We’re Not Really Strangers

Written By: Nicki Holcomb

Narrated By: Azie Tesfai

When a lonely woman tries to help a stranger with amnesia, she unknowingly revives a trauma from her past.

Collection Two: “A Traveler’s Guide”: Stories about Space, Time & Other Worlds

Episode #: Five

Release Date: Tuesday, July 23rd

Est. Runtime: » 35 Min

Standout Lines:

"She’d been right, after all, to see pieces of herself in Jacob. But it wasn’t a spark, or reincarnated love, or a deep, romantic knowing. Their kinship wasn’t spiritual; it was literal. It was the shared darkness of family. Inescapable even now, against the laws of nature, of physics, of everything solid and simple and right."

“You were supposed to be dead. And now you’re here. It’s not a loop, idiot. It’s a miracle.”

From the Author:

My initial idea for this story was a question: What if we could interact with people from our past who have deeply impacted our present? How would we, the current generation, interact with the generation that came before, and how would they feel if they could see their impact on us? As someone with a lot of addiction in my family, I was really interested in exploring the ways one generation's struggle with addiction can impact the next. But then, much like any good addict, I couldn't stop myself from taking things way too far. This story is not an outright comedy, but in many ways it is a comedy of errors. For me, that's what working through generational trauma feels like: You may think you're on the right track, you may think you're doing better than the last generation -- but one misstep, and you realize you're just as messed up as the people who raised you. If you can't find a place of acceptance and detachment despite it all, you're doomed to repeat the cycle -- and that's what I hope Billie, at least, takes away from this story.

— Nicki