Part 1 of 1
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Tonight, in lieu of our usual fiction, we present an urban legend of questionable veracity, as pulled from the pages of the Flash Pulp wiki.
The Skinner Co. Network
SE1 - Midnight Tales with Cassandra, Part 1 of 1
[music] Welcome to Flashpulp special episode one. Tonight we present Midnight Tales with Cassandra. [music] This week's episodes are brought to you by Garaga's Children. [music] From prehistoric time to the present, one bloodline has endured. Garaga's children range from the Indus Valley to Mesopotamia to Jerusalem and beyond, influencing ancient civilizations, mighty crusades, and everyday lives. The stories of the god Garaga is half human progeny and their supplicants have been passed down through the generations. Leaving a frightful, lustful, body strewn trail through the ages, Garaga's children and worshipers have survived to spread their religion around the world. These are their histories. [music] Now available from shadowpublications.com and iTunes. [music] We don't believe in happy endings. [music] Flashpulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age. Three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. Tonight, in lieu of our usual fiction, we present an urban legend of questionable veracity, as pulled from the pages of the Flashpulp wiki. To find out more, visit wiki.flashpulp.com. Legend of Midnight Tales with Cassandra, written by J.R.D. Skinner, art and narration by Opoponax, and audio produced by Jessica May. The Legend of Midnight Tales with Cassandra still abounds on the American East Coast. It's said that, in the summer of 1973, a radio drama began appearing on an otherwise unoccupied AM band. While most believe the show to be a pirate broadcast, all seem to agree on the surprisingly high level of production values that went into the 14 known episodes. Although the audio is reported to have been extremely crisp, most also cite their belief, at the time, that the shows were presented as artistic endeavors, involving very little standard plotting and heavily relying on incidental, naturalistic dialogue to explain the events as they unfolded. Hosted by Cassandra, a sensuously voiced woman, each episode opened with a theme played on pipe organ, followed by a brief introduction by the hostess herself. While no transcripts remain of her preface, the apparent tagline "listen now or be doomed to repeat it" is usually ascribed by those who claim to have tuned in. Not much attention was paid to the transmissions, as interest in radio as a method of telling stories had long been superseded by rock and talk programming blocks. This lack of relevance is also often cited as the reason why none of Cassandra's tales were recorded. The only physical evidence that the broadcast happened rests on the then-14-year-old Benjamin Earl, who states that he happened across the show at the midway point of its first broadcast, and was careful to record each successive title, provided by the hostess in his diary. The murder of Selma Tyrone, Saigon Follies, the three-mile problem, Flight 191, St. Helens Warning, the fall of the Hyatt Regency, the lost return of the Challenger, the preacher's swagger, the rise of the Mississippi, Terror comes to Oklahoma, the library massacre, the waning towers, the heat of Okuma, Finale. It was only after the three-mile problem was realized to be an eerily faithful enumeration of the events that took place in 1979 at a nuclear plant in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, six years after the broadcasts, that listeners began to attempt to piece together the chronology presented by Cassandra. While most of the episodes have now been linked retroactively, skeptics argue, with real-life events, the 14th presentation, Finale, has yet to be solved out to an actual happening. The episode, remembered as 15 minutes of a large group weeping and screaming, followed by a bassie rumble, then 10 minutes of a child's sobbs, leaves few clues for those active in the forums and blogs that have sprung up around the mystery. FlashPulp is presented by FlashPulp.com and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 2.5 license. Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm or the voicemail line at 206-338-2792, but be aware that they may appear in a future flashcast. We'd also like to thank the Free Sound Project, found at freesound.org. For a full listing of effects used during the show, as well as credits for the users who provided them, please check this episode's notes at flashpulp.com. And thanks to you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please tell your friends. [Music]