Reality Glitch Vol. II

MrBallen (0:00)

Today's podcast will feature two stories that challenge your understanding of reality.

The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called By the Pool, and it's about a doctor who was having this relaxing day by his pool, when he witnesses something that haunts him forever. And the second and final story you'll hear is called The Ride Home. And it's about a man's very bizarre bike ride, where something just seems off as he passes by his neighbors. And the reason why will give you goosebumps. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark & Mysterious, Delivered in Story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload four times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. So if that's of interest to you, on the FollowButton's birthday, offer to bring the birthday cake. But don't tell them you've secretly replaced their candles with TNT.

Okay, let's get into our first story called By the Pool.

One evening in the summer of 1974, a 60-year-old doctor named Julian Kirchick sat beside his backyard pool at his home in Old Westbury, New York, which is a suburb of New York City. It was a quiet, sunny day, and Dr. Kirchick was glad to have some time to relax. He was a surgeon at a local hospital, and he also had a wife and four children, so it was not often that he got a moment of peace to himself. And so Dr. Kirchick leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes and tried to relax for a second, when all of a sudden he heard something rustle in the bushes nearby.

Now, at first, he just figured it must be a squirrel or a bird or something, so he didn't even bother opening his eyes. Like, this is just nature, it's fine. But this rustling sound persisted and it just wouldn't stop. And so eventually, Dr. Kirchick did open his eyes and he got up out of his chair to go see what was going on. Now, these bushes were like 20 feet away from the doctor. And so in order to truly investigate, he had to get up and actually walk over there. And so he gets up and he takes a few steps when he suddenly freezes. Because now, when he's looking at the bushes, he sees there is someone standing basically in the bushes, a person.

But he realized this person was not a normal looking person. The person was wearing what appeared to be this dark, long robe that covered their whole body. And in fact, the robe obscured their face. It was like they were this dark presence just standing there in the middle of these bushes. And so Dr. Kirchick is just frozen, having no idea how to react to this. I mean, does he call out for help? Does he, you know, chase this guy out of his yard? Like, what does he do here? And as he's standing there transfixed, this person in the robe extends one of their arms, this long, skinny arm, and kind of begins to beckon Dr. Kirchick towards them. And Dr. Kirchick went from being sort of startled to being terrified. This figure basically looked like the Grim Reaper. And it felt like now the Grim Reaper is beckoning him to come with him, to come die, basically. That was the feeling he suddenly had. And it was unbelievably overwhelming. And so Dr. Kirchick is staring, horrified. He blinks for a second, and the man is gone.

Over the next few days, Dr. Kirchick obsessed over what he had just seen. I mean, really, it felt like he had just witnessed the Grim Reaper, and worse, that the Grim Reaper was, like, telling him to come with him. Like he was signaling to Dr. Kirchick that his time on Earth had come to an end, that his death was imminent. That's what Dr. Kirchick is thinking. But Dr. Kirchick, he's a surgeon, he's a man of science and reason, and he can't understand how this could have happened. I mean, even if it was just a hallucination, it was so vivid, it was so visceral, like, how could this be? What's going on with him?

But the problem Dr. Kirchick had was, who is he gonna talk to about this? Hey, by the way, I saw the Grim Reaper, and now I'm worried I'm gonna die soon, or maybe somebody in my family's gonna die soon, or a patient is gonna die soon. Like, who's gonna have that conversation with him? But at the same time that he was feeling increasingly isolated because of this, you know, whatever he saw, he couldn't help but feel like it was real, and it was driving him mad. Like, I'm not doing anything, and something bad is imminent, what do I do?