From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Janes. Moth stories are all true and are all told live.

Listening to these stories is like walking for a few minutes in someone else's shoes. So let's do that for this hour.

Our first storyteller is Val Rigadan.

We met Val when she told a story in the CUNY Young Women's Voices Festival,

which brings students together from all over the city

university school system in New York. Since telling this story, Val has got on to host shows

with The Moth. She's charming, and she's quick on her feet, as you'll hear. So live at the Moth,

Val Raghadon. Hello. Okay, so a few months ago, I learned that someone I knew very, very long ago, I was maybe

six or seven and he was five.

He died all of a sudden.

And to be honest, I haven't thought about him or spoken to him since I was six or seven.

So it was very strange for me.

It was like a puzzle piece plucked out of my pass and just thrown away.

And it was very just like I was on uneven ground.

Suddenly, I could die next.

My house could burn down.

My parents could die.

I could get into a car crash. I could

fall down the stairs and break both my legs. Anything could happen. I was like, oh my God, this is

too much. I got to watch a cartoon. So I go and I turn on this CGI movie and it's's called Leap and it's a very ugly movie.

It's like sort of C.G.3 and they have these really realistic human faces on these tiny cartoon bodies.

And it's a little disturbing to see.

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