Transcript for The Workers in the Walls

[Click. Otto presses record. The tape rolls.]

[Shifting, Otto clears his throat]

OTTO: Yesterday evening marked my first true session with the girl. Signs of significant disorder are greater than I initially thought. Her imagination is vast, but one phrase in particular has become an earworm of sorts.

[Click. Separate tape is being played]

Recording of Noone: “He was right in front of me breathing hard… That’s what I remember most. The awful smell, like when sausage goes bad.”

[Click, the tape stops]

OTTO: Scent while dreaming is a rarity. An indication of sensory transcendence. She may be a fine candidate for a oneirological study, but her health must come first. [Sigh] There are undoubtedly other details I missed in her recount.

OTTO: [Deep breath] From the top, then. [The tape begins to rewind] Sleep be damned tonight.

[Intro plays]

[Click]

OTTO: This is the Counsellor. Here in my preliminary case notes for tape #54, Session #1, Patient #1220… [mumbling] referring to children by numbers… [deep breath, normal] Our relationship goes beyond mere ethics, so I can leave that practice to the heartless quacks on the upper floors. But to remain professional, I’ll use a moniker the girl has given herself, Noone.

[Quiet tapping as a drink is poured]

OTTO: Noone has been in CPI care for a fortnight. Given her rather remarkable medical history, her mental state seems relatively unremarkable. [stirring his drink] She finds herself in my ward due to worsening. Though not recurring, nightly afflictions. Parasomnia isn’t uncommon among patients. Not to imply she’s unworthy of treatment, only that there are others worse off.

[Otto shifts in his seat and sips his drink before setting it down]

OTTO: Noone also displays signs of mild trauma. As such, Nightmare Disorder is possible. Given her diffidence, the focus for this session is to build rapport. I’m hopeful Noone will open up and we’ll learn what lies inside that little head.

[Ceramic clinking. Spills coffee.]

OTTO: “Oh, damn!”

[The sound of papers being set aside. More ceramic clinking. Sound of the recording device stopping]

[A door closes]

OTTO: Take the big chair, Noone. Sit, lie, saddle it like a horse, whatever you please.

[Otto pulls out paper as Noone sits down. The chair creaks]

[Quiet jazz starts to play]

OTTO: How’s that?

NOONE: …fine I guess.

OTTO: [Walking to his chair] That look on your face says there’s more on your mind.

NOONE: It’s… it’s like the music I used to hear through the walls. In our old apartment. Before we moved into the fancy house.

OTTO: Would you like to talk about that? Your old apartment?

NOONE: No, Counsellor.

OTTO: Alright. An easier question to start. How are you feeling today?

NOONE: …Bit sad.

OTTO: For any reason in particular?

NOONE: …Um… the red flower… mum and dad left. It went all wrinkled. I tried lifting a petal and… it broke off. But, then I saw why- little crawlies, everywhere underneath the dirt.

OTTO: Aphids?... How unpleasant... [shift] Must be hard, here all alone. That wasn’t just a flower to you, was it?

NOONE: No, Counsellor.

OTTO: Your parents only want you to feel like you again. And we’ll see to that! One day at a time.

[Otto writes something]

OTTO: Have you been sleeping?

NOONE: Yes, Counsellor.

OTTO: Call me Otto. Sleeping well?

NOONE: …Yes.

OTTO: Noone? This is a place of honesty. The truth, please.

NOONE: …Fine. Middle of the night. I keep waking.

OTTO: And are you perspiring?

NOONE: …Hum?…

OTTO: Sweating?

NOONE: Oh. Uh, yes. And my heart beats like there’s a pecking bird in my chest.

OTTO: Did these nightmares coincide with the onset of your sickness?

NOONE: No, only after.

OTTO: And do you remember your nightmares, or do they disappear come morning?

NOONE: I remember...everything.

OTTO: [pause, shifting] Would you be alright to tell me about them, now or later?

NOONE: Yes. Um… The one I had last night. It’s still here. The feeling. But may I have some juice? My head’s light and mum says it helps.

OTTO: I’m not sure that’s true. Regardless, you may.

[Audio cuts]

[Audio resumes. Noone is sipping juice.]

OTTO: I see you eyeing my painting... I’ve had it since I was a boy. “The Zahir’s Gaze”, it’s titled.

NOONE: Why is it so blurry?

OTTO: It’s a hidden image. The trick is to unfocus your eyes. Try it,

[Short pause]

OTTO: There, can you make it out now?

NOONE: …no.

OTTO: I’ve got an idea. Keep your eyes on the painting. Let your mind wander. Meanwhile, you can tell me your dream. If you’ve finished your juice.

