In today’s episode we will recount a series of strange events, or glitches, that came to us from Amy, host of our partner podcasts, Collected Sounds and Volsteadland.
Music: Nightbridge and Glitch by Cannelle (www.cannellemusic.com)
Find The Skylark Bell online: www.theyskylarkbell.com
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Twitter: @melissaoliveri
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TRANSCRIPT:
Things with Wings Productions, with the support of Whimsical Productions and Collected Sounds presents: The Skylark Bell, Fantome Friday. I am your host, Melissa Oliveri.
On the last Friday of each month, we pause our reading of Meadow Lane and the Skylark Bell, and instead cover a real-life supernatural, or at the very least, unusual, and unexplained, experience.
Before we dive into today’s episode, I want to tell you about the real-life person behind the mysterious presence I encountered in our last Fantome Friday episode, The Bootleggers. He was known as Kid Cann, among many other names, and was quite influential here in Minneapolis in his heyday. My friend Amy over at Collected Sounds is putting together a podcast called Volsteadland which will take a deeper dive into this character. Be sure to check it out!
In today’s episode we will recount a series of strange events, or glitches, that came to us from Amy, host of our partner podcasts, Collected Sounds and Volsteadland.
I’d also like to let you know that I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Ken Volante for his podcast Something Rather Than Nothing. My interview is Episode 94 and is titled Melissa Oliveri. Something Rather Than Nothing is available on all major podcast platforms, I’d be honoured if you gave it a listen.
Now, it’s time to get settled in. Grab a blanket, a warm drink, and let’s get started…
It was September 13th, 2020 when I decided I should start keeping track of these things. I didn't really think I needed to, I didn’t really see a pattern, until the scissors.
As I’m writing this, I realize that all these things all happened in September. Different years, but always September. Strange…
The first incident happened about 3 years ago, shortly after we moved into our new house. I was looking for my pill box. I knew I had recently gotten a new prescription and filled up two little pillboxes, I just couldn't find one of them. I distinctly remembered putting it on a shelf in the hall closet on the main floor, but it wasn't there. I searched the entire house, my purses, drawers, medicine cabinets, everywhere! The box was nowhere to be found. Eventually, I ended up having to fill a new prescription. A few days later I came home with the new prescription and went to put it away in the hall closet and, sitting there right in front of me, was the lost pill box, exactly where I remembered putting it. Exactly where I had looked for it several times.
The next glitch occurred last fall. I was downstairs and glanced at our Echo Show, noting that the time said 2:58pm. I went outside and did some planting of vegetables and repotted some plants. I felt like I was out there for at least 20 minutes. When I came back in, I looked at the same clock on the Echo, and the time read 3:00pm. I was shocked. I know for a fact I was out there more than 2 minutes since I was listening to music on the outdoor speakers and heard at least 3 songs. This is a whole new level of losing track of time!
A few days after the time incident I was washing dishes and putting things away. I cleaned both pairs of scissors and put one away in the butcher block and left the other to dry in the rack before putting it away in the drawer. I started wiping down the counter as my husband came in to help me with dinner. He was arranging things on the stove and handed me something to wash. I took it from him then looked down at my hand in shock – he had handed me the scissors that I had just washed and put away, only they were dirty. There is no way he could have gotten the scissors from where I had left them without me noticing because I was standing next to the butcher block and the drying rack the whole time! I was too stunned to even figure out which of the two pairs of scissors he had handed me, I just did my best to shake off the troubling sense of déjà vu as I washed them… again.
A few weeks after the scissor incident, I got a notice on my phone that I had an email from my friend Melissa. I didn't read it right away as we were eating dinner. A few moments later I got a text from Melissa saying "I just sent you an email and I forgot to say..." – the timestamp on the text was 5:49pm. Just over an hour later, at 7:08pm, I got another message from her saying, "I just got home and when I looked at my computer, I realized my email hadn't been sent! Sending it now." But when I checked my email account the message was there and time stamped 5:43pm, just moments before Melissa’s original text telling me she sent it. How did I get the email at 5:43pm when she didn't actually send it until 7:08pm?
The next evening my husband and I were shutting down the basement before going up to bed. I made a point to close the curtains for privacy, knowing that I would be taking a shower the next morning. There is a small bell attached to the door leading outside for the dogs to ring when they want to go out. The window is quite wide, I have to walk several paces to get from one side to the other. I pulled the left side closed first. Just as I finished pulling the right side closed, I heard the dog bell ring. I was standing at least 15 feet away from the door. It was notable because I’d never heard the bell ring before as I was closing the curtains, and I happened after I had already started to walk away from the window, but I didn’t turn back to look. When I went downstairs the next morning the curtain was pulled back open. I asked my husband if he had been downstairs overnight, and he told me he had not.
About one week after the curtain incident, I was working in the basement office downstairs. I stepped away for a moment to take a break upstairs. As I was walking back to my office, I noticed that my large, bright orange water cup was on the bar in the main area of the basement. It dawned on me that I should have grabbed it and brought it into the office with me, but I was walking quickly and had already past it. I told myself I would grab it next time I stepped out for a break. I walked back into my office and froze in shock - the large, bright orange cup, the same one I had just walked past in a different room one moment ago, was sitting on my desk.
Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week as we resume our adventures in Meadow Lane and the Skylark Bell. In last week’s episode, Magpie and Lucas spent some time in the archives at the library and learned more about the terrible winter of 1925 when the Carnifex family left the town of Pocket.
Next week we read Chapter 18 – The Sketch, where Magpie finds a frightening piece of evidence hidden in a secret compartment in her fireplace, then discovers an addition to her sketchbook that she doesn’t remember making, causing her to feel afraid and overwhelmed.
Don’t forget to subscribe, you don’t want miss a thing! And now, an original song by Cannelle inspired by today’s story – here is “Glitch”
