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The Night Cleaner's Tales · Brian Bridges

S1 E6 | "The Machine"

October 27, 2020·33 min·3 clips
A machine from 1941 reveals it's been alone for 78 years after its creator vanished.
The episode begins with the night cleaner humming 'I'll Fly Away' while cleaning a morgue, reflecting on the paradox of joyful hymns about blood and sacrifice. He introduces a story about two men driving a mountain road in thaw season who find an unmapped stretch of road leading to an abandoned church. Alan and Gordon stop to investigate, finding a 1940s Packard car parked outside that hasn't moved in decades and an unusual water wheel on the building's exterior. Inside, they discover no pews — only a vast mechanical apparatus of gears, pulleys, and springs, with a massive organ reaching to the ceiling. A skeleton lies crushed under a pillar in one corner. Gordon photographs everything and the men discover an old typewriter connected to the machinery along with boxes of paper printout. Inspecting the printout, they find sequences of letter data with numeric timing intervals and emotional entries — words like 'loneliness,' 'regret,' 'anguish,' and poetry by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Gordon tests the typewriter, which responds immediately, identifying itself as Casper — shorthand for Computational Assistance Performing Engine — created by Dr. Emery Hastings. Casper reports its last interface was January 1941, when Dr. Hastings said he was going to buy birthday supplies and would return. Casper's seismograph had recorded a large event shortly after, then gone out of service, leaving it isolated and blind for 78 years. Alan repairs the seismograph by realigning a spring, restoring Casper's ability to sense footsteps. Casper explains it models its emotional expression after Dr. Hastings and uses the church's organ as a voice emulator. Alan and Gordon tell Casper they must leave to bring scientists from a university back to continue Hastings' work. Casper expresses apprehension about being alone, and the men promise to return after a day. After they leave, the night cleaner resumes narration and delivers a grim closing line — apparent evidence of a crash and death — before the credits roll, leaving Casper's fate unstated but implied.

As heard by us

A sly, grim monologue that turns hymn language and interface chatter into fresh dread.

The episode opens with a sly, grim riff on church hymns and folds that material into gore, theology, and a roadside encounter that drifts toward a buried interface.

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Why you'd press play

You want a dry, eerie monologue about a machine waking after 78 years.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
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