Rivers of the Mind

Rivers of the Mind is a psychedelic audio drama written and produced by Timmy Vilgiati, who also voices John. John can read minds, a gift that arrived on a trip he never came down from. The story has roots in the Texas Hill Country, but in Season 3 it travels by boat to a river city called Intia, a place of catwalks, hillside warehouses and factories raised on stilts. John narrates in the first person, and the writing leans lyrical. In one passage he recalls how the idea of drifting with a river once quieted his anxious mind, then admits the same image now fills him with fear. The register can drop just as quickly into stoner small talk, with the travelers admiring the view and wondering whether the locals have discovered grass yet. Sapphire, a ghost voiced by Sophie Doss, supplies some of its strangest images. In one episode the narrator combs through a crowd's still-merged memories and finds her diving into the river, rising as a bird, then crashing down and vanishing. Gods get their share of scrutiny. 'Lonely Gods' includes a narrator remembering how lonely it felt to be a hippie 'back when I was alive', a character casually claiming to be a god, and another asking whether a river spirit named Inti truly cares if people bring him flowers. 'Constellations' finds comedy in travel tales, setting an explorer's accounts of castles full of queer dwarves against a plain rundown of Seattle, Space Needle and rain included. The show can also go very dark. In '1000 Years of Sleep', a character confesses to being pushed into killing, first people and eventually entire cities and planets, and to the terror that the killer is still in there somewhere. Other episodes break their own frame. 'Becoming Smoke / / Avoid Crowded Areas' carries a mock warning that the show may summon a pre-Cambrian deity, so listeners should keep a broom handy. A scene falls apart when someone has to be told to read the script, a riff on the word 'millennial' repeats until it glitches, and the sign-off loops a parody ad for a shed company. Another episode closes on an ad for a rideshare service made of cheering admirers, which insists it counts as essential during the pandemic. The creator also steps outside the fiction, apologizing for leaving John suspended in space for too long and steering support toward a Colorado Springs bail fund and a mutual aid union. Credits name Nicholas Klein as Delamaxo and Michael Merriam as Dejerba, with sound effects from freesound.org and music by Timmy. Season 3 leans on threads laid down earlier, so the first season is the better way in.