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Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today.
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Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh, they're so fast.
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And breathe.
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Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste.
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Hey, everybody. It's Will and its story time. Each of us lives a unique life that is constantly changed and shaped by the millions of conscious and unconscious choices we make every day. Each of us is a complex collection of memories and aspirations, joys and sorrows all wrapped up in a sack of meat and bones that is here and gone in a blink of the cosmic eye. Each of us lives on this little fragile planet that happens to be in the exact place it needs to be to support our species. What a gift. We are living on it at this exact moment, which is unique in ways we won't be able to see completely until we look back on this moment as history. Now, for all of the uniqueness in our individual lives, for all the cultural and geographical differences that belong solely to the members of one tribe, one nation, one neighborhood, there are two things every single one of us will experience, no matter what. Grief and loss. It's part of the ticket price to life. A universal experience that nobody wants to have but we all share. There are two people right now on opposite sides of the planet experiencing a loss. We can all relate to processing it in very different ways. They will never meet or even know that the other exists. Yet each of them knows precisely what the other is going through. Somehow that helps them get through it. I don't know about you, but I take quite a bit of comfort in that. In just a moment. I am going to take you to the far off future where we will meet a dead man who spent his life traveling the universe chronicling the grieving and funerary practices of extraterrestrial species. It turns out that death, that grief and loss aren't solely human conditions. They are literally universal experiences. This dead man's grandson, no stranger to his own grief and loss, has picked up the dead man's work and he is doing his best to complete it. Maybe, hopefully, if and when he does, his own burden will be lifted. This is Notes from a Pyre. Notes from a Pyre by Amal Singh Originally published in Psychopomp March 2023 Tara 2198 AD Baba lay slumped on his desk, his pen dangling from his parchment hands. His gray hair lay in knotted clumps over the notebook, his tongue sticking slightly outwards, almost licking the page he was writing on. His last scribble was his own name, Parikshit Mehta, with the A trailing off, ending in an ink trail, his last act, a death flourish of his own signature. His eyes stared at the wall clock lifelessly. In them I could see the glint of midnight as the second hand struck 12. Two shiny metal orbs hung over him, watchers of his passing. Since I was the one who had found him, it fell on me to declare to the adults, but my scream was throttled in my own lungs. He was so peaceful, almost like he was sleeping, because he would often fall asleep on his desk while writing about his other planetary escapades, acidic drool falling on his paper. I would often be the one reminding him to wake up and use a fresh page, but he would deny. It's a marker of my dedication, he would say, often wiping his chin. When this is chronicled later in books, they would also speak of the chronicler and his various whimsies. The day I found him, I was supposed to bring him his favorite mitai, a gaver ghee, dripping brown and white, honeycomb sweet. I was still holding the plate with two gavers, eager to share them with him, eager to listen to tales of the planet Ulmaresq, of the Karavan and the Veristi, the Horan and the Schlebs. He had told me he was writing about death and the forms it took in other lands. In fact, he had told this to the entire household. Ma and Papa had squirmed and frowned at the mention of death. They forbade me to visit Baba's room and spend too much time with him, fearing my mind would be plagued by visions. He put in them, fearing I wasn't ready for such morbid talk. Dadi was indifferent, knitting a sweater with the Hindi initial P on it, mumbling about how she had lost a daughter in childbirth and how it doesn't matter when one learns of death, it only matters how they deal with it. And so when I saw my baba lying on his desk, I carefully slid out his notebook from underneath his hands and hid it inside my school bag. Then I ran out of his room screaming. A Brief account of the funerary practices of the Horen notes taken on 346 PCE as the two suns drown out the sky with their alternating brightness, I met the chieftain of the Hoenn tribe on a mid morning so bright it hurt to look at the sky, and my skin prickled with sweat. As a Terran ambassador on a planet which fell under the jurisdiction of Hotek Terra Mauresque alliance, it was my duty to meet the natives on their own terms. The chief's skin was glassy and translucent, and his eyes were beads of darkness. He wore a thin fabric almost like an oversized T shirt that came to his knees, and he