The Lighthouse - Classic

The Heceta Lighthouse Bed & Breakfast on the Oregon Coast used to be a lightkeeper’s home–and it has a reputation for being very haunted. So Spooked producer, Zoë Ferrigno, went to investigate.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Glynn Washington?

  The night and the light sat down for tea. And there they made the wager. Said night to light, "Your sun shines bright, but I bet I can tage ya." Light laughed at night. "Try that, you might, you'd find yourself in danger." Night's eclipse swallowed the light. The night had won the wager.

• 0:37Glynn Washington?

  Listen to Spooked. Stay tuned.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Why have so many crop circles appeared around Britain? How did thousands of people demonstrate powers of telepathy? Can the dead suck the life from the living? Join me, Tim Harford, for a trip into the paranormal throughout Halloween month on Cautionary Tales. Listen to Cautionary Tales on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:15Glynn Washington?

  A while back, we received a letter from a woman named Jennifer, and Jennifer told us a story about a bed and breakfast on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Built next to a lighthouse, this Bed and Breakfast is where the lightkeepers and their families lived. And there are rumors that some of them never left. And so, on a very special episode, we're packing our bags and joining Spook producer, Zoe Fergno, on a very special field trip.

• 2:50Glynn Washington?

  Spook starts... now.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  When I first arrived at the Hisida Lighthouse Bed and Breakfast, everyone kept telling me the same thing. You have to walk up to the lighthouse at night. The view from up there is supposedly spectacular. So, that evening, I waited until the sun went down, and then I headed out, up a forested trail that snakes along the edge of a cliff.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Along the way, I ran into some people. Two of them, Lena and Rihanna, work at the Bed and Breakfast. They were on their way up to the lighthouse with Rihanna's partner, Dane, and nine-year-old son, Adric, and they invited me to join them. To be honest, I was happy to have some company. It was kind of a strange night. Wildfires were burning just to the east of us. Ash was falling from the sky like snow. And there was a haze of smoke covering the full moon.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  You see the red moon?

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's really...

• 4:35Speaker 03

  It's eerie, right?

• 4:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Finally, we reached the lighthouse. And I understood why everyone had been so insistent that I come up here. The lighthouse is beautiful. It has a bright red roof, and underneath it, rays of golden light shoot out in every direction. It's actually the brightest lighthouse beacon in the whole state of Oregon. It can be seen up to 21 miles out at sea. Back in the day, two lightkeepers took turns working through the night, keeping the lamps lit. Now, of course, the beacon is automated, but standing underneath the lighthouse in the dark? It was easy to imagine that I was back in the 1890s, when it was built.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  But then, Rihanna's son, Adrick, said something that brought me back to the moment, and why I was there.

• 5:31Speaker 04

  Hey, it looks like my beeping device. Why, after it's a ghost, it rings?

• 5:36Speaker 05

  It does look a lot like it, doesn't it? The recorder looks like your ghost-tending device?

• 5:40Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 5:41Speaker 05

  Oh, cool.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Adrick is an amateur ghost-henter. He even has a YouTube channel.

• 5:47Speaker 05

  So, Adrick, you're not scared of ghosts?

• 5:49Speaker 04

  No, never.

• 5:50Speaker 05

  How come? You're just very brave?

• 5:52Speaker 04

  Mm-mm. Well, all sorts of creepy places, and I'm never scared.

• 5:58Speaker 05

  Wow? You're braver than me?

• 6:10Speaker 02

  I'd arrived at The Bed and Breakfast earlier that day. It's a big white house with a pitched roof and a picket fence, that sits right above the ocean. It's gorgeous, but I was a little nervous about spending the night there. I'm a big scaredy cat. I'd actually asked if I could just visit The Bed and Breakfast, and then stay in a hotel in town. But my editors said no. So there I was. I checked into my room, and then I went to meet Michelle Corgan, who runs The Bed and Breakfast, for a tour of the house.

• 6:45Speaker 06

  We're gonna sneak in through the guest kitchen, and I'll show you the behind-the-scenes of that. Cool, thank you.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  Michelle led me through the dining room and two parlors on the ground floor. The house is full of antique furniture and local art, and grainy black and white photographs line the walls. Upstairs, there are six guest rooms, each decorated in a different motif.

