The Electric Witch

Witch Words

Hello my survivor friends. What follows is another listener submitted story. It’s called the Electric Witch by fellow survivor Chris Zuniga and it is read and produced by show editor Duane.

I repeat – this is not the main narrative, this is a between seasons sampling from an emerging writer who lives with us in the apocalypse bunker.

When Chris sent me the beginnings of this story, I liked it. It was just a kernel, just a beginning, and it had some challenges, but it also had something unique about it.

The thing that I liked most about it was the atmosphere that Chris creates. It has a dark, resonating, fever-dream atmosphere. You can see, smell and hear the darkness, the wind and the energy crackling.

The prose also has a unique voice. You have to listen well and pay attention because he takes some left turns in sentence structure and word choice that are counter to what your mind is expecting in the music of the prose.

For you, my survivor friends listening today, I would advise you to slow down and listen closely to what is going on - pay attention.

The piece is 25 minutes long, which is a tad longer than I usually go in an episode but I think it’s worth it. I’ll add a brief interview chat with Chris on the back end and some outro comments of my own.

Let’s all applaud Chris for having the courage to put himself out there! And a round of hand claps and hearty back slaps to Duane for producing this into something wonderful.

Chris Zuniga Contact = Quattrowhore on Instagram

Take a deep breath and settle in as the after the apocalypse theatre presents “The Electric Witch” written by Chris Zuniga and produced by Duane Hespell…

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Outro comments

Hey there my survivor friends – how are we doing?

Just a few quick comments to catch you up.

For those of you time traveling we are between seasons 3 and 4 and it is the summer solstice 2023.

I’ve been working on various projects incidental to the podcast. First I’ve been working on the story arc for season 4, which I think I have some great ideas for. This past week I listened thru season 2 and really liked the balance of deeper themes and action and I’ll carry that forward.

We have over 380 members in our apocalypse group on Facebook. And we clock about 22,000 downloads a month for the show.

It’s funny to listen to my outro comments in Season 2 where I’m talking about 30 group members and 10,000 downloads. So – lesson to all of us on the power of patience and consistency. We are 3 and ½ years in and about to start season 4 and I think we’re in good shape to grow some more.

The big news is that I have partnered with an outfit that sells podcast advertising. What we are going to try to do is go directly to companies that have products that are actually appropriate to our survivors. This does two things – first it means you get an ad that is appropriate, unlike the programmatic ads from Acast which are usually far off the mark. For instance, I get cosmetics and handbag ads. Second, with any luck these direct relationships with products produce more revenue for the show so that we can grow.

Worst case I learn an expensive lesson!

And I’m all about learning lessons.

Here’s the thing…we always think that we want a peaceful, uneventful life. We avoid taking action because we don’t want the stress and we’re afraid to fail. But that’s not how humans work. We need stress, positive stress and we need challenges, and yes we need set backs to learn and grow and do our best work.

Another round of applause for Chris and Duane for producing a great show.

Until next time, my friends, get out there, take risks, lean in and keep surviving.