spoke in high groans and low rumbles. The language of the Horan was easy to understand but tough to master. Their entire existence revolved around the tenets of altruism, and so their language evolved too. For our words of dawn and giving, they had entire phrases which, when loosely translated, meant the light in our twin heart is all yours to see. The openness of their physical bodies mirrored the openness of their minds, too. When a Horan was happy with you, their translucent skin gleamed at the center, the meeting point of their actual two hearts, one throbbing in glee, the other in gratitude. That mid morning, however, I only saw gray both in the chieftain's eyes and in his glassy skin. We are in mourning today, Parikshit, Metta of Terra said. The chieftain Alaraniba gave his everything to everything, and now he must rest. Translated, it meant that their friend had no more to give to his brethren. I followed the chieftain over a low hill which overlooked a crater. Its sloping walls were rippled with black and red, both colors meeting at the roughly circular center in a symphony of more colors. Alarn Iba's body was being carried by two other horrens here. Unlike the Terrans, the lifeless body didn't carry the weight of death. The soul had already gone, and thus the body itself was feather light. We soon arrived at the edge of the crater as the two horrens carved out the twin hearts from inside the body of Alarn Iba. He has given what wasn't his, and now his light is gone, said the chieftain. Now we close our eyes because the darkness is not ours to see. I did as I was told and murmured a prayer under my breath, silently. When I opened, the twin hearts of Alarn Eba lay severed on the floor of the crater. Twin no more. The crater had swallowed the hearts whole. Did Arlon Iba have a dying wish? I asked the chieftain. Is there a concept of a dying wish in the Hohrin deathlore? Why would he wish for anything when he gave his everything? The chieftain's response made all sense and no sense at all, but I welcomed it. Tara 2198 A.D. for three hours his body lay inside the looking glass dome. The house reeked of a smoky, sweet pungency of incense. Father had bought a bad brand, not fit for funerals, and the priest was giving him an earful about how he could be so irresponsible at his own father's passing. My father could only nod, clutching nervously the bunch of sticks he was supposed to light and keep near the windowsill. I took them from him to ease his misery, and the sticks slid off easily from his hands like water. He didn't look at me, but the priest did. With mournful eyes, I excused myself. Baba's room was within my reach, but its entrance was clogged by two weeping men. I wanted to taste the gevr. A lingering, too sweet taste of the panchamrit was on my tongue, hard to just wash off with water. The freshly prepared holy drink was being passed to the mourners in small plastic cups. In an earlier death in the family, ginger chai was served first, but a family elder had deemed it inappropriate. For them, chai meant leisure and smacked of fun and good times, and no one was supposed to have a good time at a funeral. The same elder, a perennially frowning aunt of my mother, was now beating her chest in deep anguish, a manner of grieving which was suited for the widow. But the widow, my grandmother, sat wearing her white sari, blank eyed, looking at the slightly smiling corpse of her husband. Then suddenly there was too much activity around me. The priest was declaring that the time had come. Hurriedly the dome was lifted by my father and my uncles. More wails were heard all around. The two men shifted their weight, unsure of what to do, then joined my uncles. My path was clear. I went to Baba's room and grabbed the two gavers. One I ate on the spot, the sweet juicy fat of ghee and saffron caramel mixed with the breadiness of the bacon face immediately engulfing me with delight. I wished Baba could have eaten that before he passed. It was homemade and not from a halvi. As the commotion outside subsided and the whales stopped, I could hear a chant from the priest. I pocketed the last gaver and went out to see the adults. Hey, I want to talk directly to all of you who listen to It's Storytime as your bedtime story. Let's talk about luxury bedding. My very first podcast sponsor, Quints, has come back. I'm really excited about that and we are going to talk a little bit more about the bedding that they offer. Luxury bedding is one of those things that we never really understand until we sleep in it. And that was exactly my experience with Quints. The softness, the weight, the quality of the materials was a difference I noticed right away. Organic cotton sheets that feel luxurious, breathable. Bamboo that stays all night and it's so soft. Plus quilts, comforters, duvet inserts, everything you need to make your bed the best part of your day. And they have new seasonal colors and patterns for spring, like stripes, florals. They have a limited edition butter yellow. If you were like, what I really need to do is make my bed look like toast with butter on it. If you do that, please send me a picture. I thought my old sheets were fine until I tried Quint's and then I was like, my old sheets really sucked. Hitting the snooze button has become