ndanger.organism

The client is thirty-six years old and lives alone since his wife left him three weeks ago. She took the kids and all the kitchenware except for a large knife and a bowl and a coffee cup. The client admits her leaving may have had something to do with the fact that, without warning, he completely gutted the house. Tore out all the walls and ceilings, all the lath and plaster, right down to the studs. He says he did this in order to live like a primitive. When asked if it was successful, he says, “It was a step in the right direction.”

The client is a thirty-six-year-old male who lives alone since his wife and children left him over two months ago. He says there’s a darkness that separates him from other people, a heavy darkness, like looking at a person from the bottom of a well. He believes that if he could say the right words, then the darkness would go away. He says he sometimes knows the right words but can’t say them. Other times he can’t even think of what words to say. He has a very flat affect, speaks only when he is forced to reply, and these words he mumbles almost incoherently. His house has no electricity, he has yet to clean up the lath and plaster debris on the floor, and the window frames have no glass in them. He says, “I feel like I’m living on a meteorite.”

The client is thirty-six years old and lives alone since his wife and children left him three months ago. Last week he went fishing in the San Juan Mountains and now believes that there is no better fisherman than himself. He says, “I can’t tell you about it, because talking about fishing is silly. All I can say is I walk around in the water, and I know the instant the fish will jump for the fly. I cut open their stomachs and squeeze out the bugs in my hand, study what they eat, how it all gets digested, even the exoskeleton and wings.” He says he was sick before, but now he’s okay, and that it was the fly rod, just holding the rod in his hand, that cured him. His house is clean, the electricity is on, the walls have been Sheetrocked and painted white.

He says. “I’ll have to ask her, beg her, and maybe she’ll come back.”

Scott Carrier, Running After Antelope

Scott Carrier produces some of my favorite This American Life segments. There’s an eerie darkness to his stories that reminds me of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s songs about depression and break-ups.

This American Life – #80: Running With Antelope (buy)
This American Life – #181: The Friendly Man (buy)