

to wrap the boys around him. The Camera

8:00

for the hundred or so viewers

8:02

and growing fast. Viewers.

8:05

Like children. Cookie children. more

8:07

so and quirky. Brown boys

8:10

who speak humbly and

8:12

politely or viral traps.

8:15

Something. For people to share with

8:17

friends and coworkers and old relatives

8:19

and se. Lo que

8:22

little joyful they are

8:24

from a safe and

8:26

happy distance. Been.

8:28

At all that I was more

8:30

of them were like this. Is

8:34

you know it? A few decades

8:36

ago, they took a Filipino indigenous

8:38

tribe who immigrated to the United

8:40

States, put them in line flaws

8:42

and ship them to Coney Island

8:44

to perform mosque retools for the

8:47

amusement of others. Now.

8:49

You know, If

8:52

you go back far enough, you'll uncovers secrets.

8:54

It's a powerful don't like

8:56

to talk about a treasure

8:59

chest of screaming mouse full

9:01

of hers. All.

9:03

The time. What's.

9:06

To stop him from doing that again.

9:08

The mothers s the boys. Have

9:11

you seen how popular reality

9:13

television is? What's. To

9:15

stop. Them from making another

9:18

human exhibition with high definition

9:20

cameras. Instead

9:22

of a high. The

9:24

friendliest of the three boys raises his

9:27

hand to break the man's com and

9:29

three different places, never touching him once.

9:32

In. Exchange for the arms. The

9:35

old monsters taught the mothers in

9:37

ways that one could descend themselves

9:39

with one's mind, one's body, Practice.

9:43

Long enough and one can. Possess such strength

9:45

of the mind, can bend anything to

9:47

it's will. Zest. Real.

9:50

Real. man's

9:53

hand shatters in three different places

9:55

fingers twisted and limp swaying like

9:57

stocks of week on a wind

10:01

The pain is enough for the man to

10:04

urinate all over his designer pants. 300

10:07

US dollars and drop his

10:09

smartphone. 1,400 US dollars. One

10:13

of the other boys catches it mid-air letting

10:15

it dangle as long as his mind will

10:18

let him. The lens

10:20

faces the man watching his hip

10:22

bones break in two as his

10:24

online following increases to 500,000 with

10:27

600 of them watching him live. A

10:31

quarter of whom keep asking, Is

10:35

this real? A

10:37

handful begging to see even more. The

10:41

attention is enough to make

10:43

the man smile. So

10:46

many followers and endorsements happening

10:48

all at once and he would

10:50

smile and laugh, but he can't.

10:53

For he is screeching in

10:55

unbelievable pain. When

10:58

his tongue falls out of his mouth,

11:01

moaning replaces the screams. The

11:03

tongue hits the concrete like a wet piece

11:05

of raw thin steak. The

11:08

last of the boys, who chose

11:10

not to use his energies, walks

11:13

up to the phone and stares at

11:15

the live stream, blocking the

11:17

viewers from their amusement. A

11:20

few people comment how they feel dizzy all

11:23

of a sudden. Hundreds log

11:25

off. One person writes how

11:27

they've defecated all over their computer chair.

11:30

And soon, the chatroom is

11:33

nearly empty. Even

11:36

in torment, the man tries to

11:38

yell, No, no, no. Not

11:43

because of the pain, never the pain. It

11:46

is the camera, the views, the

11:48

people he desires. They

11:51

came to stare at his fragmented body

11:53

tearing by the bone. They

11:56

are his congregants come to

11:58

listen to his master. of

12:00

pain. It is

12:02

real and it is painful.

12:06

A tear falls from the man's eye

12:08

socket, eyeballs having since fallen

12:10

out moments ago, and even as his

12:13

ankles melt into the floor, forming a

12:15

gooey red puddle, and his

12:17

bowels and his blood pour out

12:19

of him, he wants to stop

12:21

the boy blocking the camera. Why

12:24

would you hide the real real

12:27

for others to see? And

12:30

as the man and the puddle of

12:32

blood become one, he remembers

12:35

his childhood in the nice town,

12:38

the stable two-parent household, the

12:41

friendly dog, the nice house,

12:43

the nice homecoming, the

12:45

nice partner at seventeen,

12:47

the nice first kiss.

12:49

That was a real life too, wasn't

12:52

it? Predictable, but

12:54

real. A real life that

12:56

he could have written about,

12:59

documented, cherished. Why

13:02

didn't he think of that? Before

13:04

he can think of any more nice things,

13:06

his skin peels from his skull and soon

13:09

that turns to mush too. The

13:11

boy holding the phone lets it drop,

13:14

camera first, showing only a black screen

13:16

for the handful that stayed but

13:18

cannot comment, for they

13:20

have become puddles of human

13:23

waste. When their

13:25

families find them, they do not see

13:27

them. They see red

13:29

puddles and detritus of what

13:31

once belonged to a person, a

13:35

gold chain, a pair of glasses,

13:37

loose change. The camera phone at

13:39

low battery dies too. The

13:43

boys turn their backs to the blob and

13:45

go back to their game, jumping

13:47

over the can one at a time, seeing

13:50

who can jump the farthest. In

13:53

an hour it will be sunset and the

13:55

shortest boy will win. They will

13:58

rush home for dinner time. an

14:01

old meal conjured by the mothers,

14:04

a recipe from the monsters. They

14:07

do not miss dinner. That

14:10

would be foolish. You

14:19

have just heard there are three

14:21

children jumping over a can outside

14:24

a bodega by Mark Gallerita narrated

14:26

by Annette Oliveira. It

14:35

just feels like the setup for a joke, you

14:37

know. Three superheroes walk into an elevator. How

14:41

do you understand, Manny? We're

14:44

in an elevator. An

14:46

ancient, Mayan

14:49

elevator. You

14:53

think, since it's a hotel, she'd

14:55

have been killed in her room,

14:57

right? Classic setup. That's what you'd

14:59

expect, but no. She

15:01

was killed in the elevator.

15:06

There is a dead man in this

15:08

elevator. Oh my God, what are we... Someone

15:12

dies in this elevator is a

15:14

spoiler driven anthology series where there

15:16

is always an elevator and someone

15:19

always dies in it, but everything

15:21

else is different. Find

15:24

out more at

15:27

fbitepod.com. And

15:54

our music was composed and performed

15:56

by Jack Ditk. Thank

16:00

you for listening.