a lifestyle choice right now. You can get free shipping on and 365 day returns when you go to quints.com storytime so you get like a whole year to decide if you really like it or not. And if you don't, at the end of a year you can send it back, but you won't because you are going to love it. And these are now available in Canada too. Don't wait on it. Go to q u I-n c e.com storytime for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's Quince storytime. The Gen Xer who lives inside me wants to be very like dry and kind of cynical about reading ads. But the person I am now thinks it's so cool that companies I actually like want to sponsor the podcast so that I can keep telling you stories. And I'm real excited that HelloFresh is back again to help you make your meals and have an incredible experience in the kitchen. I love to cook that quiet time alone in the kitchen, pulling all the ingredients together filling my home with the aroma of something wonderful just brings me so much simple joy. I love that HelloFresh sends me exactly what I need. It's all portioned out, it's all ready to go with extremely easy instructions that I just follow. HelloFresh offers more than 35 high protein recipes every week. They would like me to remind you that you can impress your guests or treat yourself with new grass fed Steak Ribeyes. I am a true believer about grass fed beef. It tastes so much better than the alternative and these ribeyes dude. Dude. The Federal Trade Commission would like it very much if I said to you that I use this and you should too because that is in fact a true statement. Go to hellofresh.com storytime10fm to get 10 free meals plus a freeze willing knife a $144.99 value on your third box offer valid while supplies last free meals applied as discount on first box new subscribers varies by plan that is hellofresh.com storytime10fm. A Brief account of the Funerary Practices of the Varistee notes taken on 371 PCE dawn what can I write about the Varistee that hasn't already been chronicled by better men before me? Professor Trevor Chang once said that a species is a product of their surroundings and there's no better testament to the fact than the Varistee. Sharp pincer edged limbs with diamond shaped hollows for speaking and seeing the world, their thin and short form a result of the brutal gravitational pull and ever stormy climate. The Veristee live short but eventful lives and as such their language has evolved to be succinct to the point. The Veristi don't waste time because they don't have much to begin with. 25 Olmaresque years later, which were only three years on Terra, I arrived on the planet yet again for a different cause. While the Horan had agreed to my diplomatic pleasure and given us a fair share of the minerals they excavated from the blasted plains of the ever rich planet, I came to the Varistee only to prove a colleague of mine wrong. She was adamant that the Varistee were a brutal race, but I beg to differ. One only needs to look at how a race buries their dead, figuratively speaking, to learn how empathetic they truly are. The two sons of Almeresk were distant in the sky when I met a Varisti couple conjoined, their chitinous bodies gleaming, their short biometallic form almost kissing the ground. They spoke in clips and short bursts, throaty gasps and a keening sound at the end for punctuation of their sentences. We don't have dead Varisti to show you, but we can tell you what we do. And the Varisti couple told me that when one of them died, five Veristi formed a circle around the departed. With their sharp limbs they pinched and hacked at the body until it was nothing more than a husk upon the dying earth. It was a small mercy that their sentences were short, because I didn't need to know in painful detail that they eventually reconstituted their own dead. Perhaps my colleague was right after all. While the Varisti couple was not in the least interested in giving me the reason behind such a heinous act. My view was changed when I met a lone Varisti traveler who wanted to venture out into the low gravitational fields just to see what it would do to him. I posed him the same question I had asked the couple. Don't you think that what you do to your dead is barbaric? Why not just bury them or burn them? He let out a hoarse sound, steam rushing out of a kettle. It was a laugh. Then he said, no, it's actually poetic. Don't you see? Your ways still give back to the earth. Our entire lives are defined by gravity. It's like the earth keeps pulling us relentlessly downwards. We are shaped by it. Always in her mercy, in reconstituting and consuming our dead, we shall acquired fuck you to the earth. No ashes to ashes, no dust to dust. I was taken aback by how cruelly right he was. Terah 2198 A.D. i went with the adults to the edge of the chat. Murky water drenched the stone steps, washing over so many torn petals of dahlias and marigold flowers. Smoke colored tendrils of torn clothing lay draped on the ground, ashes of so many pyres scattered and formed eddies against the wind. Cleanliness and purity were the tenets around which the entire funeral practice revolved. And yet the site was draped in muck of the dead and the cries of the living. Baba was put atop a beer, the toes of his feet tied in a knot with a