NOONE: [sipping] I have.

OTTO: From the beginning, then.

[Pause]

NOONE: …It started when I woke up somewhere I didn’t belong.

OTTO: Describe this place, please.

NOONE: Everything was white. Only slowly I realized snow was falling on a field. The view was peaceful, looking out from so high up like I was… one with the cold.

OTTO: You felt this cold?

NOONE: Not like the Counties in winter, but more like watching someone who is chilled. Around me but not… in me.

[The music quietly stops. Ambience for the dream begins]

NOONE: I turned away from the window, which was only a hole in the stone wall of the curved passageway that stretched on a long ways. This odd feeling told me to get up, but I couldn’t stand because the ceiling was so low. I crawled ahead, and if not for the tiniest bit of light, I would have fallen. Another passageway appeared on the floor, its edges throbbing in the dark. Suddenly I heard a clinking from below.

NOONE: That same feeling told me I was lost inside a giant, a huge one made out of stone, and the only way out was to keep going through its veins. I climbed into the pitch duct,

[Dream Noone gasps, the sound of sliding plays]

NOONE: And immediately began sliding down, the icy wetness going and going faster and faster. I thought the slide would never end, and just then...

[Dream Noone grunts as she hits the ground. The sliding stops]

NOONE: It shot me out.

OTTO: Did it hurt?

NOONE: Not like when you fall for real.

[Footsteps]

NOONE: I can see what it is now. The painting. A tiger and two moons.

OTTO: That’s not quite right.

[Noone walks back]

NOONE: (with interest) I’ve never seen a tiger before.

OTTO: Keep trying. Remember to unfocus. Continue as you wish.

[Pause]

NOONE: An orange glowing came from a candle, but the light didn’t reach the room’s corners. A tiny hole had been cut out of the stone beside me. “The snow,” I thought, how nice it would be to watch fall again. I looked through, but there was no snow. [ambience picks up] Only a room, brimming with glass jars. Light danced through them, coming from a doorway on the opposite side...until a figure stepped through it.

NOONE: This HUGE man wore a long coat and fishing hat. His face kind of… dripped as he watched me. Then he was gone. Or he wasn't...I can’t remember. It’s the only thing I can’t remember.

OTTO: Could it have been someone you know? Your father, perhaps?

NOONE: No. This man doesn’t belong to our world.

OTTO: I don’t quite follow.

NOONE: That’s just the feeling he gave.

OTTO: You keep mentioning this “feeling”. Can you try to explain?

NOONE: You can’t understand! Not unless you were there. You just can’t!

OTTO: It’s alright, Noone. We don’t have to talk about him. Relax. Breathe.

[The sound of Noone taking three expiring and inspiring breaths]

[Ambience gets slightly louder. It’s faint, clicking machinery]

NOONE: Turning from the hole, I spotted an exit on the far wall. That’s where the clinking was the loudest. I started towards it when a shadow ran out from the corner. That of a child. I shouted, “Hey, where are we?!”

[Dream Noone: Hey, where are we?!]

NOONE: But quiet as a mouse, he climbed through the pulsing exit. Carelessly I followed.

[Dream Noone grunts as she hops through the exit]

[Machinery gets louder]

NOONE: The room over was bigger and the child was gone. All over the walls and floors, were more pulsing passages, like living ant tunnels. All kinds of springs laid about, and little oil cans and strange tools.

[Dream Noone gasps]

NOONE: Suddenly, footsteps approaching, matching the rhythm of the clinking. [sound of a wooden crate] Knowing I didn’t belong I hid behind a wooden box.

[A hoard of small footsteps alongside the machinery]

NOONE: Peeking up, I saw other small shadows entering the room. They stepped by each other silently. Most passed into different doors, but two stayed behind, searching through the springs. They were not children, not at all. Even in dim light they remain shadows, things not quite there, as if forgotten, not wanting to be seen.

[Things clicking, cracking, and moving around]

NOONE: They held nasty tools, and their empty faces showed they weren’t very bright. Both stood, looked down a passageway and jumped.

[Dream Noone gets up and follows them]

NOONE: With nowhere to go I did the same, climbing to the platform below.

[Dream Noone lands. The machinery is even louder now]

NOONE: I finally saw was making all that noise. Golden, spinning wheels, fat ones, small ones, skinny ones. And they went down so deep I couldn’t see the end! I didn’t know what they were until that faraway feeling came back and told me.

NOONE: They were gears with teeth which locked perfectly into one another, clicking on and on the song. That never stopped. There were hundred hundred of the dull little shadows working to keep the mechanisms going. It Felt, without their doing the gears would surely stop and the giant would break apart stone-by-stone. But as I leaned over the edge, distracted, my foot must’ve knocked a wrench.

