Wireland Ranch · Gas Station Drugs

TRIGGER WARNING - NOT AN EASY LISTEN

September 12, 2024·38 min·2 clips

A child named Judas suffered perinatal asphyxiation and entered a permanent vegetative state, leaving the narrator to love something that would never love them back.

1. Wireland Ranch presents 'Still Life Part 1,' a spoken-word literary episode narrated by an unnamed first person in the middle of a societal and personal collapse. 2. The host introduces the piece as 'leftist agitprop and black magic ritual dioramas in audio form,' framing it as a freestyle produced while music production — credited to 'Knobbs and screaming production' — continues in the background. 3. The episode's core thesis is the experience of total disconnection: from a collapsed external world, from a child lost to perinatal injury, and from a partner who has retreated behind mirrors and makeup. 4. The narrator describes lying on the floor of their home at 228 Lazarus Lane, pinned by a lion whose 'curled black claws extended' pierce their shirt just enough to signal dominance — the animal functions as both literal and metaphorical threat. 5. The external world has gone 'still': electrical grids have collapsed, all televisions turned off simultaneously, alarm clocks have gone silent, and the streets outside are described as 'hellish, worse than the worst descriptions in the Bible.' 6. The narrator catalogs their psychological state in Freudian terms — ego, superego, id — concluding that they have 'no choices' and that succumbing to the lion constitutes a release from the obligation to cope. 7. The concept of 'stillness' is introduced as a terminus: 'a disconnection so final, so thorough it cannot be compared to anything else in life,' described as something that 'molested' the soul and 'corrupted my definition.' 8. 'The other man' — described as possibly the narrator's twin, possibly a cursed double — is the only figure not robbed of motion in this still world, and the narrator credits him with preventing their own voluntary stillness. 9. A child referred to throughout as 'Judas' is revealed to have suffered perinatal asphyxiation at birth, resulting in 'severe brain damage causing a condition known as a persistent vegetative state,' which graduated from persistent to permanent after four weeks. 10. The narrator describes the aftermath as 'hospital vigils, long past vigilance,' a life 'of praying for relief from loving something that was never going to love us back,' and concludes that 'God is a prick' for the arbitrary nature of the child's fate. 11. The narrator's partner, Magdalene, is depicted spending hours at a vanity mirror performing elaborate makeup rituals — 'thick lines of black and red around small eyes,' 'lip sheets swelled with horse urine' — before crying, washing, and repeating the cycle. 12. Magdalene is described as having 'ignored character and personality in her evolution,' treating physical beauty as her only social currency, and after Judas's injury she 'abandoned her ghost, left his side and never returned' — back to the mirror, back to Valium. 13. The narrator reflects that after Judas, 'the hope I had harbored for her dissipated to smoke,' and recalls her whispering 'my dreams are the only thing keeping me alive.' 14. Magdalene's recurring dream is described as possessing 'lightning rod fingers' and 'laser eyes' that electrocute men in the street, their bodies 'melting with the melted asphalt,' after which she vacuums the ashes in a pink gown humming pop tunes. 15. The narrator returns to the present crisis, expressing a desire not to die but to survive long enough to 'kill this lion, spray the walls with its goddamn blood, and chase the reptilian bastard fuck who set it free.' 16. A night-before-the-stillness dream is introduced: the narrator and Magdalene are marionettes pulled through a forest of thorns toward an abandoned cabin, their legs torn bloody, unable to turn their heads away from their destination. 17. The narrator describes the cabin's rotten walls, the 'beating heart and animal instinct' still present in the space, and 'spirits of the place screaming, their cries piercing my ears like sharpened knives.' 18. The episode's tone is consistently dense, literary, and non-linear — shifting between first-person present crisis, memory, and dream without transition markers, demanding close listening and a tolerance for distressing imagery. 19. This episode is for listeners of experimental audio fiction, spoken-word poetry, or literary horror who are comfortable with grief, bodily horror, and non-narrative structure. 20. Listeners seeking entertainment, clear narrative resolution, or light content will find this episode unsuitable.

As heard by us

A surreal-horror monologue that turns a living room into a tight, ritualized space of dread.

This surreal-horror monologue traps the body and the room in the same panic. A narrator on the floor, a hard pulse, a lion at the chest, and a city outside that feels worse than the room itself give it a nasty, intimate pressure.

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Why you'd press play

You are in for a feverish monologue that keeps a living room locked inside the dark.

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