NoSleep Podcast - Sleepless Decompositions Vol. 25

The NoSleep Podcast - Creative Reason Media Inc.

In 'Sleepless Decompositions Vol. 25' of The No Sleep Podcast, host David Cummings sets a chilling tone as he introduces a series of horror tales centered on doctors confronting the bizarre and terrifying effects of trauma, madness, and supernatural phenomena. The

Key takeaways

• Trauma can manifest as supernatural perceptions, blurring the line between psychological horror and metaphysical dread.

Main topics

• War trauma and PTSD
• The psychological effects of torture and survival

Notable quotes

"I want them to end. I just wants it, mind. Needs it, more like."

"The dead are a river. You don't know how deep they go."

Conclusion

The episode concludes with a haunting sense of unresolved dread, as Cliff's final diary entry suggests he has

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Sleepless listeners, thank you for joining us, and welcome to Sleepless Decompositions, Volume 25. I'm your host, David Cummings. With Season 25 launching next week, we're making sure everything is set to go for the new season. And just like all those college students heading to university this time of year, we have to make sure we're physically fit enough to go. So we're topping up our vaccines and getting our checkups to ensure our bodies can last us another season. And we need to be fit enough to handle the horror we have in store for you. It's a good thing horror and doctors go hand in hand. If I mention names like Jekyll, Lecter, or Frankenstein, you'll recognize doctors who have been prescribed to us from the annals of classic horror. It's only fitting that the tales we have for you this week feature doctors who are struggling to deal with the strange, esoteric, and just plain bizarre things they encounter. And of course, not all doctors are of the medical variety. So whether it's our bodies or our minds, we can only hope to hold on to whatever health we can muster. Speaker 2 (1:56) And we're grateful for the sponsors who keep us in good shape and allow us to give you all these stories absolutely free of charge. And it's appropriate to be talking about our health these days. Like me, many of us are trying to be healthier and leaner. And this summer, you can hit your weight loss goals with Weight Loss by HIMSS. It's designed to support you every step of the way. And now, HIMSS offers access to an affordable range of FDA-approved GLP-1 medications, including the Wagovi pill and the Wagovi pen, so you can lose the weight and keep it off. With Wagovi at HIMSS, lose up to 20 % of your body weight when combined with diet and exercise. It helps you regulate your appetite, eat less, and keep weight off. Plus, Wagovi is the first ever GLP-1 pill for weight loss, so there are no needles needed. Through HIMSS, everything happens online. You'll connect with a licensed provider who will determine if treatment is right for you. If prescribed, your medication is delivered right to your door. No insurance necessary. Even better, with a range of affordable GLP-1 options, HIMS makes it simple to find a weight loss approach that fits into your world and your wallet, if eligible. You'll get a treatment plan personalized to you and unlimited dosage changes as needed. Ready to reach your goals? Visit HIMS. Speaker 2 (3:45) Visit HIMSS.com. Speaker 2 (3:53) So, dear listeners, get those clothes off and put on this gown. Opening to the back, please. The doctor will be in to see you shortly. And don't mind all those long, sharp needles over there. You won't feel a thing. But be certain to brace yourself for our sleepless decompositions. Speaker 2 (4:20) In our first tale, we join Dr. Carlyle at his new job. Working in a sanatorium means he's dealing with patients whose minds are in dire need of healing. But in this tale, shared with us by author Sean Brooks, there's one patient in particular who has vexed the good doctor, and it might take everything he has to determine how best to help him. Performing this tale are Ash Millman, Andy Creswell, Jake Benson, James Cleveland, and Erica Sanderson. So while we usually support a person's curse of being unable to sleep, we recognize how awful it must be to know the dead are a river. Dr. Speaker 1 (5:20) Winston Carlyle smoked his pipe as he read the patient's chart. Name, Clifford Walker. Age, 32. Was stationed in Singapore in 1942 when the Japanese took over. Spent the next two years in a POW camp in Burma until liberated by an Indian detachment. Has been living with his mother in Bristol since his release in Burma to the autumn of 1949. Voluntarily checked himself into the Sparrowhead Sanatorium due to vivid nightmares most likely attributed to war neurosis. Patient does not sleep, yet it is not a danger to himself or others. Has requested to be