Speaker 1: Welcome to bedtime Stories for grown ups in which nothing
Speaker 1: much happens, You feel good, and then you fall asleep.
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Nikolay. I read and write all the stories
Speaker 1: you hear on Nothing Much Happens Audio Engineering is by
Speaker 1: Bob Wittersheim Nothing Much Happens. The book is available in
Speaker 1: many countries right now, and for pre order in many more.
Speaker 1: Get yours from your favorite bookseller, or learn more at
Speaker 1: Nothing Much Happens dot com. Let me say a bit
Speaker 1: about how this podcast works. Just as your body needs
Speaker 1: a bed to sleep in, your mind needs a place
Speaker 1: to rest, someplace calm and safe and simple. That's what
Speaker 1: the story is. A place to rest your mind. I'll
Speaker 1: tell the story twice, and I'll go a bit slower
Speaker 1: the second time through. As you listen, pull the details
Speaker 1: of the story around you like a blanket, imagine yourself
Speaker 1: in the story, and before you know it, likely before
Speaker 1: I finish reading, you'll be deeply and peacefully asleep. If
Speaker 1: you wake again in the middle of the night, walk
Speaker 1: yourself back through any details from the story you can remember.
Speaker 1: It'll put your mind right back into its nest, and
Speaker 1: soon you'll be waking up tomorrow feeling relaxed and refreshed.
Speaker 1: Now it's time to settle in and set yourself up
Speaker 1: for sleep. Turn off the light, set aside anything you've
Speaker 1: been looking at or working on. Adjust your pillows and comforter.
Speaker 1: Until you feel completely at ease. You are about to
Speaker 1: fall asleep. You will sleep deeply all night. Take a
Speaker 1: deep breath in through your nose and sigh through the
Speaker 1: mouth again. Breathe in and out. Good. Our story tonight
Speaker 1: is called The Other Innkeeper, and it's a story about
Speaker 1: a memory and the path it lays out. It's also
Speaker 1: about a card waiting to fall into the right hands,
Speaker 1: creaking hallway floors, and the end of something that may
Speaker 1: actually be a beginning. The Other Innkeeper. I hadn't planned
Speaker 1: to go out. I'd been sitting in my favorite arm
Speaker 1: chair with a book open on my lap, looking out
Speaker 1: through the second floor window at the tree tops across
Speaker 1: the street. I'd been shifting my attention back and forth
Speaker 1: between the pages of the book and the afternoon light
Speaker 1: as it slid over the bright orange leaves still clinging
Speaker 1: to their branches. The book was a local history. I'd
Speaker 1: gotten it the day before on a walk through the
Speaker 1: neighborhood at a corner i'd noticed one of those small
Speaker 1: lending cabinets of books. I almost didn't stop. The skies
Speaker 1: were turning gray, and it seemed like rain was on
Speaker 1: its way. But for some reason I found myself turning
Speaker 1: back to it, reaching up for the handle, and opening
Speaker 1: it up to see what books lined its shelves. There
Speaker 1: were spy novels, their paperback spines cracked a dozen places,
Speaker 1: a couple of Agatha Christie books, some children's picture books
Speaker 1: that looked well loved, with worn edges, and perhaps a
Speaker 1: few tooth marks from a family dog. I stopped to
Speaker 1: look up at the house behind this little library and
Speaker 1: realized that it was one I'd thought long abandoned. I'd
Speaker 1: never seen a light on in its windows, or a
Speaker 1: car parked on its cobblestone drive. It didn't seem to
Speaker 1: be falling apart, just empty, and I wondered who had
Speaker 1: driven this post into the corner of its lot and fast,
Speaker 1: and the little library to it. When I looked back
Speaker 1: into the shelves, I saw poking out from behind a
Speaker 1: tall chemistry text, likely discarded in frustration, a thin black
Speaker 1: book with the name of the town across the spine.
