Dr Embers Presents - Hunting Dragons and others by Hi-Reciprocity (Simon Satori)

“What people believe prevails over the truth.” — Sophocles

In every age, mankind finds something new to fear, something new to believe in — dragons in the dark, madness in the moonlight, or the quiet anxieties of the modern world. The superstition changes… but the instinct does not.

Tonight, I step aside and welcome a new voice to the hearth.

All of tonight’s works have been written and performed by Simon Satori of Hi-Reciprocity — a collection of haunting, thought-provoking pieces that explore fear, belief, mortality, and the strange edges of the human mind.

Tonight’s works include:
• Instructions for Avoiding Ghosts (1:40)
• Hunting Dragons (2:50)
• Unsure Myself (6:25)
• And the Dead Have Got to Live Somewhere (7:35)
• Progress Within the Program (9:50)
• In Admiration of Meta Physical Mechanics (11:05)
• Red Sky Descending (13:40)
• See No Evil (15:00)

More of Simon’s work can be found here:

Facebook: Hi-Reciprocity

https://hi-reciprocity.bandcamp.com/

So come… draw closer to the fire, and listen well.

The Fire is Lit!

Follow the journey on Instagram: @Doctor.Embers
Speak with me directly: doctor.embers@outlook.com

If something you hear stays with you,
 you are always welcome to share it —
 a thought, a reflection, or even a story of your own.

Join the circle — like and subscribe,
 so you never miss a chance to journey with us.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:28

This is Verse in Tales, a podcast of story and poetry told by the fire. In the Middle Ages, many feared dragons. In the Victorian era, they feared madness beneath the moon. Today we fear gluten, carbs, seed, oils, screens, AI, or whatever new spectre the age invents for us. The superstition changes, but the instinct to believe does not. As Sophocles once said, What people believe prevails over the truth. Tonight I welcome a new voice to guide us on our journey. For all of tonight's works were written and composed by Simon Satory from High Reciprocity, and you'll find all his details in the episode notes. And now, without further ado, I shall hand you over.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Instructions for avoiding ghosts When the offerings go up in smoke, we remain straight faced at the killing joke, and we regret we ever spoke, or never had the nerve. When we pick through the ash and bone, and sift condemn from the will condone, the preparations made at home, the coal dish that they serve. Paper cars and cash and paper planes, a gift too late and too mundane, given with incense, prayer and pain, and the rules of filial piety, claimed by gods and claimed by flame, shared by clan and that share the name. This is not the first time we all came to the halls of notoriety. When one in three souls leave from here, and the fleshy vessels disappear, and we toast with rice and tiger beer, as they would have wanted. We'll meet again to clean the plot, we'll add to ledger, list and lot, we'll place the name on the clod in the cot, then we shall not be haunted. Hunting dragons On that day Sir Paragon was hoisted by his stable staff upon his huge charger, Cambriarch, to ride out of his keep to search for sport. His lands were bordered by mountains, and the mountains were peppered with caves, and in caves, as all knights knew, were bandersnatches, basilisks, and best of all bell dragons. Sir Paragron knew that dragons were the best of sport, and you could dine with the king for many years on the tale of how you fought and brought down the mighty beast. A dragon's teeth necklace showed your bravery. A dragon bone chair showed your right to rule, and any other trophies represented any number of worthy traits. Thus, he was a little upset to have been stopped before he even reached the foothills by young girl, hair and eruption of blonde curls, eyes twin beacons of innocent blue, and a smile of arrogant and awkward youth. Clear the way, young girl, he bellowed from inside his armour.

SPEAKER_04 3:58

Where are you riding to?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

said the girl, with none of the deference due.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

I'm riding to bring down the bell dragon to the mountains, to the beast's cave.

SPEAKER_04 4:07

Where they wait passively to be killed by knights?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

she said, with a mixture of innocence and insolence.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Well, they also come out of their caves to kill maidens, burn crops, and steal treasures. Out of my way for the good of the land and your own safety.

SPEAKER_04 4:22

Have you ever seen the dragon?

SPEAKER_00 4:23

said the small girl, with small girl curiosity in her voice.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Well, no, but when I do I shall vanquish it for the sake of us all.

SPEAKER_04 4:32

But how do you know what they look like?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

I know. He said, with a conviction born of position and power.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

But how do you know that they kill maidens and burn crops?

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Because I have it on authority of wiser and more reliable counsel than you, little one.

SPEAKER_04 4:48

So dragons don't look like little girls, and don't roam the countryside hunting arrogant knights for the sake of us all.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Balderdash, Hokum, Poppycock, Sir Paragon, until the girl, quite upset, growled a loud, if high pitched growl that startled Cambriac, who reared and threw his rider to the ground. Infated beyond the manners and decorum of a knight. Sir Paragon struggled ungainly back onto Cambriac, and cursing the girl's impetuousness, he rode away to a satisfactory charging distance. The girl growled her silly, childish growl again. She was only the height of a war horse's kneecaps, but still she stood and waited as the knight's lance bore down towards her. She did not move. She remained fixed as a mountain, despite the horse's momentum and the armoured knight's bulk, and the sharp point of the lance, and instead, on contact with the girl, Sir Paragon was forced into the air to come down awkwardly upon the ground, with the snapping sound of his neck echoing around his big metal helmet. Cambriarch, all angry eyes and steam snorting nostrils hit the dragon at speed, and crumpled into a sprawl of legs and mane and tail, never to get up again. The dragon smiled, her little girl smile, and dragged off her trophies, impossibly large for such a small girl, a bucket sized helmet, and a lance, and four horseshoes. Unsure myself When I was young I practised with conjuring rhymes of rivers of myth. E. g. I'd talk of crossing the sticks to satisfy a classic's itch. But I'd read about each damned location, and was thus unsure of pronunciation. So I talked about crossing over the leafy with the vampires, cruel and teafy. Then I learnt a little ancient Greek and how they might or might not speak, so was now concerned that the great Le Fi might not suit two Jerome's or me, and that sailing along the river Leaf might have more truth in syllables brief. And that perhaps it's called the river Le Fey, but only dead Greeks can really say Leafy Leaf La Fe without certainty, belief, dismay or doubt. And the dead have got to live somewhere. Every name and face an act of kindness.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