lobotomised. Thus ended his predecessor's scrawled notes on the man. Winston puffed smoke to the gloomy ceiling of his office. Watched it ascend until it broke on the sickly yellow and flickering light fixture. He could see dead flies entombed in the dirty glass casing. If he tried hard enough, he could imagine their buzzing. He had taken up his post at Sparrowhead last week, having transferred from a quite comfortable stint over at his private practice in London. But times were tough, and he soon lost all he had built in the city. He shut his eyes and thought of Martha's smile. So, back to a sanatorium it was for him. He detested lobotomies and other barbaric remnants of an older time, felt his stomach twist in on itself upon reading Mr Walker's request. Mr Walker was to be his first patient here, a man who had spent the last three months, on his own volition, locked up in this horrid excuse for a bastion of mental hygiene. And now he was seeing Winston to obtain recommendation for a most invasive and irreparable procedure. Winston resolved himself, rose, and opened the door. Speaker 3 (7:13) Lucy, bring in Mr Walker, if you please. Speaker 1 (7:17) He sat back in his tattered leather chair, sighed. It was like he had just given up the ghost just then. The patient entered the room under the watch of a pudgy orderly with a menacing face. Winston was sure he was abusing the patients, especially over at the women's ward. That will be all. The orderly scowled, yet his eyes were vacant as he left. Winston made a note to keep watch on the man. Speaker 3 (7:46) Please, take a seat. Speaker 1 (7:48) Mr Walker stood behind a plastic chair, his skeletal fingers grazing the headrest. His eyes were a stark red. A slight tremor ran through his frame like wind through paper. Winston was at once reminded of opium users in the Orient and how their bodies fell into disrepair due to that accursed drug. Mr Walker glanced at Winston. Eyes then darted to the corners of the room as if expecting something to lunge out at him. Speaker 3 (8:15) Mr Walker, we cannot proceed until you take a seat, if you please. Speaker 1 (8:21) Winston waved his wrinkled hand at the chair. The patient finally sat down, yet his body was tense, as if he might spring up at any moment. Speaker 3 (8:31) Cliff. How's that? My name's Cliff. Very well then. Cliff, what would you like to discuss today? Speaker 1 (8:43) Winston was not one of those psychiatrists of days gone by, the ones to introduce their patients to the blade and to barrels of chemicals at first glance. He believed in the power of talking things out, much to the shaking of his colleagues' heads. Cliff's lower lip twitched, his head jerked slightly upwards. Winston noted that the man hadn't blinked yet. Hey, I Speaker 5 (9:05) want you to lobotomise me. Speaker 1 (9:07) Winston swallowed his spit. Speaker 3 (9:10) A most unusual request, Mr... Cliff, why, may I ask, would you want me to Speaker 5 (9:20) do that? Don't matter why, I just wants it, mind. Needs it, more like. Yeah, needs it, mind. Speaker 1 (9:27) He spoke in sputtering jerks and stops. A bit of drool coalesced around his lips like froth. Speaker 3 (9:34) No, I don't think I shall entertain this, Cliff. Not unless you talk to me. Does this have to do with the nightmares? Speaker 1 (9:43) Cliff laid his dried scarlet eyes on the doctors. Winston felt his shoulders tense. He thought he could hear a buzzing. Speaker 5 (9:53) Yes, I want them to end. Speaker 1 (9:58) His voice broke out into a strangled sob. Speaker 3 (10:01) I empathise with you, Cliff. I really do. I will do all in my power to help you through these maladies. But lobotomies are really a last resort. The last doc promised me. Ah, yes. Dr Maxwell. He is no longer with us, I'm afraid. Speaker 1 (10:22) Cliff's eyes stretched even wider, if that were possible. Speaker 1 (10:27) Winston thought about pursuing the man's obvious shock at the news, but he really needed to get back to Martha. All this talk of lobotomies was upsetting his mood. Speaker 3 (10:37) What kind of nightmares are you having? Can't tell you. May I ask why not? Speaker 1 (10:44) Cliff looked at the wall to his right, as if he could see through the grandfather clock and into the cafeteria next door. Speaker 3 (10:51) Cliff, if you won't speak with me, I will just have to send you back to your room. No, Speaker 5 (10:56) I will talk. But not about them dreams. I told Maxwell and he's gone now, ain't he? Just like my mum. Speaker 1 (11:06) Winston arched an eyebrow at this. I'm Speaker 3 (11:09) terribly sorry. I was not informed about your mother's passing. Speaker 5 (11:15) Her came to see me last month, told her about the dreams, and then her was gone. A Speaker 1 (11:22) single tear sparkled to life in the sea of red that was Cliff's right eye. It looked like the wetness