Speaker 1: I had slipped it out, tucked it under my arm,
Speaker 1: and made it home just as the rain started to
Speaker 1: come down. Today was a clear, sunny day, and with
Speaker 1: the light falling across my lap, I turned the pages slowly,
Speaker 1: flipping through black and white photos with captions and dates
Speaker 1: and footnotes about the people and places they surrounded. I
Speaker 1: liked the photos of down Town best. Many of the
Speaker 1: first buildings constructed in our town were still standing, and
Speaker 1: though it took a bit of looking, I could usually
Speaker 1: orient myself by the old photos. A three story building
Speaker 1: with a long awning and fancy cornices, whose windows were
Speaker 1: painted with tall letters declaring dry goods, was still there
Speaker 1: and now held a toy shop on the first floor
Speaker 1: with apartments above. I had bought a present for a
Speaker 1: young friend's birthday there just the week before, and I
Speaker 1: remembered stopping to squat down to reach for a set
Speaker 1: of building blocks on a low shelf, and seeing faint
Speaker 1: initials burned into the old oak floors. It looked like
Speaker 1: it had been done with a small branding iron, and
Speaker 1: I imagined a mischievous child busily marking their initials in
Speaker 1: behind a shelf while their parent was serving customers on
Speaker 1: the other side. I'd run my finger tips over the
Speaker 1: letters J, P, G and wondered where they'd ended up,
Speaker 1: and if they'd thought sometimes about this patch of wood floor,
Speaker 1: and how it had felt to leave their mark on
Speaker 1: the world. There was a word for this, a very
Speaker 1: tricky one that I had learned from a scrabble champion cousin,
Speaker 1: and I said it aloud as I touched the floor,
Speaker 1: Zilo pyrography fire writing on wood. I looked back at
Speaker 1: the photo of the storefront. There were a few young
Speaker 1: ones playing on the sidewalk, and I wondered how much
Speaker 1: trouble there had been when that bit of graffiti had
Speaker 1: been discovered. On the last page, I found a picture
Speaker 1: of the old Inn on the lake at the far
Speaker 1: side of downtown. It was a place I'd been in
Speaker 1: love with as a child, its broad porch with stepping
Speaker 1: stones down to the water, its front gardens full of delphinium,
Speaker 1: Its locally famous coffee cake with the swirl of crunchy
Speaker 1: cinnamon in the middle. One picture showed a side view
Speaker 1: with long strands of ivy climbing up the stone walls
Speaker 1: to the turret that I'd always imagined must house a
Speaker 1: huge four poster bed and a matching dressing table, hung
Speaker 1: with a mere speckled and cloudy with age. It had
Speaker 1: closed years ago when I was still a child, but
Speaker 1: I'd gotten to step inside it a few times when
Speaker 1: family came from out of state to visit and booked
Speaker 1: a room, and then at their annual Halloween parties. I
Speaker 1: remembered the smell of the wood polish, and the big
Speaker 1: book on the front desk that spun around on a
Speaker 1: lazy Susan. There had been sepia toned pictures in thick
Speaker 1: carved frames on the walls, and the old wood floors
Speaker 1: in the sitting room creaked in a friendly, satisfying way.
Speaker 1: Suddenly I wanted to see it again. I talked to
Speaker 1: the book of photos into my bag and was rolling
Speaker 1: my bicycle out of the garage within a few minutes.
Speaker 1: I was glad I'd pulled a hat and scarf from
Speaker 1: the coat rack by the front door on my way out.
Speaker 1: Even with the sun still shining in the western sky,
Speaker 1: the air rushing past me as I peddled was crisp.
Speaker 1: I pulled deep breaths of it in as I circled
Speaker 1: through downtown. I gave a friendly nod to the toy
Speaker 1: shop building and the ghost of J. P. G as
Speaker 1: I coasted past. Soon I was turning my bike down
Speaker 1: the drive to the inn. Weeds had grown high through
Speaker 1: the pavers, and the garden had long ago gone wild,
Speaker 1: but in the best possible way. The neat paths were
Speaker 1: overtaken by local grasses and wild flowers and tall stalks
Speaker 1: of milkweed, and I imagined honey bees and squirrels and
Speaker 1: butterflies were thriving and happy here. I propped my bike
Speaker 1: against a post at the front door, realizing it must
Speaker 1: have originally been a place to hitch a horse drawn carriage.
Speaker 1: I took careful steps up the front porch, just wanting
Speaker 1: to show the place a bit of respect. I knew
Speaker 1: no one was there, hadn't been for decades, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't here to take advantage of its lack of keeper.
Speaker 1: I was here to be a keeper myself, even if
Speaker 1: just for an afternoon. I cupped my hands around my
Speaker 1: eyes and peered in through a front window to the
Speaker 1: reception room. The desk was still there, with its dozen
Speaker 1: or so cubbies on the wall, each meant to hold
Speaker 1: a room key or a piece of mail. For the guests.
