S1.7 Personal Growth
The Other Stories | Sci-Fi, Horror, Thriller, WTF Stories
Luke Kondor
4.4 • 848 Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Personal Growth
Percival’s monochrome existence is about to change. Personal growth is expected, he is responding in terrifying ways very much outside of office protocol.
Written by Simon Ward (www.x.com/simon_W_writes)
Narrated by Justin Fife (https://www.threads.net/@justin.fife)
Produced by James Barnett AKA Jimmy Horrors (https://www.JamesBarnettCreative.com)
With music by Daniel Birch (https://danielbirchmusic.com)
And Thom Robson (https://www.thomrobsonmusic.com/)
And sound effects provided by Freesound.org
The episode illustration was provided by Matt Seff Barnes (https://www.mattseffbarnes.com/)
Joshua Boucher is our story programmer.
Jasmine Arch manages our community.
Mary Pastrano helps orchestrate the chaos.
And the show would collapse into static and screams without the ongoing work of Karl Hughes, Georgia Triantafyllopoulou, and James Barnett — AKA Jimmy Horrors.
For more of Simon Ward, you can follow him on X at www.x.com/simon_W_writes
Justin Fife is an audiobook narrator and voice actor, and he can be found on Threads @Justin.fife
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | These aren't the stories your mother told you. |
| 0:03.0 | No. |
| 0:04.0 | These are the other stories. |
| 0:07.0 | Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. |
| 0:18.0 | Today's episode is Personal Growth, written by Simon Ward and narrated by Justin Fife. |
| 0:27.7 | As he sat down in his swivel chair, Percival stared into the cup he'd left next to his keyboard overnight. |
| 0:34.8 | He couldn't remember what had been in it, but whatever it was, it had dried into a black |
| 0:39.5 | crust circling the inside. He thought at first that this little scene might make him think of |
| 0:45.4 | the universe within it all, maybe something about staring into the abyss, or even something about |
| 0:51.6 | time and the passage of it as a hand that guides change. |
| 0:56.6 | But he didn't. |
| 0:58.7 | He only remembered that it had once been machine coffee that had dribbled out like tar snot |
| 1:04.1 | in a stuttering blast of nearly hot water. |
| 1:07.4 | There was nothing more than this, apart from a remembrance that he had fetched it |
| 1:11.9 | because his eyelids were creaking closed in the last hour of the day, |
| 1:15.7 | and the realization he was likely to get a ticket of notice for leaving the dirty mug overnight. |
| 1:21.0 | Company and building protocol was clear. |
| 1:24.3 | All workstations must be clear before leaving for the day. |
| 1:29.2 | His fingers twitched. |
| 1:35.5 | He turned on his monitor screen. 480 minutes until he would leave at the end of this day. |
| 1:43.9 | 435 if he didn't count his lunch break. And then a weekend. 3,600 minutes of that, give or take. |
| 1:45.7 | Z-ch-chus! |
... |
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