And the dead have got to live somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Churchyards with green sod meniscuses rising above the lip of the iron railings hint at what is pushing up from the resting places, standing room only and the failings to take account of the diminishing spaces.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

And the dead have got to live somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

The bulging brick and concrete boxes, the stone tapes ripe with subconscious recordings, yield the vein of dead in the layers of living, a collection worth the hoarding, and an undertaking worth the giving.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

And the dead have got to live somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Three pounds of throbbing grey real estate packed with unlikely association ghettos. Those I met or met only on screen or page. Cluttering thoughts with more mementos than can fit easily in the living age.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

And the dead have got to live somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Maybe renting those screens and pages. If science has no room, then the arts must provide. Simply divide the responsibility. Their presence cannot be denied, their absence only in physicality.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

And the dead have got to live somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Entangled in a twin stream vortex, a cry for attention in a family portrait, a hereditary disease, marker or quirk. There the dead are the proud authors. There the living are the posthumous work.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

And the dead have got to live somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

In a jigsaw of discarded pieces, the dead dispersed in carpets, clothing and curtains, teeth kept for fairies, hair and loose dust, tangible, physical and certain. Energy is matter and nothing is lost. And the dead and the dead and the dead and the dead live on Progress within the program Day nine of the program, and I'm feeling pretty sick. A nausea laid smothering and thick. The side effects are creeping to the centre, and I'm sleeping less and less and less than half as quick. Day nine of the program a disclaimer signed in blood, weighed against almost everything I loved. I brought it on myself, this experiment in thought and health, fashioning a figure in prayer and mud. Day nine of the program, and you doubted my commitment. This ritual, this status, this is statement. It's intense and immersive, and I curse it, though it's worth it, and every purchase metaphorical has payment. Day nine of the program, and I'm perspiring a new ocean, a wash in cinnabar and lead in equal portions. I've embraced the texts of a hundred cults and sects, refined a thousand years of knowledge into potion. Day nine of the program, and what should happen then? Day ten. But the best way to travel, to watch sins unravel, is on the funicular to hell. And gentle ladies on their way to Hades might balk at the prospect to walk. Now relax in repose as the devil only knows, on the funicular to hell. When Dante wrote his travel guides, there was nothing to be seen, but now moral descent's more convenient, and the nightmare journey's a dream. For late in the eighteen eighties, as engineers surveyed the slopes, they declared that it wasn't the angle that diminishes all hopes, and technology could be utilized and installed at a reasonable cost, to provide a modern mode of transport worthy of the souls of the lost. It's so quick to go to the inferno, a rapid descent to lament, from where excuses begin to your deadliest sin, ride the funicular to hell. For less than a tenor embark for Gehenna, for lack of a care there's despair. For want of good acts, there's a seat at the back on the funicular to hell. The funicular speaks of spiritual balance and of energy conservation. As one carriage goes up, another goes down, each passenger deserves their station. They paved it on good intentions, run it on fascist schedules, an elegant bit of industrial kit, a luxurious posthumous prelude. The counterweight is a counterpoint to theological debates of law, but honestly, once the doors are closed, you already know what you're there for. The slothful are grateful for the ride, the proud admire the engineering, some will rage against the change, the distractions are endearing, on the funicular to hell. Some glutton seek to ride it twice, some are greedy to embark, some lust for speed or sudden stops, some envy heaven's theme park, from the slow fall the downward pull, the brief spell in the glass case shell, of a parallel carousel, the funicular to hell. Red sky descending The evening ended with Shepherd's Delight, a red sky descending. Slightly dizzy, euphoric, I felt a warmth running down my face from my crown towards the lower chakras, a transcendental realignment of liquid energy. The blood was filling the safety goggles, and from my viewpoint it was a biblical deluge. I had managed to scalp myself like a self hating Native American from an old cowboy film. Hardly deep, hardly serious, a tentative surgeon's first incision, but the rain fell heavy all the way to the hospital. You showed care and consideration. A nurse, a doctor, a mother, a carer. You said the comforting words we all long to hear. The words that mean I love you. I wish you only good. I need you to heal because I do not like seeing you in pain. It hurts me too. You are important to me. We are blood bonded. You said the words Quietly and with compassion you said Next time I'll bloody tell you to duck. This is from a conversation with a Church of England exorcist. See no evil. I haven't seen nothing of voodoo or hoodoo, but I've smelt the mildew, the incense and fear. No candles, no tapers, just unexplained vapours, but I haven't seen nothing, or nothing was clear. I haven't seen nothing of warlocks or witches, but I've heard scratches from under my bed. The fools believe in ghosts and goblins. I haven't seen nothing, so I'll trust that instead. Keep your eyes closed, it's about to begin. Keep your eyes closed and count to ten. If you can't see them they can't see you. It's the only logical thing to do to make it through. I haven't seen nothing of sorcery and such, but I've felt cold, I felt watched, I felt touched. Unfounded sensation is no indication, and I haven't seen nothing if I had it's too much. I haven't seen nothing of visions or phantoms, while I close my eyes at the beginning of this. I could try to dispense with my other few senses, then my ignorance would surely be bliss. Complete and incorruptible bliss.