Speaker 1: The book was too, though it had been finally closed,
Speaker 1: and an inch of dust lay on top of the
Speaker 1: cracked cover. I walked around the side of the grand
Speaker 1: old house and looked through a window where I remembered
Speaker 1: the sitting room had been. The tables and chairs were
Speaker 1: draped with white sheets, and the light bulbs had been
Speaker 1: unscrewed from their sconces. But there were still books on
Speaker 1: the case that ran along one wall. What I'd give
Speaker 1: to have a look through those books, to feel their
Speaker 1: covers in my hands and turn their aging pages around.
Speaker 1: I went to the very back of the inn and
Speaker 1: down the path to the water. There was a bench
Speaker 1: right at the edge of the shore whose seat still
Speaker 1: had a few flakes of dark green paint protecting the wood.
Speaker 1: I sat down gingerly and found it still sound and stable.
Speaker 1: I took the book from my bag and looked again
Speaker 1: at the pictures of this old inn captured in its
Speaker 1: glory days. Its back porch had been full of tables,
Speaker 1: visitors raising coffee cups and staff, and clean aprons carrying
Speaker 1: trays loaded with breakfast plates. As I stood to walk
Speaker 1: back up to the inn, something fell from the pages
Speaker 1: of the book, and I stooped down to pick it up.
Speaker 1: It was a card bigger than a playing card, with
Speaker 1: a pretty pattern on its back, a tarot card. I
Speaker 1: turned it over, the Six of Cups. I knew almost
Speaker 1: nothing about tarot. I had just never been much interested.
Speaker 1: But it just so happened that I knew this card.
Speaker 1: I ran my finger over the surface and looked back
Speaker 1: at the end. At one of those Halloween parties, me
Speaker 1: sitting on my mother's lap in front of a woman
Speaker 1: with kind gray eyes and a deck of cards. She'd
Speaker 1: shown this card to the two of us and smilingly
Speaker 1: told us it was a card for memories, for making
Speaker 1: them and thinking back to them. She'd said it was
Speaker 1: a card for kindness and good deeds and simple pleasures.
Speaker 1: Mom had squeezed me in her arms, I'd said, softly
Speaker 1: in my ear, let's make a memory right now, let's
Speaker 1: remember tonight, Let's remember to be kind. And I had
Speaker 1: the Six of Cups was still in my head and heart.
Speaker 1: It had been a gift to day to remember this
Speaker 1: place and that moment with my mother. I didn't know
Speaker 1: who had given me this gift, who had tucked this
Speaker 1: card into this book and left it inside the cupboard
Speaker 1: on the corner. Who had steered my bicycle to this
Speaker 1: spot to day? Gifts have a way of leading us
Speaker 1: to continue the momentum of generosity, And as I walked
Speaker 1: back to my bike, I wondered, if this old place
Speaker 1: I'd still have a few years left in her, could
Speaker 1: there be a way to open her doors again, to
Speaker 1: dig up the recipe for the coffee cake, and pull
Speaker 1: the sheets off the old armchairs, and maybe by this
Speaker 1: time next year post a party and make more memories.
Speaker 1: All dreams have to start somewhere. The other innkeeper, I
Speaker 1: hadn't planned to go out. I'd been sitting in a
Speaker 1: favorite armchair with a book open on my lap, looking
Speaker 1: out through the second floor window at the tree tops
Speaker 1: across the street. I'd been shifting my attention back and
Speaker 1: forth between the pages of the book and the afternoon
Speaker 1: light as it slid over the bright orange leaves still
Speaker 1: clinging to their branches. The book was a local history.
Speaker 1: I've gotten it the day before on a walk through
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. At a corner I'd noticed one of those
Speaker 1: small lending cabinets of books. I almost didn't stop. The
Speaker 1: skies were turning gray and it seemed like rain was
Speaker 1: on its way, but for some reason, I found myself
Speaker 1: turning back to it, reaching up for the handle, and
Speaker 1: opening it up to see what books lined its shelves.
Speaker 1: There were spy novels, their paperback spines cracked in a
Speaker 1: dozen places, a couple of Agatha Christie books, some children's
Speaker 1: picture books that looked well loved, with worn edges, and
Speaker 1: perhaps a few tooth marks from a family dog. I
Speaker 1: stopped to look up at the house behind this little
Speaker 1: library and realized that it was one I'd thought long abandoned.
