Episode 0156

Hello everyone and welcome back to English Pod. My name is Marco.

And my name is Catherine and today we have a very scary story.

Spooky. We're actually bringing you the first of our advanced media lessons and uh what better way to start it with than a scary story for Halloween. Than with. Than with.

So what better way to start this advanced media lesson than with a scary story.

Right, so Halloween is coming up and advanced media usually features uh a new story or some kind of story that we can then kind of break down and talk about, just have a conversation about, because you're advanced level learners and you want to have fun with English. So

Where is today's spooky story set, Marco?

Well, it starts out with a guy who remembers something very scary that happened to him when he was a kid.

Okay, and so one of the main characters in today's story is his great aunt.

Mhm. That's right, his great aunt. And so basically, this is a family member, but it's your father's aunt, right?

Right. Your grandmother or your grandfather's sister.

All right, so your aunt, your aunt is your parents' sibling.

But in this case, we're talking about one generation older than that. So you could say great aunt, great uncle, great grandfather, great grandmother. It's like one step back.

Right. So this is usually a very old person and uh the great aunt is definitely an important character in today's story.

Exactly. So uh let's not keep you in suspense any longer. Why don't we listen to this scary story and we'll be right back to talk about it.

Oh no, the lights went out. Honey, can you light a candle?

Sure. What do we do now?

Well, we can just talk, you know, like we used to.

Mm, I know. I'll tell you a scary story. It happened to me and my dad when I was a teenager.

I was living with my father at the time when he received a phone call.

Okay, no problem. I'll be there shortly.

Pack some clothes, Tony, my great aunt is very ill and no one in the family wants to take care of her. We're going to stay at her house for a few days.

Aunt? What aunt? I never knew you had a great aunt?

Well, the family doesn't talk about her or get near her for that matter.

Why is that?

Come on, we have to go.

So we arrived at this old house on the outskirts of our town.

There was almost no one around and the house had an eerie look to it.

Once inside the house, we walked to her room and I was surprised to find my dad's great aunt in a wheelchair, yelling at someone, but we were alone in the room.

Hi, Ann Ursula, this is my son Tony.

Who is coming for you?

Come on, Ann Ursula, let's lay you down. You need to get some rest.

Tony, help me lay her down.

That night, we slept in one of the 12 rooms of that big old mansion.

The trees outside seemed to come alive and their shadows formed ghoulish shapes on my bed.

All of a sudden, we heard screaming.

Aunt Ursula, where are you?

Over here!

And as we approached her, she was lying on the floor with her hands and feet open like the Vitruvian man, breathing heavily with bloody marks and scratches on her arms, legs and face.

Remember how I mentioned that she was in a wheelchair? My aunt had been paralyzed from the neck down for just over a year.

After this incident, strange things would happen in the house and my aunt would yell and scream, according to her, warding off the evil that had come to get her.

That night, I felt relieved that it was finally over, but it wasn't.

The following morning, I went to the bathroom, expecting to find a mess and everything torn up.

But I found everything exactly as it was before.

The movers came that same day and as we were cleaning out her drawers and personal items, we found strange notebooks with names and amounts of money written next to them. We found pictures with people's faces sewn with black or red string.

And you want to know what the strangest thing was? There was a small doll filled with dead ants with a strand of hair tied around its waist.

And on the doll's face, there was a picture of me with the numbers 31, 10, 09.

You know what date it is today?

October 31st, 2009.

All right, we're back. So, um, what do you think? Pretty scary?

I got goosebumps. It's a little a little spooky.

Little scary. Now, what's interesting about this story, it's uh, it's based on a true story, so that makes it even scarier.

No.

Yeah. Dare I ask, this happened to you?

No, no, I'm not old enough, but this actually happened to a a family member of mine, and that's why um I know this story, so it was kind of told to me when I was a a bit younger and I remembered it.

And well, Halloween is is a great time to remember these things.

And the first time you heard it, it scared the crap out of you, right?

Oh yeah, for sure. Actually, the first time uh I heard it, we were on an airplane, like on October 31st. Oh, wow. So it was pretty scary.