daga. The pundit said something about feeding him his last meal, and as a symbolic gesture, a pawn was thrust inside his mouth. This was my chance and I took it. I knelt beside his body and placed the gaver in between the pawn. Akash, what are you doing? Baba wanted gaver, I said confidently. I am giving him gaver. My Father looked around as if asking permission, hopelessly clutching onto a thread, wondering what was the right thing to do. But I had already done the right thing, hadn't I? Wasn't it right to give the dead what they had wanted in their last moments? Even though Baba was diabetic, he could never let go of his sweet tooth. It was just not in his nature to be held down by constraints. So I told my father that Baba had asked me to bring him gevr, how he had always asked me to bring Ladooz from the kitchen, how every day after dinner and before taking his medicines, he would call me to his room and tell me his tales from the time he flew to another planet and met with their people, all the time nibbling on pieces of kaju katli I had smuggled for him. I thought I was telling the truth and sharing my memories of Baba. But in my tale my father only saw one thing that I was a culprit somehow, who had snatched his papa from him earlier than it was deemed by the universe. A brief account of the funerary practices of the Karavan 382 PCE Midnight the caravan weren't natives to the Almeresk, but instead settlers, haunted refugees fleeing a war. Their home planet was devastated in an interspecies conflict that had ballooned into nuclear proportions. But nuclear on their planet meant much worse than nuclear on ours, due to the presence of three extra plutonium isotopes, two of them extremely highly fissile. When I was meeting the Horon a few decades back, the Karavan were looking upon a decayed planet from inside their generation ships. But in the time since, they had made five peaceful colonies on Ulmaresc and entered into a treaty with none other than the Horon, who were already a famously charitable species. When I met the Raza of the Koravan, he was wearing a garland of small hexagonal metal slivers interlinked by a golden chain clinking against his bodysuit. The Raza's secretaries, two women, one man, were also wearing something similar. I bowed low and mimicked a greeting to the Rasa, and he bowed back, treating me as an equal. Then I posed them the question I had asked the chieftain of the Horan and the Varistee couple. They call you the Chronicler of the Dead, said the Raza, with a hint of amusement in his voice. I'm merely a man of words. Endlessly fascinated, I said. The Raza played with the metallic trinkets on his neck. Lamps flickered around the cold room, casting mammoth shadows on the wall. The Karavan shadows looked almost human, but mine looked like a puny rat caught in the midst of hungry felines. But there was no reason for me to be afraid of the Karavan, despite their hefty build and turquoise skin. Our ancestors are always with us, said the Raza. The dead. They never leave us. Not really. Can you elaborate? The Raza tapped the metallic sliver on his neck. A dull emerald glow emanated from the metal and soon consumed its gray entirety. Then a pale hologram shot out from the metal and hovered in front of me, the hunched figure of a caravan woman holding a walking stick. My grandmother. Her memories are eternally with me, informing me, giving sage advice when I am faced with conflict. And so is my father and his father before him, who fought the last war on my home planet. The caravan tapped the other slivers slowly, and more green light filled the room. More ancestors, until the wavy echoes of the past made it impossible for me to see the face of the Rasa. I'm sorry I can't show you the ceremony, he said. We don't exactly have the dead handy right now. They are always with you, I said in a low voice. What happens to their bodies then? We are much like you when it comes to that, he said. We burn them. Tara 2216 AD how much blame can one really ascribe to an 11 year old child who was trying his best? After Baba passed, my father didn't speak to me for days. My mother told me to atone for my sins, wash away my misdeed of indirectly bringing about Baba's death by sitting in front of holy fire and chanting. And I did all those things and more until my parents were convinced that I was indeed pure. He couldn't keep on saying that a fatty and caramelly sweet was what my Baba really wanted when he was mere seconds away from the aneurysm that took his Life. To an 11 year old, those words sounded innocent, because at that time it seemed the only plausible thing. Years later, in hindsight, I realized how juvenile my act of thrusting a gaiver inside his dead lips was. But even more childish was the behavior of my parents. When faced with death, one is capable of great mercy, but also great horror. For the longest time, Papa kept Baba's incomplete works away from me, parroting his old adage of how Baba's negative thoughts and his life work would rot my brain. I couldn't blame him. He had lost a dear cousin to suicide, and in his own way he wanted to keep all manner of media related to Death away from me. But when Daddy passed away, Papa softened. He wept, hugging her body as his tears soaked the red sari she was draped in. When