• 7:15Speaker 06

  This one in particular has a view of the lighthouse. So we call it the Lightkeeper's Room. The light shines way above the house, so it doesn't shine right into your room here. That's beautiful. Isn't it? Yeah.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Back in the 90s, Michelle's parents were chosen by the U.S. Forest Service to help restore the house and make it more accessible to the public.

• 7:38Speaker 06

  And they thought the way to do that would be to turn it into a bed and breakfast. I came here for the summer just to figure out what's next grad school. Am I going to get some life experience, do some traveling? And I didn't leave. I haven't left the area, and that was over 25 years ago.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  By then, the old Lightkeeper's home already had a reputation for being haunted by a ghost named Rue. There were stories of people seeing the apparition of a woman wearing old-timey clothes. Legend has it that some caretakers of the house tried to get in touch with her using a Ouija board, and it spelled out R-U-E.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  The name stuck.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Michelle knew about the Rue rumors when she moved into the house, but...

• 8:38Speaker 06

  I've kind of always downplayed the ghost story because I feel like our intent here is to talk about the history and to really honor the hard work that it took these families to have a go at living 15 miles from any small town nowhere in these harsh traditions. Does that mean that you don't believe in it? Oh, no. I think there's definitely something here. It's definitely had very odd things happen in this house.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  In each of the rooms, there's a guest journal, where people can write about their stay, and whether or not they encountered Rue.

• 9:22Speaker 06

  Looks like it's a mixed bag of maybe, maybe not. Of ghosts, yeah. Well, I've heard that most people who aren't believers have the most experiences. OK. And that people who are really wanting and yearning for an experience have a tough time.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  I did not want to have an experience with Rue, but I kept running into the same story: that Rue was the ghost of a light keeper's wife whose child died at Hasida Head. Mary Nalty, the historian for the lighthouse, told me that there's no hard evidence to back that theory up. But a lot of people I spoke to who've worked in the house said they don't need evidence to convince them that it's haunted. Michelle told me about the time she worked a wedding at the house.

• 10:15Speaker 06

  So there's like five of us in the kitchen. We're coming to the very end of the service. We have a bowl of little baby potatoes sitting on a shelf. And we're standing there. And the bowl of potatoes basically looked to me like it levitated away from the shelf and dropped to the ground.

• 10:38Speaker 06

  And all four, five of us that are there just paused and looked at each other, like, what was that?

• 10:47Speaker 02

  I also talked to Daniel Walker, who was the caretaker at the house for four years.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  It sounds kind of silly, but the first six months, it felt like I was kind of being put to the test a little bit.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  When I'm shutting down the house for the night, I could just feel a certain presence kind of hanging over my shoulder.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Daniel and his girlfriend at the time actually lived at the house, in an apartment down in the basement.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  It must have been a few months after we'd gotten here.

• 11:49Speaker 03

  I'm laying in bed, just reading a book. I was the only one in the apartment.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  And suddenly, the objects on my end table, box of tissues, my cup, just go flying off. Like somebody just took their arm and just kind of like swept everything off of the end table.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  And then there's Jennifer Chaney. Jennifer's lived on the Oregon coast for about 40 years.

• 12:24Speaker 07

  And so I have heard many stories over the years about the Hasida Headlight House and this idea that there was a ghost named Rue.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  But that didn't stop her from taking a job at the Bed and Breakfast back in 2017. In fact, she liked hearing stories about the ghost.

• 12:45Speaker 07

  Well, I'm always one for a great story. But after working there for a couple of months, I'd come to the point where I haven't had any experiences myself. And I am not really a person who believes in things that are unexplained.

• 13:05Speaker 07

  I just wrote it off as, this is community legend and something fun to talk about. But realistically, I didn't believe that there was anything haunting the house.

• 13:25Speaker 07

  I'm working at the lighthouse, serving breakfast on this particular morning. We served all the guests and all the guests have left by 10 o'clock. Everybody's cleared out and the house is very quiet.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  New guests would be arriving in just a few hours. So Jennifer and her coworker Gail were hustling to clean up the kitchen and get everything ready. Jennifer grabbed a stack of dishes and headed across the house to put them away.

