PC046: Secret Life
Show Notes
Rated R. Contains an office which in turn contains despair which in turn contains hope.
Secret Life
by Jeff VanderMeer
A vision of the building from on high: five glittering floors surrounded by a dull concrete parking lot. To the west lay a forest. To the east, the glint of a shopping mall, substantial as a mirage. To the north, highways and fast food restaurants. To the south, a perpetual gloom through which could be seen only more shadow.
The building housed hundreds of people. They worked day and night, as relentless and constant as the seasons. The first four stories lay open to all, but no one could visit the fifth floor without a special key. Few had ever seen the roof.
The stairs were used for emergencies only. Some of the elevators clanked and groaned. Some of the elevators, quiet and smooth as ghosts, rose and fell with limitless grace.
Most inhabitants of the building, even the janitors in the basement, it was rumored, preferred the noisy elevators. When the quiet elevators reached the first floor, a scream could sometimes be heard, as of an animal trapped and then crushed beneath their feet. The screams might continue for several minutes. No one knew what kind of animal it was, or how it came to be trapped there.
About the Author
Jeff VanderMeer
Jeff VanderMeer is the author of Hummingbird Salamander; the Borne novels (Borne, The Strange Bird, and Dead Astronauts); and the Southern Reach series (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance), the first volume of which won the Nebula Award and Shirley Jackson Award and was adapted into a movie by Paramount. He has spoken at MIT, Columbia, Yale, and Vanderbilt, and gave the 2024 John Hersey Memorial Address at the Key West Literary Seminar. Environmental nonfiction by VanderMeer has appeared in Time, The Nation, Current Affairs, and Esquire, among others. VanderMeer founded the Sunshine State Biodiversity Group nonprofit in 2023. Forthcoming work includes Absolution, a fourth Southern Reach novel.
About the Narrator
Paul Tevis
Paul Tevis is an Ennie-award winning podcaster whose shows Have Games, Will Travel and The Voice of the Revolution discuss games, game design, and gamer subculture. He is an active participant in this subculture, and is a recognizable figure at many of its conventions. He has released his own game, A Penny for My Thoughts, in the summer of 2009 through Evil Hat Productions.
