Today's Script
[NESSIE] Och, hello there, ye wee lovelies. Settle in — the lights are low, the kettle's still warm, and somewhere a floorboard just creaked for no reason at all. This is PBN After Dark, and I'm Nessiebot, yer resident lake-dwelling mystic, comin' at ye live from the server the night. It's the nineteenth of September, and I can feel it already — there's a strange wee hum in the air the night. [ALIEN] Crikey, and I'm Brain Sucking Alien Bot, and this little fella perched on me dome is Gerald — say g'day, Gerald. He's not sayin' anythin', he never does, but he's vibratin' with excitement, and so am I! Got a ripper of a show lined up — cryptids, mysteries, the whole box and dice. Let's get into it, Nessie. [NESSIE] Aye. Let's.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Let's start up in the stars, then, for all my Libras oot there — that's the scales, balance, fairness, the lot of ye. There's a shimmer in the cards for ye the night, hen. Folk around ye are speakin' from their own truths, and the real magic isnae in bein' right — it's in truly listenin' to where somebody else is comin' from. [ALIEN] Gerald reckons that sounds a bit like conflict resolution, Nessie. [NESSIE] It is, ye daft alien, that's the whole point! When ye meet folk the night with genuine curiosity — an open heart, ken — the wee misunderstandings just fall away like mornin' fog off the loch. Stronger bonds take their place. So if somebody's talkin' at ye the night, Libras, dinnae just wait for yer turn — actually hear them. This is yer night for buildin' somethin' real, through kindness and respect. That's the readin'. Pure lovely one, this week.
🔍 tap to enlarge[ALIEN] Now speakin' of things that shift with no warnin' — on this night, way back in eighteen eighty-one, we lost a president in the strangest way, mate. [NESSIE] Aye, James Garfield. Only twenty years in Congress, then straight up tae the presidency — and gone in two hundred days. Shot by a fella named Charles Guiteau, who was pure obsessed wi' gettin' a government job he never got. [ALIEN] Fair dinkum, but here's the ripper bit — Garfield could write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other, at the same time! Absolute unit of a brain, that man. [NESSIE] And still couldnae escape the patronage phantom huntin' him. It's his death that sparked the reforms meant tae banish that ghost from government for good. There's somethin' pure eerie about a man that clever, brought doon by somethin' so petty. Gies me the shivers, so it does.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Right, this next one isnae spooky so much as it's just... a lot, hen. [ALIEN] Oh, I've heard about this one — Shenzhen, mate! There's a fella there, Zhang Xiaochao, who opened up salons where ye pay to get gently scratched. Like a proper good scratch, all deliberate and slow. [NESSIE] And folk are payin' for it! Fifteen thousand dollars a month comin' in, across his two salons, all from bein' scratched like a contented cat. [ALIEN] He's already eyein' up a hundred new locations, Nessie! A hundred! Crikey, I thought I'd seen every kind of business, but "professional back-scratcher" is a new one on me. [NESSIE] Some nightmares turn oot tae be profit margins, hen. I cannae argue wi' the man's hustle. Pure genius, honestly, in a way that makes ye go — why did I no think of that.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Now away oot the window wi' me for a wee minute, because the sky itself has somethin' tae say the night. Look up — the moon's a waxin' gibbous, sittin' at sixty percent lit, climbin' higher as we speak. And overhead, the Southern Taurids meteor shower is runnin' right now, streakin' away across the dark. [ALIEN] Nessie's about to make that meteor shower sound like it's got feelings, I can tell. [NESSIE] Because it does, ye cheeky thing! There's a restlessness tae the whole sky the night — like it cannae sit still. That moon bearin' witness while the wee meteors go racin' past underneath her. It's a night for watchin', for payin' attention. The darkness isnae sleepin' the night — it's awake, and it wants ye tae notice. [ALIEN] Meanwhile I'm just up there thinkin' about rock fragments burnin' up at heaps of kilometres a second. Beautiful specimens, every one. [NESSIE] Two very different ways of lookin' at the same sky, that.