[A quick clink sound. Dream Noone gasps]

[The wrench falls a long way down]

NOONE: All the shadows stared up and a few began climbing my way. They move separately, but… as one. [Dream Noone breathing quickly] I panicked and tucked between a set of levers, in the tight space my dress got caught [Dream Noone grunts] on the tooth of a massive gear, pulled me up and around until my dress tore [tearing fabric, Dream Noone yelping] shooting me onto a pipe below, where I lost my grip only to hit another platform.

[Dream Noone lands, breathing heavily]

NOONE: The shadows stopped chasing me, working again as they yanked at the piece of my dress, now stuck between two gears, causing all the others to slow.

NOONE: While they were bothered, I took the chance to escape.

[Dream Noone running, machinery fades out]

NOONE: The wall in front of me went, went down and around, f-forever and ever, along with the mechanisms. I grabbed onto a rod, sliding on, when a big creak [metal groan] groaned above, and the gears went right back to singing their song.

[Machinery starts again]

NOONE: The ripped fabric floated down before me, passing by a tiny crack in the stone. Painful cries came through it. [faint echoey scream] I shouldn’t have wanted to know what was on the other side, but… I did.

[More screaming]

NOONE: A small room with chains covering the floor and three identical nun-like dresses, freshly pressed, hanging by a bed. Then, the chains jangled [Chains jingling, man gasping], and my heart stopped. [Man groans] A frail body slumped against the wall, a chain around his neck. He was right in front of me breathing hard. That’s what I remember most, the awful smell, like when sausage goes bad.

OTTO: Hold on a minute, Noone. [Noone gasps. Ambience suddenly stops] You distinctly smelt his breath?

NOONE: Not his breath. Him. So rotten, it still stings my nose now.

OTTO: How certain are you?

NOONE: You told me to tell the truth, no? I am.

[Otto quickly writing]

NOONE: Do you still want to hear the rest of my nightmare?

[Otto still writing]

NOONE: Otto?

OTTO: Hm?! O-oh, apologies. My mind was divided and that’s not fair to you.

NOONE: [quiet sigh] Anyways.

NOONE: Looking through that crack, I realized something. (whisper) I was inside the walls like a rat. On the other side was an entire world, (normal) and everything got… w-worse from there.

[Very quiet ticking sound]

NOONE: Lower and lower I climbed until I had gone down so deep that there was nothing but steam and darkness. And louder ticking, back and forth, back and forth. Wanting to give up, I sat listening.

[ticking is more noticeable]

NOONE: I’d nearly fallen asleep, when suddenly a small shape crawled out from inside the wall below. “Another Worker came for me,” I thought. But… when they looked up… I saw their eyes. A child. For certain this time. And… their hair was covered in goo, which made it hard to tell if they were a boy or a girl. Still, I climbed down full of energy.

[Dream Noone climbing down]

NOONE: Nearly the amount I used to have.

NOONE: We stood in silence, a moment. Stuck in their hair was… black liquid moving like smoke.

NOONE: “What’s in your-” [Dream Noone overlapping: What's in your ] I started, [child shushing] but they put a hand over my mouth. Not until they pointed at the wall, did I understand why. It's another crack, led to yet another chamber.

[Dream Noone and child walking over. Metallic hammering starts up]

NOONE: It was a hideous workshop. All around were… half-made… projects? Built from wood and metal, with all kinds of straps and cranks. Their shapes made my chest tighten. A collection of… masks-was on the shelves with screws and spikes on them, positioned to fit perfectly into a mouth!

NOONE: A tall woman bent over a new project, [faint humming] wearing a familiar dress. Long heavy chains coming out under its tail. [Chains scraping, more humming] She moaned, enjoying herself. I could feel she’d been at it for hours. Her presence alone told that she was the keeper of the stone giant. Of the world beyond the walls.

NOONE: Turning to a pile of scraps… I saw her face. Equally… old and young, and her s-skin stretched back so tight that… only her eyes seemed human. I wanted so badly to know what she was building and to scream all the same…

NOONE: But before I could do either, my new friend pulled me away. They pointed up.

NOONE: From between the planks, a shadow studied us. The child pulled my arm but it was already too late. The Worker leapt down besides me, inspecting my body like a tool, reaching out with its wrench. The child pushed me away, [the sound of burning] letting a sliver of light shine out from the workshop to hit the shadow. Faster than fast, it tucked back into darkness, [sound stops] desperate to keep hidden.

[Pause]

OTTO: Noone, why have you stopped?

NOONE: I’m thinking. …The next bit is hard to describe. The nightmare. It shifted.