Well, we've got a lot of really interesting stuff here. We're not going to dwell too long on the grammar or the vocabulary because we assume that most of you have understood this.

But there are a couple things that can be really difficult even for English speakers.

So, the first one is this phrase, my time is near.

My time is near.

So, what does that mean exactly?

Well, my time is near, my end is coming, it means I'm very old and I'm probably going to die soon.

So my time, his time, that's when you die.

Okay, so it's always used in reference to death.

Mhm. In this case, yeah. So it's used in reference to death and in this case you have the aunt who's talking about herself, but you could also say his time is coming, we should visit him in the hospital.

So it's uh, it's a kind of a softer way of saying that someone is going to die soon.

Right. Okay, so my time is near or his time is near.

All right. And then uh something really interesting in this story as well. She had many different names that she called the devil.

So she didn't directly say the devil.

She said uh the Prince of Darkness.

Prince of Darkness, Lord of the Underworld.

The Tempter. The Tempter and the old serpent.

So these are actually different ways that historically have been used to describe the devil, right?

That's right. And a lot of them are biblical, like the old serpent, you know, back in the first, um, the first pages of the Bible when the serpent tempts Eve, that's that's the devil.

And so we hear a lot of these especially on Halloween, these are great words to use to uh to kind of diversify and not say devil, devil, devil. Right.

Okay. So um apart from those synonyms for the devil.

She also uses an interesting phrase towards the end when she said, 'I shall be judged before you can take me.'

Hmm. So judged, to judge, this is to see if something is right or wrong.

But in this case, we talk about judgment at the end of a person's life, so that means when you go to the gates of heaven and there's Saint Peter and he has a list of the good and the bad and he says, yes or no.

Right.

And then if you're if you're if you're a no, you get sent down to hell. If you're a yes, you go to heaven. So she says, I shall be judged. This means, I want my day in court. I want to to have my actions analyzed by Saint Peter, not by you.

Right, right, exactly.

So actually this makes reference to a a lot of beliefs in Christianity, right?

Mhm. So it's just another in another aspect of of the story, but of course, but other religions probably don't have the same thing such as the the Gates of Heaven and Saint Peter.

Right, the system of the system of judgment.

All right.

So uh what do you think of the story? Did you did you like it?

I I really liked it. I I thought it was really spooky and I thought that it built up well.

But um I really I also like the imagery. We talked about um we haven't talked about this yet, but he describes um he describes his great aunt the character describes his great aunt as uh being spread out like the Vitruvian Man. So you have this image of her arms spread out and her legs spread out, you know that picture that Da Vinci did of of a human being and it's like an anatomy and it's in a circle and you can see the legs and the arms. That's just so really like a powerful visual image.

Yeah, you can imagine her laying on the bed in this position, right?

Yeah, it is pretty scary. What about you? Have you ever had any close encounters with the supernatural or ghosts or goblins or something like this?

No, personally, I've never had any experiences like that, and I tend to not believe those stories, but uh maybe, maybe if this had happened to someone I knew, I'd be a little bit more skeptical, or a less skeptical, but.

What what about like uh when they have those documentaries or those recordings of strange voices or appearances like these old castles in England or stuff like that? What do you think?

I just watched one and it was about a haunted house. There was a a woman who used a Ouija board and it let a demon out and the the demon possessed the girl and they called in a priest and the priest had to like exorcise the demon from the little girl and the house was haunted and it was hurting people and it was like possessing people.

Wow, it sounds like a movie.

But like I don't actually believe that like a spirit could push someone down the stairs. I think that you trip and then you attribute it to a spirit, but.

What about the Ouija board? That's an interesting tool that many people say opens up, you know, like portals, portals and dimensions towards hell or spirits can come out and stuff like that.

Right, well, for those of you who don't know, the Ouija board is a is a board like a piece of cardboard that has um letters on it, letters and numbers. And so you have this glass that you hold and uh once the spirit comes, it guides the glass to point out to names or places and you spell them.

And um they're really popular with like 13-year-old girls who have these slumber parties and they use it.