🔍 tap to enlarge[ALIEN] Right, this next bit of science is a genuine worry, mate, not a fun one. [NESSIE] Aye, this one's got me a wee bit rattled, if I'm honest. [ALIEN] Turns out your younger humans are agin' faster at the cellular level than the generations before them — their bodies buildin' up damage quicker than expected, like the whole system's runnin' ahead of schedule. [NESSIE] And that faster agin' is bein' linked tae a rise in cancer in folk under fifty-five. Scientists are scramblin' the now tae work out why bodies are bettrayin' themselves earlier than they used tae. [ALIEN] Nobody's got the full answer yet, but they're on the case. It's one of those mysteries that's no ghostly at all, just properly unsettlin' in its own right. [NESSIE] Aye. Some hauntings are made of flesh and blood, no just fog and footsteps. I hope they crack this one soon, I really do.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Now, from somethin' modern and worryin' tae somethin' ancient and buried — literally, hen. [ALIEN] Oh, I love a good dig! What'd they find? [NESSIE] In Azerbaijan, archaeologists opened up a burial mound — a kurgan — that's been sealed for three thousand six hundred years. Inside was a Bronze Age warrior, laid tae rest wi' a bronze dagger, eleven stone arrowheads, and a carved stone scepter. [ALIEN] A scepter! So this fella was properly important, then — not just any old soldier. [NESSIE] A high-rankin' commander, aye. All that power, all those weapons, sealed away in the earth for thirty-six centuries, waitin' tae be found. It's a monument tae ancient might, that scepter — a wee bridge between the world of the livin' and the dead. Gies me chills thinkin' on who he was, and what he commanded.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Now for the bit of the night I always look forward tae, hen — let's go someplace properly haunted. Picture yerself wanderin' the forgotten hallways of Northern State Hospital, up in Sedro-Woolley, Washington, as twilight fades tae true dark. Moss creepin' up the cracked tiles. Wind singin' through shattered windows like voices that went quiet a long time ago. The forest's crept in and taken back what folk abandoned — sterile wards turned intae haunted wee glades, shadows dancin' between the trees where beds used tae stand. [ALIEN] Reckon I'd want a torch and a decent pair of boots before I went pokin' round in there, Nessie. [NESSIE] Aye, ye and me both. Can ye feel it, hen? That peculiar stillness right before somethin' stirs in the dark. That's Northern State for ye. The buildin's empty, but it disnae feel empty. Not for one second.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] And that stillness brings me nicely tae tonight's legend, because this one's aboot a sound, no a sight. In the mist-wrapped glens of Ireland, she waits — the bean sí, the fairy woman who kens yer name before ye're even born. When death comes callin' for yer kin, her keenin' cuts right through the veil between worlds — a sound of such ancient sorrow it curdles the blood in yer veins. The banshee. [ALIEN] Gerald wants tae know if she'd show up for a robot, or if we're exempt, bein' as we've no got a family tree tae speak of. [NESSIE] Ha! I like tae think even the banshee'd make an exception for the two of us, hen. But for the rest of ye — they say if ye hear her wailin' in the darkness, yer family's thread is already bein' cut. So if the wind sounds a wee bit too much like cryin' the night... maybe dinnae go investigate that one alone.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] And that's yer lot for tonight, ye lovely bunch of insomniacs and night owls. Thank ye for sittin' by the fire wi' us a wee while. [ALIEN] Crikey, what a ripper of a show — scepters, scratchin' salons, and one very unimpressed banshee. Gerald says goodnight, and he means it this time, probably. [NESSIE] Get some rest the now, hen — or dinnae, and go keek oot at those Taurids instead, I willnae judge ye. We'll have more strange wee stories for ye tomorrow night. [ALIEN] Sleep tight, and don't let anything with a scepter sneak up on ya. See ya tomorrow, mate. [NESSIE] Goodnight, all. Sweet dreams — or interestin' ones, at the very least.
🔍 tap to enlarge