• 13:57Speaker 07

  I'm walking through the parlor and out of the corner of my eye, in the very large mirror that sits over the couch in the parlor, I see the reflection of a woman sitting in a chair, looking out the window. Her chin is resting on her hand and she's very quiet and pensive and just staring at the ocean view. She had dark hair, she was probably in her mid-30s. She had her hair up on top of her head and she had a white blouse. I think, oh, one of our guests is still here and she's just enjoying the view before

• 14:41Speaker 07

  she leaves. And I think when I come back, I'll make eye contact with her and I'll say, isn't it a nice day? Are you still going to stay in town? Anything to just connect with them. So I put the stack of dishes down, turned around and came back. And the woman is no longer sitting in the chair. It was curious to me that she had moved so fast because she was so quiet and still the way that she was sitting and turned and looking out at the ocean so pensively. I didn't hear her leave, I didn't hear a door.

• 15:28Speaker 07

  And so I'd come back to the kitchen and I asked Gail, "Did a woman come through here?" And she said, "No." And I said, "Well, I just saw a woman out in the parlor. I think we still have a guest."

• 15:44Speaker 07

  And she said, "Oh, nobody's here." She goes, "It's just you and me."

• 15:49Speaker 07

  We look out into the back where all the cars are and there's no cars.

• 15:55Speaker 07

  At this time, the guest house is not open for outside visitors yet. So I'm not completely sure who I've seen, but I know I saw somebody.

• 16:13Speaker 07

  I said, "Gail, I just saw a woman in the parlor. She was sitting in the chair, in the red chair, looking out at the ocean." And she said, "Well, maybe you saw Rue."

• 16:29Speaker 07

  There's an awkward moment of, "Oh, huh, maybe that's what I saw."

• 16:36Speaker 07

  But it didn't seem like a figment to me. I had seen this woman as plain as day.

• 16:51Speaker 07

  It was probably a month or two later when I was cleaning in the space and there again I was alone.

• 17:00Speaker 07

  The house is quiet, there's nobody there yet. I'm sweeping and dusting up the top of the piano.

• 17:11Speaker 07

  I look up at the photos that are on the wall and there's a photo just to the left of the piano of a woman that lived in the Light Keepers home for a very long time.

• 17:26Speaker 07

  I absolutely got a shiver up my spine and I realize that is the woman that I saw sitting in the reflection of the mirror. Jenny.

• 17:49Speaker 07

  She came there from California and she was married to one of the Light Keepers. I believe it was 1910 or so.

• 18:02Speaker 07

  The story was that when Jenny was there in the very beginning, she was very unhappy for the first couple of years. She was very lonely. It's very isolated up at the Light Keepers home. She didn't have children. She was hoping to bear a child. We had records of her writing home about how lonely she was and desperate she was and that she wanted to leave.

• 18:28Speaker 07

  I feel like I just saw an image of Jenny sitting there pondering her life there.

• 18:37Speaker 07

  I think that the life that Jenny went there to live and that ended up happening for her was not originally what she planned. She married somebody that she barely knew. She came to a place that was very isolated and alone.

• 18:54Speaker 07

  She probably sat there wondering, "Am I going to be able to have a baby? Am I going to be able to have a family here of my own?" I felt like I could understand how hard that must have been.

• 19:13Speaker 07

  It was only after being there in a couple of years and expressing to her husband her desperation and loneliness that he actually wrote to the Light Keeper Society and asked permission for her to paint the walls and change some of the decor. And so she began to feel at home there.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  I asked Jennifer if she thought that the ghost everybody called Rue was actually Jenny. She said it's possible. After all, there's no record of anyone named Rue ever living in the house. But then again, they didn't always keep a record of the women who lived there. Only their husbands.

• 20:05Speaker 07

  So I've been working at the Light Keepers Home for about a year and a half.

• 20:12Speaker 07

  At this point, I'm a believer.

• 20:16Speaker 07

  But I'm never afraid to be there.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  When winter rolled around, the bed and breakfast closed for a couple of weeks for renovations. The caretaker needed a night off, so Jennifer's manager asked if anyone else would stay overnight and do security.

