Eleanor receives a letter and talks dreams, fears, and old friends with Jan. CONTENT WARNINGS Mentions of death (/lh, /j) Mentions of claustrophobia Angry & threatening voices Shouting
The intro begins.
CASSIA Welcome back to 404: The Podcast. Episode #2: Space Satellite.
The intro ends.
The recording clicks on. There is the sound of papers rustling as ELEANOR scrambles to get organized.
ELEANOR Hello! Good morning! I’m late clocking into work and I don’t even care right now! I’m in a really obnoxiously good mood today, so I’ll get right into it, for, uh, recording’s sake. Ofelia sent me a letter!
Ofelia is my best friend. Best friend of my whole life. We go back to first grade, I wanna say? I just remember I tripped on the playground and she gave me a Scooby-Doo band-aid, or something like that. Well, long story short, we both finished college back in the spring, and she decided to do some traveling. Off-the-grid hippie stuff, no phone.
So it’s been around 3 or 4 months since she started. I think she was in, um, Poland last time I checked? Something like that. I’m really, really proud of her. And she sends me letters! Every few weeks or so. Just about where she is, what she’s doing, random French men and Polish women she’s been hitting on, whether she’s been kidnapped by a strange Italian vampire yet. Typical Ofelia stuff. The newest one just arrived, so I thought for today’s entry I could just read it out loud. Alright, then.
OFELIA Dearest, darlingest Ellie Eleanor,
Did you know that the funeral industry in Austria is the biggest per capita in Europe? I didn’t either, but this Austrian funeral director I met in Vienna thought it would be really important to let me know that piece of information. So I thought you should know as well.
Anyways, as you can see, I’M IN VIENNA, BABY! When I tell you this city is so cool. Isn’t it weird that people who live here just wake up and see all of this? I mean, obviously not all of the city looks like the super fancy parts, but still. WOW. Weird to see all these historical buildings. Like, I’m seeing what people hundreds of years ago saw. It’s lonely, kind of? But also not.
Anyways, I miss you. I visited this one museum that had a ton of animal skeletons in it, even ones from extinct animals. They had a Tasmanian tiger skeleton. Remember that one project we did about them in third grade? Oh, also, did you know that fanged deer exist? Literally. Vampire deer. VAMPIRE DEER, ELLIE. You would’ve loved that place. It was creepy as heck.
You know, when I die, I think you should take my skeleton and stick it in a museum. And people would be like damn, this lady was SO short. You could wake up and polish my bones every morning. Well, that’s assuming I die first. Don’t worry. If you die first, I will take excellent care of your bones. You will have the finest bones in the world. Or, you know, maybe we’ll be little old ladies on our deathbeds together. Or go out in a fiery toaster incident. In that case, we should have a joint skeleton exhibit. It would be metal as heck. Besties till the END OF TIME. NO ESCAPE.
Well. This letter got morbid fast. Also, I’m on a train to Prague right now, and I’m really hungry, so I might end this letter and break out some Chex Mix. I swore off train food after that one breakfast sandwich I told you about. Oh, the horror. Never trust eggs that were cooked on a train. Train eggs are downright NASTY.
Well, I’ll leave you with this Polaroid I took with a swan the other day. Don’t trust how innocent it looks there. It tried to bite me right afterwards.
Anyways, much love from me to you. I’m really looking forward to seeing you in a couple months. Hey, maybe in a year or two we could go traveling together. Maybe through Asia this time. Hang in there, Ellie. Love you tons. Don’t forget about our new skeleton pact. Also, sorry if you find any Chex Mix crumbs on here. I couldn’t wait.
xoxo, Ofelia
ELEANOR (sounding a little tearful, but at ease) Ha. I love her letters. They always cheer me up. And, like, look. Obviously I’m not one for going outside. I’m 21, in the prime of my life or whatever, and I work from home five days a week. But if Ofelia was there? Sure, I’d let her drag me across a continent. There’s something about an old friend, you know.
Oh, and you know what? This reminds me. I keep having these crazy dreams. Like-
JAN Dreams?
ELEANOR Oh, hi Jan. You’re up early.
JAN Unfortunately. Well? What kind of dreams? Dreams are so interesting. Did you know Daisy can’t dream? I can. She’s just odd like that. Absolutely nothing going on up there. But I dream. I dream a lot.
ELEANOR You know what, I… I don’t even want to know what you dream about.
JAN (huffily) That’s rude. Well, I’m curious now. What kind of dreams?
ELEANOR Well, I was just talking about the letter Ofelia sent me and it reminded me of all these weird dreams I’ve been having. She keeps showing up in them. Like, just in the background, kind of hanging out, but still. Weird. Maybe I just miss her.
JAN Hmmm. Well, plenty of cultures think dreams carry meaning beyond whatever’s going through people’s little heads. Like the Greeks. They thought prophetic dreams came in three varieties. Those that are visions, those that required interpretation, and those that were visitations from the divine. Did you know that?
ELEANOR (a little taken aback) Uh… yeah. Yeah, I did. I took this one class in… doesn’t matter. Anyways. I don’t really think these dreams are anything special. They’re just weird, run-of-the-mill stuff my brain makes up.
JAN Like what?
ELEANOR Like, a couple days ago I dreamt I was on this subway, which was pretty normal, but there were plants everywhere for whatever reason. And a ton of weird passengers, like this guy with a crow for a head and a bear covered in plants and one lady who I’m pretty sure was Jennifer Lawrence. And Ofelia was there too, I think she was sitting behind me or something. Anyways, the tunnel we were going through kept getting narrower and narrower, and because of, like, dream physics, the train kept getting smaller and smaller too. But it didn’t affect anybody. We just sat there, all cooped up, totally fine.
JAN Fascinating. Are you claustrophobic, Eleanor?
ELEANOR Huh?
JAN A train that gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Are you claustrophobic, Eleanor? Does that scare you?
You know the drill, ominous digital interference kicks in, slowly rising in intensity as JAN’s voice grows more and more distorted. Music rises suspensefully in the background.
JAN And what can you do about it? What can you do but sit in the train car? How long have you been this afraid? Are you getting too big for your shrinking space?
ELEANOR Stop it. You’re being weird.
JAN You didn’t answer before. Vision, visitation, or interpretation? Which one is it going to be?
ELEANOR Stop it.
JAN (more angrily) Which one is it going to be?
ELEANOR (shouting) Stop it!
The recording cuts off abruptly.
The recording ends. The outro begins.
KATHY Thank you for listening to 404. Featured in this episode were Cassia Jones as Eleanor Lancaster, Naomi Lila as Ofelia, and Sage Thomas as Jan. See you next week.