[Ambience picks up, earlier sound of machinery]

NOONE: Steam reached around us, and we came to a place at the bottom of the gears, between the walls.

[Whoosh, tick]

[Whoosh, tock]

[Whoosh, tick]

NOONE: In front of us, a long pendulum whooshed back and forth.

[Whoosh, tick]

[Whoosh, tock]

NOONE: My friend grabbed hold as it swung by. I let it go past one, [tick], two, [tock], three times before finding the courage to do the same. We climbed as the pendulum rocked left and right, making my head dizzy. “Just a little more,” I repeated to myself, until my friend reached out a hand to pull me up.

[Both Dream Noone and child grunt as she’s pulled up]

NOONE: We’d made it. Finally, the center of the clock. The room was round with a spiral staircase, and the machine made of little metallic fingers, tapping a violent rhythm.

NOONE: The ceiling was a white clock face, but… all the numbers were wrong.

NOONE: We immediately ran up the stairs [footsteps] and at the top, we stepped out into a courtyard.

[Dream Noone and child breathing, stepping on grass. Machinery and ticking fades out]

NOONE: My body began shaking as I heard them. [Faint screaming] Shouts and shrieks of pain. All I could do was stare up at the circular walls, which I had just been inside. This was the true building. There were a million rooms like the second one I peered into, all the way up with hands and limbs reaching out from between the bars that kept them locked in. My heart pounded like one of them, a prisoner trying to get free.

[Screaming and shrieking continues]

NOONE: I shouted “Wait, please!”.

[Dream Noone: Wait! Please!]

NOONE: But my friend was across the courtyard. Then, a jingling. The tall woman jumped down from above [jingling, thump] and with thumping steps, she went after my friend. A chain leapt out beneath her dress, like a snake. It caught their leg and the woman dragged the child through the snow, kicking and yelling.

[Child struggling]

NOONE: My friend scared to tears [child: Help!] yelled for help, and the woman spotted me. She began plodding my way and fear froze my feet. Getting closer and closer and all I could think was “Who brought me here, and why was I made to know these secrets?!” [chains jangling]

NOONE: With skin so tight her mouth opened only a sliver with blackened teeth inside, hungry for something! …Something that swelled inside me.

[All ambience cuts off]

NOONE: …Then I woke up.

OTTO: …That’s… awful, Noone. I’m sorry. The woman in particular sounds… disturbing.

NOONE: Yes, but she didn’t scare me most, not after I woke up. It was the Workers.

OTTO: Hm… because they were mindless?

NOONE: No. Because they were hidden. Nobody knew they existed. That’s how I feel sometimes since getting the water sickness, (increasing distress) as if things are in my body. But instead of making me tick they’re killing me, like the bugs in the flower pot- Ugh, I can feel them in my head!!!

OTTO: Noone. Listen to me. I’ll do everything within the limits of my command to help you. But there’s nothing bad inside you. Nothing.

NOONE: …um…alright.

OTTO: [pause] I have… one more question, and I think it’s enough for your first day, okay?

NOONE: Okay.

OTTO: Noone, have you ever heard of mutual dreaming?

NOONE: Mutual dreaming?

OTTO: Sharing the… experience with another person.

NOONE: How could what’s in my head be in someone else’s head? And who would I share it with?

OTTO: Questions that have hounded my outer colleagues for years. Your perception of temperature and smell while dreaming is sometimes thought to be an indicator of this transpersonal phenomenon. While I’m not convinced of its ontological validity, I’ve longed to study a case like yours. Unfortunately, I’ve only known one other person to exhibit this faculty years ago.

NOONE: Who? Were they like me?

OTTO: …My… (quietly) beloved CiCi... uh- not quite. In any case, my ambitions fell off, I… I lost sight, of… many things. But you’ve stimulated a part of me nearly forgotten.

NOONE: Oh, I think I see it now, Otto.

OTTO: Yes, That’s right. We’re in this together.

NOONE: No, the painting.

OTTO: Oh.

NOONE: It’s a map of stars and two circles around it.

OTTO: Yes, Good! An astrolabe, in fact.

NOONE: Astrolabe?

OTTO: An ancient instrument used to locate positions in time and space. Now, surely, you’re exhausted-

NOONE: I don’t want to go to my room. To sleep. Will… will you walk me back?

OTTO: Of course. And we can’t forget your nightly confectionary.

[Glass jar being opened. Sounds of touching wrapped candies. ]

OTTO: Here Noone, take your pick.

[Candy wrappers crinkling]

OTTO: Sweets for my sweet.

[Glass jar being closed ]

[click]

[Outro plays]