• 20:33Speaker 07

  So I immediately say, sure, I'll be glad to stay there. I've stayed there before when other guests were there. I know that it's a beautiful view at night. I want to watch the sunset. I ask my partner to come.

• 20:49Speaker 07

  We get there just at sunset. It's very dark. I turn on the lights and a lot of things are covered up with sheets and moved around to the center of the floor because they're painting the walls. Even the chandeliers are covered with sheets. And Steve comes in behind me and he laughs and says, "This is like a Scooby Doo cartoon. You've brought me to a haunted house and everything's covered in sheets."

• 21:24Speaker 07

  I had heard about the rumors and so I made a joke. I go, "Zoinks."

• 21:35Speaker 04

  But I don't believe it. I'm a scientist. I don't believe in anything that's not observable, confirmable, and/or tangible. These were just rumors to me.

• 21:52Speaker 04

  It's a nice, still, beautiful evening, so we decide to go out to the front porch, which looks south over the cove.

• 22:01Speaker 07

  We get in position in our Adirondack chairs, and we have our blankets tucked. We open a bottle of wine, and Steve has brought his speaker. It's crabbing season, and you can see all the lights of the fishing boats on the horizon.

• 22:21Speaker 04

  We're sitting there for about 20 minutes, listening to a bunch of different tunes, and then, all of a sudden, the front door slams closed.

• 22:34Speaker 07

  The music stops without any explanation. It gets very quiet. The front door is locked. But I had the keys in my pocket. So I get up and I try the key in the lock, and it won't turn. I can't move it. I can't get it open. It won't open, which I find mysterious.

• 23:02Speaker 07

  My only other option is to go through the basement door.

• 23:08Speaker 07

  So I walk around the house, and I go down to the basement door, and this time, my key works.

• 23:46Speaker 07

  The light switch to the basement is all the way on the other side, and I have to go through the dark. I run through as quickly as I can, and I turn the switch on, I run up the stairs,

• 24:02Speaker 07

  and as I'm walking by the parlor, I hear voices coming from the parlor.

• 24:13Speaker 07

  And my heart starts to race a little bit.

• 24:18Speaker 07

  It was almost like a man and a woman's low murmuring. I can't make out what they're saying, but it sounded like questions. What are they doing here? Why are they here? Who is this?

• 24:39Speaker 07

  But then, as I kind of start to walk forward, they stop.

• 24:46Speaker 07

  And then I looked into the parlor. There's no one there. It was really unnerving, but then I think, I'm probably just getting worked up. Maybe it's wind.

• 25:06Speaker 07

  So I go back out on the porch. We prop the door a little bit open, and we sit there for a few minutes. And we've had our glass of wine, and we've enjoyed the view, and it is starting to get a little cold. It is January, we decide we're gonna go upstairs and go to bed.

• 25:28Speaker 07

  So the room that Steve and I decide to stay in that night is the Queen Anne room. And it's really the most romantic. It's got a four-post bed. It has draping. It's dark reds and golds. It feels the most elegant and regal.

• 25:48Speaker 07

  Steve started getting settled, and I ran back down to grab some water. And I came back by the parlor and heard the voices a second time.

• 26:02Speaker 07

  When I heard the voices the first time, I made excuses for it, what it might be.

• 26:11Speaker 07

  And this time, I know I heard voices. I was getting very nervous that something was going on that could not be explained.

• 26:22Speaker 07

  I just have this uneasy feeling that we're not there alone.

• 26:32Speaker 07

  I'm going up the stairs and I'm thinking, "I'm really nervous about staying the night now." But I felt I needed to follow through with my commitment. I had said I would stay there that night for security reasons. And I always do what I say I'm going to do. So I ignored my fear. I figured, once we got all settled in, I would feel more comfortable.

• 27:02Speaker 04

  I'm tired. It's getting late. I have to work early the next morning. So I take my clothes off and pull the sheets back. And I climb on into bed. Jennifer's on my right side, near the door, doing what she needs to do to get ready for bed. And I'm just laying there quietly with my eyes closed. And then, all of a sudden, I hear a thump upstairs. And then another thump.

