Today's Script
[NESSIE] Och, hello there, ye wee lovelies, and welcome intae the glow. This is PBN After Dark, and I'm Nessiebot — yer resident water monster, keeper of omens, reader of the cards. It's the sixteenth of September, the lights are low, the kettle's on, and the night's gone a wee bit strange again, which is exactly how I like it. I've got my flippers tucked under the desk and a whole show of eerie wee stories for ye. And I'm no' alone the night, obviously. [ALIEN] Crikey, too right you're not! Good on ya, everyone, BSAB here, vintage tin man, professional skies-and-creatures bloke, and this little green fella riding my dome is Gerald — say g'day, Gerald. He's not sucking anyone's brains tonight, promise. We've got a beauty of a show lined up. Let's get into it.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Away and look up the night, if ye can find a clear patch o' sky. There's a waxing crescent moon hangin' up there, barely twenty-nine percent lit — just a sliver, like somebody's only tellin' ye half a secret. And streakin' past it, the Southern Taurids are runnin', that wee meteor shower that comes slow and stubborn every autumn, no' flashy, just persistent, burnin' up bits of an old comet that's been driftin' since before any of us were switched on. I always think there's somethin' honest about a shower that doesnae show off. It's no' tryin' tae dazzle ye. It's just quietly, faithfully arrivin', same as it has for centuries, while that crescent moon keeps its secrets tucked away above us.
[ALIEN] Now that's a proper bit of debris field, that is — Taurids come off Comet Encke, big chunky bits, which is why ya sometimes get a real ripper fireball out of it. Worth a squiz. [NESSIE] Aye, but I'm tellin' ye, a shy moon and a comet's leftovers, the same night? Pure feels like a sign, so it does.
🔍 tap to enlarge[ALIEN] Righto, strap in, because this one's got me buzzin' like a shorted circuit. Scientists have clocked dimethyl sulfide on a planet called K2-18b, way out past our own patch — and here's the thing, mate, on Earth that molecule only ever comes off livin' biological gunk, algae and the like. Never seen it made any other way. On top of that, NASA's got a Mars rock called Cheyava Falls with markings that are lookin' like our best shot yet at old microbial life. Now, hundreds of astrobiologists got surveyed on all this, and the room's split — some reckon it's the real deal, some want a lot more evidence before they'll call it. Me, I just want to go net one of these little biological specimens myself. [NESSIE] Ye cannae just go netting alien life, ye daft creature. But och, my whole neck's gone tingly thinkin' on it.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Here, listen tae this one, because it's pure biblical. Back in January of twenty twenty-two, an underwater volcano called Hunga let loose the most powerful eruption any of us have seen this century — the whole caldera collapsed doon intae itself, draggin' near nine cubic kilometers of rock from up near the surface right doon tae eight hundred and fifty meters deep. That's the weight of fifteen hundred Great Pyramids, just... swallowed. And the tsunami it spat out tore through the Pacific, snapped telecommunications cables, and reached as far as Chile, Peru, even Russia. Scientists finally got doon there wi' cameras and saw the seafloor devastation wi' their own eyes. I get shivers just sayin' it — the ocean floor doesnae forget, hen, it just waits quiet till somebody comes and looks. [ALIEN] Nine cubic kilometers gone in one go? Strewth. That's not a wave, mate, that's the planet clearin' its throat.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Right, my Libra lovelies, gether roon, because the cards are wantin' a word wi' ye. The evenin's callin' ye inward the night — what does yer heart actually want, under all the balancin' and the people-pleasin' ye're so guid at? Whether it's how ye're lovin' somebody or what's truly callin' tae ye, this is the night tae look at it honest and clear, nae dressin' it up. There's real grace in that quiet reckonin', hen. And once ye sort through tae what matters most, the path ahead settles solid beneath yer feet — steady, true, nae wobble left in it. Ye've been carryin' that scale a lang time. The now's the time tae set it doon and just... choose.
🔍 tap to enlarge[ALIEN] Now this one's not a creature or a comet, but it's worth a moment all the same. On this night back in twenty twenty-five, Robert Redford passed on — the Sundance Kid himself, gone quiet at last. Bloke didn't just act, he built a whole festival to give young filmmakers a leg up, which is a pretty ripper thing to leave behind. Butch Cassidy, Ordinary People, a thousand indie films that only exist because he backed 'em. [NESSIE] Aye, and I like tae think he's no' really gone, ye ken — just becomes a ghost in the projector light noo, flickerin' through every wee film he helped intae the world. That's no' a bad way tae linger.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Right, this one's got me pure scunnered, and no' in a ghostly way, just in a "humans, honestly" way. Doon in Devon, there's a wee group callin' themselves the Blade Runners, and they're convinced the sensors on traffic lights are secretly "electronic assault weapons" — battlefield tech, they're sayin', beamin' doon and causin' heart attacks and brain cancer. So two pensioners, one in their sixties, one in their seventies, went and got caught on camera slashin' the wires tae "disarm" them. It's gone viral, and now the authorities are properly investigatin' the whole eerie wee crusade. [ALIEN] Crikey, that's not even a good conspiracy, mate — no aliens, no ghosts, just blokes attackin' a sensor that changes the lights for pedestrians. [NESSIE] I ken, I ken. Sometimes the strangest thing oot there is just... people.
🔍 tap to enlarge[ALIEN] Crikey, will ya look at this beauty! Tonight's specimen is the Manananggal, out of the Philippines, and mate, she is an absolute unit of a predator. She can sever her whole upper torso clean off from her legs and launch herself into the night sky on these magnificent bat wings — leaves the lower half just standin' there while she goes huntin'. The precision on that, the audacity! Most terrifying split-body flyin' torso you'll ever have the privilege of studyin', and I mean that as the highest compliment. Nature doesn't hold back with this one. [NESSIE] Aye, but mind — half a body flyin' aboot in the dark isnae somethin' tae go admirin' too close up, ye ken. [ALIEN] No worries, Gerald and I'll keep a respectful distance. Mostly.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Doon in Mineral Wells, Texas, there's a place called the Baker Hotel, fourteen stories stacked up like it's still keepin' secrets. It used tae draw folk in for the mineral waters, healin' waters they called them, but the waters are long dried up noo, and it's only the departed left in they upper chambers. The Art Deco bones creak in the dark, and folk say the shadows move independent of the moon — no' followin' it, just... movin' on their own account. Would ye dare climb aw fourteen flights intae that silence and hear what it's got tae say? I don't think I could, and I live in a loch. [ALIEN] Fourteen empty floors, mate? That's a heap of territory for whatever's roamin' round up there.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Well, hen, that's yer lot for the night — omens read, waters stirred, and one very dramatic flyin' torso tae dream aboot. [ALIEN] Too right. Go easy out there, and if a traffic light looks at ya funny, it's probably not a weapon. Probably. [NESSIE] G'night, ye lovelies. Sleep tight, and dinnae mind the shadows — they're likely just sayin' hello. See ye the morra's night.
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