Transcript
Sylvie Harris (0:00)
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Corinne Abbas (0:05)
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Narrator/Producer (Aaron Manke) (0:08)
Havoc Town is a production of iHeart podcasts and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Headphones recommended. Listener discretion advised.
Father Ivan (0:42)
11.10.1656 Kringa hysteria this is Father Ivan, my elder Father. Josip refuses to write another entreaty. He has seen the churches in action. And so it is left to me to appeal to the Holy Council and to beg once more for our lives. The village is ravaged with the blood fever. Entire families have been consumed, and per the Cardinal's instructions, the bodies have been burned. As soon as they succumb, it has come in waves. There are nights when you can see the bonfires far up into the hills, smell the flesh burning, the stars in the sky blotted out by the smoke. But it is the quiet nights that bring me true dread. We had one such night earlier this week. No one reported dead, no bonfires lighting up the night. I stood on the steps of the church and looked out over the town. And it was not hard to imagine that I was the last living man in hysteria. We are a small ship in a great storm, and I fear the next wave will extinguish us. If you do not hear from me again, assume that I too am smoke in the night sky.
Corinne Abbas (2:59)
Come on now. I have nightmares. All my life I've had them. So it really never had anything to do with this particular day. That is to say, if I look back on this particular day and you ask, hey, Corin, would anything have tipped you off about how badly this day was going to go off the rails? Say a premonition in the form of a dream? I'd say to you, no, dummy, that's stupid. Dreams are our way of sifting through through our impressions of the day and making sense of them, fitting them in a neat little narrative. They don't tell you ahead of time that the world is getting ready to burn down. My name is Corinne Abbas. I own a bar, it's a family bar that my dad owned and his dad before him. I'm not sure that's important to the story, but I spend most of my time there, so. Hey, how was the treatment? Not fully covered, but the hospital is in network. So you're telling me that the specialist was not in network, huh? Well, what the hell does that mean for us? Yes, I'll hold. Morning, Pop. Insurance? Yeah, on hold. I'll call him later. No, no, I. Hello? Uh huh. Oh, okay, so can you just transfer me? Let me get a pen. Dad, sit. Okay Give me the number. Mm. All right. Thank you. Damn it. You know, I'm a big boy who can handle the insurance people myself. No, you always get pissed off and lose it on them. You look exhausted. Rough night? I haven't slept through a night in months. Coffee?