stung him. His eye warbled and flinched. Winston, despite his impatience, was growing sorry for the man. Speaker 5 (11:40) Say what I can, but not everything, for your protection, mate. Speaker 1 (11:45) Winston nodded and readied his pen. Speaker 5 (11:47) And if I talk, you can promise to scoop out my brain so vision don't come back no more. Speaker 1 (11:53) Winston swallowed the stomach acid rising in his throat, prepared for the lie. Sure. Cliff nodded and wrung his hands. Speaker 5 (12:03) It happened back in the war. Meaning the boys got taken prisoner by them Japs. You wouldn't believe the evil things them animals done to us. My mate Richard had bamboo shoved right under his fingernails. Proper popped each of them right off. You Speaker 3 (12:20) ever seen violence like that? Not quite. I was stationed as a soldier in Palestine for a year when I was a younger man. Saw quite a few riots, but nothing like what you saw. Right. Speaker 5 (12:37) The Japs weren't always so bad. Sometimes they would give us extra rice, and if it was real good light, they'd even let some of us out of work duties for a day. Except for sods like Richard. Ones who couldn't keep their mouths shut. Speaker 1 (12:52) Cliff showed Winston his dirty nails, mimed pulling them out one by one with a sadistic grin. He still hadn't blinked yet. Speaker 5 (13:01) Anyway, one day we was out digging trenches for him round the camp in case our blokes were to come and spring us one day. Filled him up with these little bamboo sticks we sharpened into spikes. Did this for a good two weeks, digging and filling, and our skin getting sliced up by all Speaker 1 (13:17) manner of crazy bugs. Cliff blinked. In a moment, he went from gleefully, if not morbidly recounting his story, to full-on panic. He leapt out of his chair and kicked it over, flattened his back to the wall. Eyes open again, body shaking like that paper in a hurricane now. Winston was used to outbursts like this. Even so, this one unnerved him, seemingly out of nowhere. All the man did was close his eyes. Speaker 5 (13:46) I'm sorry. I'm... I'm OK. Speaker 1 (13:52) Cliff picked up his chair and sat back down. Speaker 3 (13:56) If you would like, we can always reconvene tomorrow. No, today. This has to end today. Very well. Would you care to explain what just happened? I will, Speaker 5 (14:09) mind. Let me tell the story first. There we was, digging in trenches of sticks. One day the good old blokes did come. Gunfire exploding all round us like Jesus were coming back in the sky with all his angels. I thought this was it. God had come to save us. Speaker 1 (14:25) He crossed himself. Speaker 5 (14:28) Then I heard the screaming. Not the Japs, they was quiet though. Like they was listening to those screams in reverence. Me and me mate Bob dug out a hole in our hut to see what was happening. And there they were. Our blokes, good old British boys. Impaled like sausages on those sticks we had been whittling for the Japs. But sure this one boy, no older than me. A stick poking right out through his chest. He was still alive and looking at me, taking my eyes until he was dead. I think it was my stick that killed him. Don't ask how I know. Speaker 3 (15:10) I just... Dear God, that is awful. No wonder your mind suffers. Speaker 1 (15:19) Cliff smiled tightly. So tightly it seemed his teeth would crack apart. What Speaker 5 (15:25) did it, Doc? I can't tell you what did, unless you want what I got. That boy, I think he had it and passed it to me. He saw it, and that's why I saw it then, too. Like the clap, mind. Passing it along like some fucking disease. And now I sees it. Every time I close me eyes. Speaker 3 (15:51) Winston Speaker 5 (15:51) leaned forward. Speaker 3 (15:53) See what, man? Tell me. Speaker 1 (15:56) Cliff smiled, but the gesture only served to sadden the air itself. The Speaker 5 (16:02) dead are a river. Speaker 5 (16:06) and he's all around us, Doc. All the time. That's all I've got to say on the matter. Now, if you please, poop out my brain now. Speaker 1 (16:19) He sat back in the chair and somehow it seemed his skeleton had vacated and left his body a loose rag of flesh draped over the seat. Speaker 3 (16:26) Mr Cliff. Speaker 3 (16:30) I cannot lobotomise you. You are unwell and do not deserve the life... the lack of life that procedure would leave you to. Meet with me every day at this time and let's talk you through this. I can help you. Speaker 1 (16:47) Winston thought of Martha at home, laid up in bed and paralysed, waiting for him to relieve the nurse and wash her body and keep her company. He would help her too. He had to. Cliff said nothing. His sunken cheeks fell further into his skull. The only sound was the buzzing. Yes, the distinct buzzing now, from the flies in the light. Winston jerked his head to the light and