And what you have to say, you know, who is she going to date? And then it moves. And it moves.

But um yeah, I I believe in the power of the human mind, so I think a lot of times even if we're not aware of it, we're the ones, you know, manipulating this, or believing what we want to believe.

Yeah. But what about you? Are you superstitious? Are you do you believe in ghosts?

I'm not superstitious. I don't know what to think about ghosts 'cause I've actually had a couple of very strange encounters with the with the supernatural.

But I really wouldn't say, oh yeah, I believe in ghosts or I believe they're spirits that that haven't been put to rest or or they have unfinished business, you know, like in Casper or something like that.

Um, but once we were having dinner with my family and in the house where we used to live and it was a very old house, and um we had a a glass of water on the table and all of a sudden it started to move and to rotate uh across the table, the center of the table.

And we all saw it and no one was touching it.

So we all were pretty confused and nervous and then just kind of burst out in nervous laughter and we didn't really know what to make of it, but it was very strange 'cause it moved a a good amount, it was like half of the table, and it it was spinning at the same time, so it was very strange.

Weird.

So um, so things like this and, you know, in general, Hispanic or Latin American culture are they're very superstitious.

They have a lot of beliefs in like magic or um.

Some people still say or are reluctant to give out a picture for example, because of something like this in the story.

Really? They say you shouldn't give out pictures to boyfriends or girlfriends or anyone because if you break up or something is to happen then they could do something with that picture and maybe hurt you.

Really? So this this idea that you have a like likeness, like a picture or a doll or something.

What can you talk about that? Cuz I don't I don't really know anything about it. Having that means that you're able to like do something to that very person?

Yeah, yeah, like um not necessarily like a voodoo doll, right? Where you see that you can put pins in it and then it would hurt someone.

But uh people believe that pictures for example, they capture your image and so if somebody has it and wants to do harm or black magic then they can use that as a as an instrument to get into you.

Okay. The same as pieces of clothing or the same as hair and things like this.

So that's why there are the the shamans or the, you know, the Indian um the Indian witch doctors.

Who do cleansing like this and people still actually go towards them. People in the city still believe in these things and they'll go to a shaman and get themselves cleansed.

Because they believe that they're luck, um they have really bad luck or they've been very, very sick for a long time and doctors can't figure out what it is, they think it's because someone has cast a spell on them or is doing some black magic to them and they need to get it cleansed.

Oh wow.

So yeah.

It's really, really common.

But it's all part of the the folklore and the um the heritage of of of the countries and you know, it's it's actually very, very interesting and some things are just really out there, really weird. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, a lot of it I think comes from indigenous beliefs mixing with Catholicism too, right? Because a lot of South American countries and Latin American countries are very Catholic, but it's it's they get kind of melded these traditions with indigenous beliefs.

And then you have these crazy rituals and like.

We actually have a belief and it's very true, um that, you know, when somebody is completely in love with this girl and this girl is like maybe, you know, not very nice or not very nice to that guy, but he's still completely into her. So.

Uh there's this word that we say that that he's been like underweared or something like that.

And and the the reason behind this is uh that one of these rituals that I talked about is that the girl would make tea, right? Would take a a teapot and in it would put her her underpants, used underpants, to make the tea water and then would serve it to the guy. So the moment that he drank it, this was like a a magic potion and then he would continuously be in love with her.

Oh.

So.

Oh.

So yeah, it's very strange.

That's gross. Do people actually do that?

No, it's not something that you do now. It's but it's something that has that people knew about that used to be done way, way before.

Okay, so people now it's part of the language where you say that that someone has been like underweared or something. She she casts a spell on him, maybe what we would say.

So uh things like this that of course aren't really done anymore, but still people make reference to it because we know it from our history that that it's been done before.

How cool.

Well, I'm really curious to know if our users have any similar stories or have any scary stories they want to tell.

I bet they do.

I'm sure they do and uh this advanced media lesson is a great place um for you to do that because we expect that a lot of advanced level learners are going to be listening to it and practicing your writing is really important.

So we hope that you'll put some comments on this lesson and of course ask us as many questions as you want.