Desert Skies · Jared Carter

Chapter 20 - If I Have to Wait a Million Years

November 11, 2024·37 min·2 clips
Nani finds her ripped journal, learning she wandered the astral plane for eternity searching for a lost loved one.
The door sounds wrong. The opening points to Fathom, an ocean base, and something behind a door that seems very interested in getting out. Then the episode swerves into Club 86 and its hot dog shoutouts, because this show is perfectly willing to put danger and birthday condiments in the same room. Dorothy and Abraham return. Being remembered should help. Instead, the talk slides straight into clothing, pools, and whether a bad memory has to stay once it has already shaped you. The pool sounds almost gentle. Let the bad stuff go. Stop holding it like a duty. Abraham, sensibly, wants to know about side effects, because a pool that edits memory deserves at least one suspicious look. The answer stays way too cheerful. No sore muscles, dry skin, or hallucinations, and then Mr. Pickle gets pulled into the reassurance like that clears anything up. It does not. Then comes the clique: Thaddeus, Rutledge, Virginius, Orby, Sparklehead, Hot Dog Man, Jimmy Stewart, The Shadow, and Basketball Butt. The episode treats the names as ordinary social housekeeping, which makes the discomfort sharper. What are bad memories doing for a person? Are they wisdom, punishment, or just habit dressed up as seriousness? Barry from second grade, the missed Abbott and Costello movie, and a pickle thinking about vinegar keep the whole thing from turning into a lecture. The tenderness keeps getting interrupted by nonsense, and somehow that is why it works. Dorothy and Abraham end up facing an invitation that sounds friendly, which may be the most suspicious thing about it. The close points to Chapter 21, offers safe travels, and moves into network credits and a tabletop roleplaying promo.

As heard by us

A weird, tender argument about memory, belonging, and what it means to let things go.

The episode builds a strange promise around a pool that seems to offer relief from bad memories and insists there are no side effects. Dorothy and Abraham carry it with deadpan questions, absurd proper nouns, and a lively argument over whether bad memories should be kept at all.

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Why you'd press play

A pool, a clique, and a very odd theory about bad memories.

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