Speaker 1: I'd never seen a light on in its windows or
Speaker 1: a car parked on its cobblestone drive. It didn't seem
Speaker 1: to be falling apart, just empty, and I wondered who
Speaker 1: had driven this post into the corner of its lot
Speaker 1: and fastened the little library to it. When I looked
Speaker 1: back into the shelves, I saw poking out from behind
Speaker 1: a tall chemistry text, likely discarded in frustration, a thin
Speaker 1: black book with the name of the town across the spine.
Speaker 1: I'd slipped it out, tucked it under my arm, and
Speaker 1: made it home just as the rain started to come down.
Speaker 1: Today was a clear, sunny day, and with the light
Speaker 1: falling across my lap, I turned the pages slowly, flipping
Speaker 1: through black and white photos with captions and dates and
Speaker 1: footnotes about the people and places they surrounded. I liked
Speaker 1: the photos of downtown best. Many of the first buildings
Speaker 1: constructed in our town were still standing, and though it
Speaker 1: took a bit of looking, I could usually orient myself
Speaker 1: by the old photos. The three story building with the
Speaker 1: long awning and fancy cornices, whose windows were painted with
Speaker 1: tall letters declaring dry Goods, was still there and now
Speaker 1: held a toy shop on the first floor with apartments above.
Speaker 1: I had bought a present for a young friend's birthday
Speaker 1: there just the week before, and I remembered stopping to
Speaker 1: squat down to reach for a set of building blocks
Speaker 1: on a low shelf and seeing faint initials burned into
Speaker 1: the old oak floors. It looked like it had been
Speaker 1: done with a small branding iron, and I imagined a
Speaker 1: mischievous child busily marking their initials in behind a shelf
Speaker 1: while their parent was serving customers on the other side.
Speaker 1: I'd run my fingertips over the letters J, P, G
Speaker 1: and wondered where they'd ended up and if they thought
Speaker 1: sometimes about this patch of wood floor, and how it
Speaker 1: had felt to leave their mark on the world. There
Speaker 1: was a word for this, a very tricky one that
Speaker 1: I'd learned from a scrabble champion cousin. I said it
Speaker 1: aloud as I touched the floor, zy low pirography fire
Speaker 1: writing on wood. I looked back at the photo of
Speaker 1: the storefront. There were a few young ones playing on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk, and I wondered how much trouble there had
Speaker 1: been when that bit of graffiti had been discovered. On
Speaker 1: the last page, I found a picture of the old
Speaker 1: Inn on the lake on the far side of downtown.
Speaker 1: It was a place I'd been in love with as
Speaker 1: a child. It's broad porch with stepping stones down to
Speaker 1: the water, Its front gardens full of delphinium. It's locally
Speaker 1: famous coffee cake with the swirl of crunchy cinnamon in
Speaker 1: the middle. One picture showed a side view with long
Speaker 1: strands of ivy climbing up the stone walls to the
Speaker 1: turret that I had always imagined must house, a huge
Speaker 1: four poster bed and a matching dressing paple hung with
Speaker 1: a mirror speckled I'm cloudy with age. It had closed
Speaker 1: years ago when I was still a child, but I'd
Speaker 1: gotten to step inside it a few times when family
Speaker 1: from out of state came to visit and booked a room,
Speaker 1: and then at their annual Halloween parties. I remembered the
Speaker 1: smell of the wood polish and the big book on
Speaker 1: the front desk that spun around on a lazy Susan.
Speaker 1: There had been sepia toned pictures in thick carved frames
Speaker 1: on the walls, and the old floors in the sitting
Speaker 1: room creaked in a friendly, satisfying way. Suddenly I wanted
Speaker 1: to see it again. I tucked the book of photos
Speaker 1: into my bag and was rolling my bicycle out of
Speaker 1: the garage within a few minutes. I was glad I'd
Speaker 1: pulled a hat and scarf from the coat rack by
Speaker 1: the door on my way out. Even with the sun
Speaker 1: still shining in the western sky, the air rushing past
Speaker 1: me as I peddled was crisp. I pulled deep breaths
Speaker 1: of it in as I circled through downtown. I gave
Speaker 1: a friendly nod to the toy shop building and the
Speaker 1: ghost of J. P. G as I coasted past. Soon
Speaker 1: I was turning my bike down the drive to the inn.