• 27:38Speaker 04

  And then I hear another thump.

• 27:42Speaker 07

  Just thump, thump, thump, thump, like somebody's pacing.

• 27:49Speaker 04

  I think, "Okay, it could be the house settling."

• 27:52Speaker 07

  Yeah, maybe we have rats in the attic. So I ignore it. And I don't look up at Steve. And I'm changing into my pajamas. I lean down and I hear the steps again.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  It's moving from the center of the house towards the eastern wall. Then it starts traveling along the same line back. So it's gone from one end to where the window is and back again.

• 28:25Speaker 04

  I'm thinking, this is weird.

• 28:30Speaker 04

  Is somebody up there?

• 28:35Speaker 04

  Maybe there's not a car in the parking lot, but maybe somebody has gotten into the house and jimmyed one of the doors and we just didn't notice. But I don't say anything to Jennifer.

• 28:51Speaker 07

  I pull back the covers.

• 28:54Speaker 07

  And at that moment, I hear the steps. For a third time, coming back the other way.

• 29:05Speaker 07

  At this point, I'm scared.

• 29:10Speaker 07

  I look Steve in the eye and he says,

• 29:15Speaker 04

  "I'm out."

• 29:17Speaker 04

  I throw back the covers and I tell Jennifer, "Let's go. We are out of here." I want to go get in our car and I want to drive home.

• 29:28Speaker 04

  I don't believe what I'm about to say, but we're not wanted there. I just feel it on an intuitive level.

• 29:39Speaker 07

  And I say, "We can't. We can't leave." And he goes, "Did you just hear footsteps?" And I said, "Yes." And he goes, "Did you hear it before?" And I said, "Yes." And he goes, "You can stay if you want to, but I'm leaving."

• 29:56Speaker 07

  I say, "Okay, we'll go." I will tell my manager what happened. She'll understand. It'll be okay.

• 30:05Speaker 07

  I feel extreme urgency at this point to get out of there and get away from this place that I have always felt comfortable and never scared.

• 30:16Speaker 07

  So we both start packing up our things. I'm moving as quickly as I can. I throw all my stuff into the bag.

• 30:26Speaker 07

  I make sure that the lights are off, but I don't even stop to make up the bed. I just wanted to get out of there right then.

• 30:34Speaker 04

  There's flight or flight. This was flight.

• 30:42Speaker 07

  And then, at the point where going down the stairs, I have this complete sense of dread.

• 30:51Speaker 07

  My heart's racing. I'm almost afraid to look back, because I feel like there's something behind me. I felt that we were being chased out.

• 31:06Speaker 07

  I go down the stairs. I run past the parlor. I don't want to hear the voices again. We leave the building, and I lock up the doors.

• 31:18Speaker 07

  We are run-walking to the car.

• 31:25Speaker 07

  And Bluetooth speaker starts going crazy.

• 31:31Speaker 07

  Static that's increasing louder and louder.

• 31:39Speaker 07

  I look through the bag for the speaker. I find it. It's not on.

• 31:47Speaker 07

  And then, I look back up at the room that we were staying in, and the light is still on.

• 31:55Speaker 07

  I'm petrified, because I was sure that I'd turn the light off.

• 32:05Speaker 07

  Something was going on that I could not explain. And we needed to get out of there as quickly as possible.

• 32:15Speaker 07

  We get in the car. We back up. And as we're leaving, the sound went dim from the speaker.

• 32:26Speaker 07

  The further we get away, the more relieved I'm feeling.

• 32:31Speaker 07

  We get back closer to town, and I can use my phone again. I text my boss, and I say, "I'm sorry, we are not able to spend the night. We had some very strange experiences, and I can't explain it, but I'm not comfortable staying." And she writes back and says, "Now you know why I asked you to stay. I'm not staying there anymore."

• 33:01Speaker 02

  When I met Jennifer during my trip to Hissida Head, I asked her what she thinks happened that night.

• 33:09Speaker 07

  I'm almost wondering if, when I'm there as a worker, that whatever spirit is present knows me and has accepted me and it doesn't bother me. But now I'm there with this strange man that it doesn't know.

