The summers my daddy was around, he drove us down to Grand Isle, and before he let any of us near the water he stood on the sand and gave the same speech. The water that kills you does not look like anything. The big waves do not get you. It is the flat, pretty stretch between the sandbars, with a current running straight out to sea. People think an undertow pulls you down. It pulls you out, so gently that by the time you notice, the shore is a long way off.

It is Wednesday, March 11th, 2020, and it is late. The last time you heard my voice was August the 8th. That is seven months, and I owe you an explanation.

We are still not using rooms. Tonight it is a parked minivan with a car seat in the back and a juice box I have been asked not to touch.

I will tell you the truth up front, because I always have. Either the world has gone crazy, or I have. Tonight I honestly cannot tell you which. Listen when you are ready, and eat something first.

Recorded March 11th, 2020.

THE TRILOGY

The Pattern Files is the evidence file. The story is Don't Think Me Evil, a trilogy by Elwood West. Book One, Confession, is available now at dontthinkmeevil.com.

Last time ended with a pleasant voice telling you the subject had been advised. I am the subject. Consider me advised.

In 1984 a computer scientist in Moscow built himself a little game with seven shapes that fall from the top of the screen. Some of you will remember what happened when you finally turned it off. You lay in the dark with your eyes closed and the pieces were still falling. Psychologists call it the Tetris Effect. There is one more thing every player learns. You cannot win it. It just gets faster.

This recording is going up the same day we make it, with no music and no polish, and you will hear partway through that we did not finish where we started. Scriven put one episode back on the feed on Tuesday morning, and I want you to know how long it stayed up.

I did what I know how to do, which is a legal pad, a pot of coffee, and one question I ask my freshmen every fall. Who owns what? Listen when you can, and tell me what you notice about where we end up.

Recorded August 8th, 2019.

THE TRILOGY

The Pattern Files is the evidence file. The story is Don't Think Me Evil, a trilogy by Elwood West. Book One, Confession, is available now at dontthinkmeevil.com.

Evening, y'all. It is the last week of July, it is ninety-one degrees at nine o'clock at night, and the air conditioner in this house is losing an argument with the Louisiana summer. Before we do anything else, Scriven wants me to play you a voicemail.

Her name is Suzanne. She has listened to every recording twice, and she is driving to Las Vegas to look at the tunnels under the Strip. I have thought about that call more than I would like to admit. I sit in a home study and say things into a microphone, and somewhere in Arizona a woman I have never met is packing a car because of something I said.

So we stopped recording for a while. There were things I had not told you, and tonight's episode needs them. Afterward my producer went through every file we have ever published, and she found something I do not have a good word for.

I will tell you only this: the microphone goes both directions. Listen when you have a quiet hour, and tell me what you would have done.

Recorded July 30th, 2019.

THE TRILOGY

The Pattern Files is the evidence file. The story is Don't Think Me Evil, a trilogy by Elwood West. Book One, Confession, is available now at dontthinkmeevil.com.