Dr Embers Presents - Swipe Right: Written and Performed by Jason Buck

"Men are not punished for their sins, but by them."
 — Elbert Hubbard

We often imagine that consequences arrive from outside ourselves, but perhaps the choices we make carry their own rewards and punishments.

Tonight, award-winning storyteller Jason Buck takes us into a modern tale, a place where every choice will leave an echo.

Settle into your favourite chair, draw a little closer to the hearth, and join us for Swipe Right—a thought-provoking story written and performed by Jason Buck.

You can find more of Jason's work here:

Instagram: @jasonbuckstoryteller

YouTube: Jason Buck Storyteller

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_00 0:32

This is Verse and Tales, a podcast of story and poetry told by the fire. Once was a man by the name of Albert Hubbard, who once said that men are not punished for their sins, but by them. You have to imagine that karma arrives with thunder and lightning. More often our punishment is woven into our choices. The selfish man finds himself alone, the liar surrounded by suspicion. For every action leaves an echo, and tonight this tale explores what happens when desire outweighs decency, when appearance conceals darker truths, and when the consequence of our choices comes calling. I'm delighted to welcome award-winning storyteller Jason Buck, whose work I greatly admire to guide us on tonight's journey. So draw a little closer to the hearth and join us for Swipe Right by Jason Buck.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

The window stretched from floor to ceiling, and in turn stood on the side of a tower of glass and steel, offices at its base, exclusive and very private flats towards the top. She watched the red eye of the sun closing on the western horizon. She liked to watch the sun go down. She also liked to watch the sun rise. She spent a lot of time looking out of the window, looking for the sign. She knew that when the sign came it would be just as visible in the day, but irrational as she knew it was, she was always more hopeful that the sign would come at night. Earlier in the evening she had gone to the wardrobes that covered an entire wall of the apartment. Her feet stepped across rugs made from the skins of long dead animals exotic in their antiquity. The rest of the rooms, as many and as spacious in this high rise city penthouse as a large suburban dwelling, were sparsely but luxuriously decorated. Great gilt edged mirrors, their glass mottled and flowed with age, their baroque frames heavy, curlicued and gleaming. Tables with thick black marble tops, chairs and sofas from all corners of the world, and cabinets containing artifacts so old and so rare that there was little chance or point in putting a price on them so singular was their provenance. She opened the wardrobe doors, letting them concertina, folding back one upon the next upon the next to reveal her outfits. She'd sighed at some of the more tired ones that were by now eons old and selected something more modern to put on. She dressed herself, made herself look nice, and then taken a selfie with her phone. Then she'd uploaded it, named this city as her location, picked a name for herself, lied about her age, left most of her other details blank, published the profile, and went back to the window to watch and wait. Less than an hour later, she had arranged a date with a stranger, and went out to meet the man in the depths of the city. They'd met, they'd talked, he had drunk, and later that evening she'd returned home with the man. He had told her how beautiful she was, how sexy she was. He had told her exactly what he was thinking, and exactly what he wanted. She had looked into his eyes and into his heart and into his soul and seen darkness there. She had met many men and women this way, and they were all sinners, but some were in need of more, immediate judgment from a higher power, and so by way of atonement for her own sins, she would send them on their way to be judged and punished or forgiven as her father saw fit. She felt the man's pulse and breathing quicken as he took a step towards her. She'd been very careful about what she'd said, not leading him on, not entrapping him. He'd come here of his own accord, of his own free will. He put his hand under her chin, lifting up her face and looking into her tear filled eyes, and this made him smile even more. She looked back into his eyes, observing their colour and noticing how the pupils dilated with his excitement and anticipation. And then she truly opened her eyes, and a light so bright it burned with white fire shot out, and as she looked into the man's eyes, she looked into his heart and into his soul and looked at what lay hiding there. Without a cry, without a sound, without a struggle, the man's eyes widened, his mouth opened as if in amazement, and then he slowly crumpled in her arms, and a long breath sighed from him. And when she was sure that he had gone, truly gone, she let his body gently down onto the expansively tiled and easily cleaned floor, before going to a cabinet and retrieving a knife so finely crafted that nothing on earth could match its sharpness and balance, and had been forged long before humans had raised themselves up off their knuckles, and then with that knife she went to work. Later she opened the wardrobe doors again, and this time carefully hung up the new outfit before tossing in a handful of mothballs towards the far end. Then she slid off the outfit she was wearing and returned it to its place. Now just a creature of bone as black as can only be blackened by the charring of divine fire, it closed the wardrobe doors. Hips and shoulders wide enough to be strong, but not wide enough to be masculine or feminine. On its back two jointed bones that no human carried flexed and waved, severed to stumps with a blade that only divine power could sharpen to such keenness and wield it against it when it and the others fell. Now it stood, once more at the window, overlooking the knighted city, but staring up into the star filled firmament, and looking for a sign that its offering would appease its father, and that it would once more be welcomed above, and no longer be consigned to suffer here below, for ever in search of others' sin with which to wash itself clean.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

If this place has become familiar, you can follow the podcast so the next story finds you. And if you have thoughts, reflections or ideas, speak up. If you'd like to request a favorite story, poem, or theme, I am all ears. Perhaps you too have crafted a wondrous work you wish to be shared by the fire. Until we meet again. Keep the fire close.