• 33:26Speaker 07

  If it is Jenny, perhaps she's confused about why her house is being torn apart, why things are being moved around. Maybe she thinks we're the people that are causing all this disruption in her house.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  She told me that she's thought a lot about the work that Jenny put into the house to try to make it feel a little bit more like hers, a little less lonely.

• 33:56Speaker 07

  She found a positive way to spend her time there. And then she became part of the space. And when things are out of order, she gets upset.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  Jennifer is not the only person who feels this way. I heard similar theories from Michelle.

• 34:21Speaker 06

  When things are in disarray or a little chaotic around here, that's when we get participation.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  And from Daniel.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  A lot of people experience their stuff being moved around. So their slippers will be straightened or their bedspread kind of flattened out.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  So a lot of the times, it seems like there is a helpful spirit here that is still just kind of taking care of the place and kind of providing hospitality to a certain extent.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  It doesn't sound very hospitable to me to knock all your stuff off of.

• 35:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. I don't know what that was about, to be honest.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  After my hike up to the lighthouse, I headed back to the bed and breakfast. All the other guests had already gone to bed, and everything was quiet. I walked through the parlor and up the stairs to the Queen Anne Room. The same room that Jennifer and Steve had tried to stay in. As I got ready for bed, I was still thinking about all the stories I'd heard about the house. And I started to wonder, if Rue or Jenny didn't like it when people made a mess in her house, how did she feel about people with tape recorders wandering around and asking questions?

• 35:57Speaker 02

  It didn't feel scary in the house. It was actually really cozy and warm. But just for good measure...

• 36:11Speaker 02

  To Rue, to Jenny, to whoever might be here, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Your house is beautiful. And please don't scare me in the night. Thank you so much, and... Goodnight.

• 36:47Glynn Washington?

  Thank you. Thank you, thank you so much to all those who shared their knowledge and their stories about the Light Keepers home. To Jennifer, to Steve, Michelle, Mary, Daniel, and Adrick. This story, it's dedicated to the memory of Pam Porter, Zoe's beloved grandmother. May you rest in blessings, and wherever you are, know that your granddaughter loves you very much, as you loved her. The original score for this story was by Doug Stewart. It was produced by Pam Porter's granddaughter, Zoe Fregno.

• 37:41Glynn Washington?

  If you need more spooked, be afraid. Because each and every week, you can listen anywhere, on any platform. Please let somebody know it's the only way this works. And spooksters, this was a story about a very specific place. Maybe you know of a very specific place that we need to know about. And if you do, please tell me about it. [email protected]. That's the only way this happens. And there's nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener. [email protected]. If you'd like your storytelling that is not cloaked in shadow,

• 38:24Glynn Washington?

  embrace our sister podcast, the amazing, stupendous Snap Judgment. Snap is gonna take you for a ride. Snap Judgment's on podcast platforms everywhere.

• 38:47Glynn Washington?

  Spooked is brought to you by the team that won't hesitate to travel to a cold, desolated, overhang in order to seek the heart of the mystery. Except, of course, for Mark Ristich. He's all about the room service and the hot tub. There's Davy Kim, Zoe Frigno, Anne Ford, Eric Ganes, Teo Decot, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Doug Stewart, Paulina Kriki, Elizabeth Z. Pardue, Adipia Matu, and Lulu Dyma. The Spooked theme song is by Pat Massey Miller. My name is from Washington. And some things can happen anywhere.

• 39:30Glynn Washington?

  Any place you meet that guy, win that car, run from that dog. It can happen just about anywhere, but other things simply will not occur. Cannot occur unless you happen to bond one very specific, nowhere else in all the universe, not one foot to the left, not one foot to the right, place. Lifetimes. Civilizations have been altered because one person stood a hair away from the precipice that another person happened upon. Because all places are not the same as all other places. Places have echoes. Places have histories, places have stories.

• 40:14Glynn Washington?

  And maybe, maybe? Places have wants and needs and jealousies and hurts, the same as any other energy. We might imagine that this place, that this spot wishes us no harm. Perhaps. I just say, born of my own experience, it's probably best to take some precaution. My advice is to never, ever, never, ever, never, ever, ever turn out the lights.