we both returned to our homes after the Kriya Karam, he wept again in my arms like a little child. I couldn't remember a time when I was consoled by him, not ever. But as his face shook against my arms like a child, and as his chest heaved and let out airy sputters and hitches, I'd become the father. After that day, I didn't hear a word raised against my choices. I had the stubborn blood of my Baba running in me too. So when I took up interplanetary diplomacy, Papa stayed quiet, knowing full well the course I would take. Ma fed me ladooze and sweet yogurt the day I was to fly out to Hotek. Terra Moresque Collegium three years later I passed with flying colors. During that time, an exchange program between Ulmaresque and Terra was all the rage, and for the first time in 30 years, scholars were encouraged to visit the vast sister planet, mingle with their species, and learn about their ways. While enrolling myself for the exchange program, my hands trembled and I wished I had the Karavan metal garland around my neck. That way I would live with the eternal wisdom of my Baba the chronicler, and he would tell me the right thing to do always. But of course I was to forge my own path. Do you really know what Baba wanted, son? My father asked me an hour before my departure. I had packed my bags and was tying my shoelaces. I looked at him and shook my head. Any thought of sweets was as far from my mind as the planet I was supposed to visit. My father cut a lonely figure in that moment, looking like a man fallen from pride. Then he gave me Baba's notebook. It was never documented, not properly, he said, his voice a cracked whisper. The Collegium reached out to me a few years ago. I feel. I feel now might be the right time. I feel you should be the one to do it. Whatever needs to be done. I opened the notebook to the page Baba was filling in longhand before his head had dropped. The trail of ink his pen had left was still there, a final marker reminding me again of the moment of his passing. An incomplete account of the funerary practices of the native species of the schlebs. Baba didn't leave any will. He wasn't a man of wills. His will was his words, and his words were his way. A brief account of the funerary practices of the 571 PCE mid morning the sky was a dull shade of saffron with streaks of azure. The twin suns burned bright upon my arrival. The Hohren were rejoicing when I entered their colony with two of my friends. Being the second natives of Ulmaresk, only the Horon knew about the shleb and the path to their colony. As I walked ahead confidently, my friends fell behind me, probably apprehensive about disturbing the cheerful proceedings of the Horen. I allayed their fears and encouraged them to keep walking. I knew the Horn wouldn't mind our arrival in the least, and they didn't. They welcomed us with open arms, gave us our food, and made us partners in their glee, their twin hearts glowing turquoise in the center. The chieftain, who introduced himself as Taran Azala mistook me for my Baba. An inadvertent smile cracked on my face. Then I told him my name. He went quiet, and for a brief moment the cheer ceased. His translucent skin went entirely gray, and the space between his two hearts glowed pink, the color of grief for the Horan. That told me all that was necessary. My baba was much loved here. Before he gave me the instructions to the Violet Orchard, the strongkeep of the schleb, the chieftain presented me with the fruit of their tribe. We had waited for Parikshit to give him what we give to our Oneness. But you are His Oneness, and you must accept it. Eat it on your journey back. It brings good luck. The fruit was snug inside a ceramic box. I kept the box inside a compartment of my bodysuit. Before entering the coordinates of the schleb colony on my wrist panel, I bid goodbye to my colleagues, who, as per collegian rules, were supposed to spend at least a couple of days with the Horren. I had imagined the Violet Orchard to be a metaphor for a colorful metropolis, but I was pleasantly surprised that the colony was indeed an expansive orchard, nothing more, nothing less. The trees were bone white, their branches reaching upwards like an outstretched finger. The grass beneath my feet was the color of ripe aubergine, and the smell in the air was both sweet and slightly putrid. In an earlier documentation of the schlep, my Baba had mentioned that the smell was of sulfur and copper compounds. In the same documentation, Baba had said that the schleb had the ability to spring surprises on you. I heard sounds, flutter of leaves, rush of the sea. I made my way through the orchard and found a group of schlebs, their form eerily similar to the trees. Two shlebs detached from the crowd and went to their respective trees, their forms coalescing, becoming one with it. Even as they did so, three more celebs joined the crowd, detaching from their tree homes. One of them turned and looked at me with their bulbous, oceanic eyes. Chronicler, they said. You come again. Everyone knew Baba, even the natives. The tendrils of his influence stretched further than I had imagined. It pained me to tell them about his death. Yet again. It pained me to tell them that I wasn't who they thought to be. I am his grandson, Akash Metta, from Terra. I am