WAITING FOR OCTOBER S1 – E3.5 – “Auncle Lantern”
by D.J. Sylvis
ANNOUNCER: There is a world – one of many that touches ours – known as October. One of the archetypes; one of the realities that is a source for our stories. It is not difficult to reach, if you know the way – you can experience their wildness for yourself, adventure there, and live, and love. But be wary – perhaps more than any other existence, here there be monsters …
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SCENE ONE
SOUND: Field background, night (ongoing)
SOUND: A wooden gate swinging open, and closed again
HODAG
Okay, that’s fixed now. Should keep out the worst of the offenders. If we get hollyphants again, you might have to set up a net.
SOUND: Wood clacking and sliding (AL using sign language to reply)
HODAG
If it comes to that. You don’t need anything else right now?
SOUND: A bit more wood clacking and sliding
HODAG
Right, new crop tonight. I’ll leave you to it. Until next time!
SOUND: Footsteps walking away; a jeep door opening and closing, driving away
SOUND: Overlapping with that a bit, the gate swinging open and closed again, a bit of cloth moving (no footsteps, they kinda float), a bit of the vines rustling
SOUND: The other movement stops, and the vine rustling intensifies; until there is a decisive clacking sound and the vines stop as well
SOUND: The clacking / sliding noises continue beneath the first few lines of the monologue, quieter and eventually fading out completely until noted again
AUNCLE LANTERN
Good evening, children. Gather where you can see me speak. Welcome.
SOUND: Just a slight bit more rustling
AUNCLE LANTERN
Welcome. You are not new here, of course, although you are new to the sky and the Moon. You have been growing for some time; absorbing the earth and water. I know you have sensed me, above and below; and now that you have arrived, it is time that we talk. I am your Lantern, your guardian, your guide, and I have so much to tell you. It is time you begin.
SOUND: A quiet step or two
AUNCLE LANTERN
You know the roots of this world; where we were born from, the ways we are connected. This knowledge was written into you. But let me tell you of the ways we have advanced from that beginning; how our branches spread and have borne fruit.
SOUND: Bring back in just a bit of the clacking and sliding in the background, then fade again as xe goes
AUNCLE LANTERN
That world needed us to be their Other, their shadow – a foundation for the fears they thrust from themselves. They needed us as a warning, a boundary not to be crossed. They gave us a different face and called us monsters. They bound us up in stories and thought that would tame us. They buried us beneath the surface – but they forgot how growing works.
(brief pause)
We began as a kernel, a seed they’d discarded, out of sight and out of thought. But, unnatural as they believed us to be, nature preserved us. We rose up as their reflection and filled our land, our sea, our sky; claw and tooth and tentacle, wing and scale, thorn and weed and vine. We expanded; we adapted; we thrived. The Wilds, who held beasts in their hearts; the Gill Folks in the depths beneath the waves; the Kaiju, Changelings, Constructs all finding their place; the Moonkin scattered through all; the Calyx flourishing in the green.
SOUND: The rustling of the vines builds up a bit again
AUNCLE LANTERN
And everywhere we prospered, every way we changed, we affected them. Because we are always connected, tangled together at the roots, even while separate we roamed their stories, we surfaced in their dreams. We pushed through the cracks and overwhelmed them.
(brief pause)
It was that pressure, children – that inevitability, that entanglement that opened pathways between the worlds. Where they touched most closely, where the stories were the strongest, we made it possible to cross. Even though the humans used the crossing first, stumbling through like the accidental explorers they have always been, we made best use of the interconnection – joining their world in subtle, hidden ways, their fears made flesh. We haunted the shadows beyond their hunters’ fires; we rattled their windows on storm-tossed nights; we were caught in blurred photographs; and that renewed the need they have for us.
(brief pause)
And we continued to change, to transform, to grow. Now that the serpent could enter our garden, we required protection. We made an expedition to the center of our world, talked to the Endling who is the last of their kind. We convinced them to elevate a few of us to Fundamentals – monsters who could act as guardians, preserve what we were made for against the very ones who’d made us. The Fundamentals guard our wildness; our darkness; our depths; we guard the life beneath the land, in the lakes, and out in the great beyond. We guide this world’s renewal and are the keepers of the past.
(brief pause)
I exist here with you, guardian of the green, of the growing; of our growth. They never meant for us to grow; we were intended to diminish, to be pushed back, processed, controlled. Industrialized, they believed they had stolen the sun, but we thrived beneath the moon. They thought they had caged us between closed covers, but we continued to write ourselves. There is nothing more dangerous and more necessary than our growth.
SOUND: A moment of xir moving, slowly, with just a bit of the vines rustling
SOUND: We hear a bit more of AL signing (clacks and wood sliding) that will fade as the monologue returns
AUNCLE LANTERN
I am not here to give you purpose. You will determine purposes for yourselves. You will define your lives and your direction; you will live the stories you choose.
(short pause, speaking in cadence)
But grow. Choose your course; choose your branches and the fruit you will bear; choose to lift up or dig deep or cross over. Become their others – queer and strange, dark and different – or become something unexpectedly new. Grow, and keep growing, keep expanding, keep revising the story. Become more, reach further, join together.
SOUND: A sudden, decisive smack, two wooden hands clapping together
AUNCLE LANTERN
That is enough to begin from. Settle in and let that be absorbed. I will walk the world and then return again; there are other fields, other crops to be welcomed. But I am always with you.
SOUND: Xe rustles in a pouch; we hear a quiet chorus of pure, single musical notes
AUNCLE LANTERN
These are the Little Ones; I will leave them to keep you company, and to carry your messages if needed. Be good. Be yourselves. Grow.
SOUND: There is a rustling again of vines, and the quiet chorus of the Little Ones
SOUND: We hear xir footsteps in the soft ground, and the opening and closing of the gate. Everything fades behind xir as xe keeps on walking
SOUND: The field background fades with the footsteps
(The scene ends.)
(The episode ends.)
PRODUCERS: Thank you so much for listening to our show.
Waiting for October is written by D.J. Sylvis. Our sound design was done by Caroline Mincks, and our music is by Trace Callahan.
This episode featured Vyn Vox as Auncle Lantern and Cass McPhee as Hodag.
Our co-producers are D.J. Sylvis, Tina Case, and Sarah Müller. Our associate producers are Fool & Scholar Productions, Kathleen Lucas, Marcus Briggs, Martin Chodorek, Rebekah B.
A special thanks to our Patreon supporters who have helped make all of our stories happen! If you’d like to support our work or celebrate the folks who make it happen visit our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/monkeymanproductions.
Today I’d like to recommend Tranthologies, a trans anthology podcast with stories that range from silly to serious, that jump from genre to genre depending on the episode, but every one is touching and incredibly trans. You really ought to give them a listen.
Next episode on our show, we explore the big city in our monster world – with the help of an Entling, a Bugbear, a few ghostly voices, and a completely ordinary cat. Until then … be good. Be yourselves. Grow.
Note – there may be advertisements inserted at this point in the episode.
