This October, the wrong station celebrates a decade of dread.

You can read the show notes to discover terrible new ways to celebrate with us.

Today's episode, Cameron's Castle,

is written by Alexander Saxton,

and performed by Anthony Betelow.

Music I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm When he was nine or ten, living in a nothing town in the Ottawa Valley, his big brother pulled him aside and told him something important.

He said, listen, Alex, you ain't right. You never have been. You never will be, and you'll never amount to nothing. You're going to die in a shack, and the next day they'll forget you ever lived.'

There was malice in those words, but also the cold certainty of truth.

Alex's brother really believed every single one of them.

So whatever malice there was, so be it.

It was justified.

Alex Cameron MacDonald took those words to heart.

It never occurred to him for a second to doubt that they were true,

because every person in his life promised by their actions that they were true. He had no friends.

Boys ignored him unless they needed someone to half drown in the sullen waters of the marsh.

Girls ignored him, except from time to time, to say something cruel.

The men of the town would shoot him dark looks from the front stoop of the public house,

and sometimes throw an empty glass at them if they were drunk.

Town's women took pity sometimes.

He'd become someone's project for a season or a year, only ever to disappoint them by

his failure to become something worth the effort. So, even before his brother told him, he knew

just what he was worth. Becoming a man changed little about who he was or how people treated him,

...