completing his account, and for that I must once again ask the impossible of you. I must once again, like my grandfather before me, know the nature of the schlebin death and your practices. You are looking at it, they said, flailing their rocky white hands. What do you mean? The schleb individual showed me, and I understood now what I had already seen. For them, the orchard and the trees were part of a whole. A schleb was born from the white tree and went back to it, having lived their life. There was no ceremony. There was no occasion to mark both birth and death. There was just one circle of being and not being. When the tree became one, there was just one circle of being and not being. When the tree became one with the body of the schleb, there was a waiting period of two days before another schleb was spawned from the same spot, an entire cycle of rebirth within one microcosm. The orchard was their world, the orchard their pyre, the orchard their graveyard. You seem satisfied, they said as their oceanic eyes went black. Suddenly it marked the end of a conversation, as they deemed it to be. I was satisfied, but I also felt very small against the vastness of the universe, a black dot inside a pale blue dot. I nodded at the schleb and retraced my steps back outside the violet orchard and back to the Horan tribe, where my colleagues were waiting for me. I completed Baba's work and presented it to the collegium while I spent a week with the Horan. During that week I saw birth and death, rejoicing and grief. One day the chieftain took me for a morning like his predecessor had taken Baba. When I closed my eyes at the edge of the crater, I imagined the Horan clawing out the twin hearts of their deceased and burying them deep underground. I imagined the Veresti, who I would meet, the caravan who were fledgling. No, I didn't match it with Baba's documentation. To do so would be to besmirch his work and his trust. Baba had already given his everything to everything and now he must rest. When I bid goodbye to the Horan, I opened the ceramic box and took out the fruit. I broke it into two halves and gave one to the chieftain, who looked at it curiously, then understood in his own language. I conveyed, you offering is mine, but it's yours too. For good luck. He ate it and smiled at me in his own way. I tasted the fruit. It tasted milky sweet, much like Gaver. Amal Singh is an author and editor from Mumbai, India. His short fiction has appeared and is forthcoming in venues such as fnsf, Clark's World, Interzone, among others, and has been long listed for the BSFA Award. His epic fantasy audio drama is currently streaming on Audible. He also co edits Tasavur, a short fiction magazine aimed to elevate new voices in South Asian speculative fiction Before I go, I keep forgetting to ask you to rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. I am supposed to do that every week because it really does help the show grow so much more than any of us realize. So thank you for trusting me with your time and your attention. Thanks a lot for listening everyone. It's Storytime with Wil Wheaton was produced in 2026 by Traveler Enterprises Incorporated, who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our story producer and director is Gabrielle Dicure. Our Content editor is Michael Thomas. Our podcast is edited, mixed and mastered by Alex Barton of Phase Shift av. Very special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. We record at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, which you all know that I love. I will tell you that today at the end of February here in the beautiful San Fernando valley it is 97 degrees so think about that as you don't go outside because it's cold. I don't know, I gotta flex on you guys. Our traffic's horrible, the smog's terrible. Let me have this. If you would like an ad free experience as well as some behind the scenes extras including marked up scripts, some recordings that show you how we make the show come together, a couple of outtakes and my reflections on what every story meant to me immediately upon finishing the narration you can go to patreon.com story time and join us there. I am your host, your producer and the voice in your ears. My name is Wil Wheaton. You can find out everything you ever wanted to know about me and things you didn't@willwheaton.net I am so grateful that you are here. Thanks for spending some time with me this week. Until next time, take care of yourselves and take care of each other.
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On June 18, 2023, OceanGate's Titan submersible imploded during an expedition dive to the Titanic, killing all five on board, including OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush. Numerous industry experts and employees from within Oceangate itself had warned Rush of impending doom, citing safety concerns and a lack of testing. His hubris, ego and reckless desire for innovation over all else cost him his life and that of four others. The catastrophic destruction of the Titan submersible sent shockwaves through the ocean exploration industry that are still being felt today. The Oceangate Titan Submersible A Preventable Tragedy, a two part series available now on Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.