Speaker 1: Weeds had grown high through the pavers, and the garden
Speaker 1: had long ago gone wild, but in the best possible way.
Speaker 1: The neat paths were overtaken by local grasses and wild
Speaker 1: flowers and tall stalks of milkweed, and I imagined honey
Speaker 1: bees and squirrels and butterflies were thriving and happy here.
Speaker 1: I propped my bike against a post at the front door,
Speaker 1: realizing it must have originally been a place to hitch
Speaker 1: a horse drawn carriage. I took careful steps up the
Speaker 1: front porch, just wanting to show the place a bit
Speaker 1: of respect. I knew no one was there, hadn't been
Speaker 1: for decades, but I wasn't here to take advantage of
Speaker 1: its lack of keeper. I was here to be a
Speaker 1: keeper myself, even if just for an afternoon. I cupped
Speaker 1: my hands around my eyes and peered in through a
Speaker 1: front window to the reception room. The desk was still there,
Speaker 1: with its dozen or so cubbies on the wall, each
Speaker 1: meant to hold a room key or a piece of
Speaker 1: mail for the guests. The book was too, though it
Speaker 1: had been finally closed, and an inch of dust lay
Speaker 1: on top of the cracked cover. I walked around the
Speaker 1: side of the grand old house and looked through a
Speaker 1: window where I remembered the sitting room had been. The
Speaker 1: tables and chairs were draped with white sheets, and the
Speaker 1: light bulbs had been unscrewed from their sconces. But there
Speaker 1: were still books on the case that ran along one wall.
Speaker 1: What I'd give to look through those books, to feel
Speaker 1: their covers in my hands and turn their aging pages around.
Speaker 1: I went to the very back of the inn and
Speaker 1: down the path to the water. There was a bench
Speaker 1: right at the edge of the shore whose seat still
Speaker 1: had a few flakes of dark green paint protecting the wood.
Speaker 1: I sat down gingerly and found it still sound and stable.
Speaker 1: I took the book from my bag and looked again
Speaker 1: at the pictures of this old inn captured in its
Speaker 1: glory days. Its back porch had been full of tables,
Speaker 1: visitors raising coffee cups, and staff in clean aprons carrying
Speaker 1: trays loaded with breakfast plates. As I stood to walk
Speaker 1: back up to the inn, something fell from the pages
Speaker 1: of the book, and I stooped down to pick it up.
Speaker 1: It was a card bigger than a playing card, with
Speaker 1: a pretty pattern on its back, a tarot card. I
Speaker 1: turned it over, the Six of Cups. I knew almost
Speaker 1: nothing about Taro, had just never been much interested. But
Speaker 1: it just so happened that I knew this card. I
Speaker 1: ran my finger over the surface and looked back at
Speaker 1: the inn. At one of those Halloween parties, me sitting
Speaker 1: on my mother's lap in front of a woman with
Speaker 1: kind gray eyes and attack of cards. She'd shone this
Speaker 1: card to the two of us and smilingly told us
Speaker 1: it was a card for memories, for making them and
Speaker 1: thinking back to them. She'd said it was a card
Speaker 1: for kindness and good deeds and simple pleasures. Mom had
Speaker 1: squeezed me in her arms and said, softly in my ear,
Speaker 1: let's make a memory right now. Let's remember tonight, Let's
Speaker 1: remember to be kind And I had the Six of
Speaker 1: Cups was still in my head and heart. It had
Speaker 1: been a gift to day to remember this place and
Speaker 1: that moment with my mother. I didn't know who had
Speaker 1: given me this gift, who had tucked this card into
Speaker 1: the book and left it inside the cupboard on the corner,
Speaker 1: who had steered my bicycle to this spot. To day,
Speaker 1: gifts have a way of leading us to continue the
Speaker 1: momentum of generosity, and as I walked back to my bike,
Speaker 1: I wondered if this old place might still have a
Speaker 1: few years left in her Could there be a way
Speaker 1: to open her doors again, to dig up the recipe
Speaker 1: for the coffee cake and pull the sheets off the
Speaker 1: old armchairs, and maybe by this time next year host
Speaker 1: a party and make more memories. All dreams have to
Speaker 1: start somewhere. Now, off to your own sweet dreams.