A Bedtime Story

Matthew Mitchell
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  • FICTION
  • UPDATED SEMIWEEKLY

A Bedtime Story is a short-form nightly show featuring a unique tale generated by AI, then edited and performed by Matthew Mitchell.

  1. The Final Wind-Up

    9H AGO

    The Final Wind-Up

    Visit the “A Bedtime Story” show website to submit your story ideas for a future episode! Welcome to A Bedtime Story. I'm Matthew Mitchell, and tonight's story is titled "The Final Wind-Up," Part 3 of this week's series: The Midnight Curfew and the Clockwork City. The elevator doors hissed open, and Mayor Sterling stepped out, his polished boots clicking rhythmically despite the chaos. He looked at the smoking turbines and the vibrating streets of his miniature empire, and then his eyes landed on Leo and the massive brass dragon. "You!" the Mayor shouted, his voice barely audible over the screaming gears. "You are the clockmaker’s boy! You should be in bed! This is a violation of at least fourteen municipal codes!" Leo stood his ground, holding the copper key like a dagger. "We know what you are doing, Mayor. We know about the dreams. You can't turn the whole town into clockwork just because you like things to be tidy." The Mayor laughed, a dry sound like parchment rubbing together. "Tidy? Boy, I am creating a masterpiece! A world without delay, without hesitation, without the messy uncertainty of human imagination. Imagine a world where every train is on time because the passengers don't waste time thinking about where they are going!" He raised his golden remote, and suddenly, the three Night Watchmen that had accompanied him in the elevator stepped forward. Their amber eyes flashed red, and they raised their heavy iron fists. Rusty let out a roar of steam and lunged forward, placing his metallic body between Leo and the automatons. "Go to the Core, Leo!" Rusty commanded. "I will handle the tin men!" Leo scrambled toward the center of the miniature city. The ground was shaking so hard now that the tiny buildings were starting to crumble. He reached the Great Mainspring, which was now a blur of motion, glowing white-hot. The heat was intense, singing the hair on his arms, but he didn't stop. He looked for the reset slot Rusty had described. Meanwhile, Rusty was in the fight of his mechanical life. He swiped a Watchman across the cavern, sending it crashing into a wall of copper pipes. But the other two were relentless, their steam-driven limbs moving with cold, calculated precision. They climbed onto Rusty’s back, trying to pry his brass scales loose to reach his delicate internal wiring. Leo found the slot. It was at the very top of the Mainspring’s housing, accessible only by climbing a series of rapidly moving pistons. He took a deep breath and jumped. He caught a piston as it shot upward, then swung himself onto a rotating gear. One slip would mean being crushed into a very small, very flat clockmaker’s apprentice. The Mayor saw what Leo was doing and screamed in rage. He pointed his remote at the Mainspring, trying to engage the emergency locks. "Stop him! He is ruining the schedule!" Leo reached the top. He stood on a narrow ledge, the wind from the spinning spring whipping his hair. Below him, Rusty was pinned down, his ruby eyes flickering as his power drained. The Mayor was frantically pressing buttons on his remote. Leo didn't hesitate. He thrust the copper key into the slot and turned it with all his might. For a second, the entire world went silent. The screaming gears stopped. The roaring steam died down to a whisper. The Great Mainspring froze in mid-spin. Then, a pulse of pure, golden light erupted from the key, flowing through the pipes, through the floor, and up toward the surface. Leo felt the energy wash over him. It wasn't cold or mechanical; it felt like the warmth of a summer afternoon or the feeling of waking up from a really good dream. The light hit the Night Watchmen, and they simply sat down, their red eyes turning back to a soft, gentle amber. The Mayor’s remote crumbled into dust in his hands. The light continued upward, flooding the streets of Oakhaven. Above ground, the citizens didn't wake up, but they all smiled in their sleep. The heavy, oppressive silence of the curfew was replaced by the natural, quiet sounds of a town at rest. Down in the cavern, the miniature city began to change. The copper and brass started to look less like a factory and more like a garden. Small mechanical birds began to chirp in the metal trees. Rusty stood up and shook himself, his scales gleaming with a new, softer luster. "It is done," Rusty said, his voice now sounding like a single, clear cello. "The system has been reset. The power is no longer being stolen; it is being shared. Oakhaven will still have its clocks, but they will no longer have a master." The Mayor sat on the floor, his waistcoat finally bursting a button. "My schedule," he whispered. "My beautiful, perfect schedule." Leo walked over to Rusty and patted his brass snout. "What happens to you now?" "I think I will stay here," Rusty said. "Someone has to make sure the gears don't get too grumpy. But you should go home, Leo. The sun is about to come up, and for the first time in a long time, the people of Oakhaven are going to wake up exactly when they feel like it." Leo climbed the spiral staircase one last time. When he emerged into the central plaza, the sun was just peeking over the horizon. He expected to see the Night Watchmen waiting for him, but the plaza was empty. He walked back to the repair shop, the copper key still heavy in his pocket. As he reached his door, he heard the Great Clock Tower chime. It wasn't the harsh, demanding toll he was used to. It was a light, musical sound that seemed to dance through the air. People began to open their shutters, stretching and waving to one another. There was no Mayor Sterling in sight, and no one seemed to miss him. Leo went to his workbench, placed the copper key in a velvet-lined box, and finally, for the first time in his life, went to sleep with a smile on his face.

    7 min
  2. The Mechanical Menace of Main Street

    2D AGO

    The Mechanical Menace of Main Street

    Visit the “A Bedtime Story” show website to submit your story ideas for a future episode! Welcome to A Bedtime Story. I'm Matthew Mitchell, and tonight's story is titled "The Mechanical Menace of Main Street," Part 2 of this week's series: The Midnight Curfew and the Clockwork City. Leo stood at the edge of the underground miniature city, his jaw hanging open in a way that would have made his mother scold him about catching flies. The scale of the place was staggering. Above the tiny metal buildings, huge pistons moved up and down like the heartbeats of a giant, and gold-colored wires stretched across the ceiling like a web. As he stepped into the miniature streets, he realized he wasn't alone. A low, metallic growl echoed through the cavern, followed by the sound of scraping metal. From behind a copper cathedral, a creature emerged. It was a dragon, or at least, a very convincing mechanical imitation of one. It was about the size of a carriage, covered in brass scales that rattled as it moved. Its eyes were two large rubies that glowed with a flickering internal flame, and its tail ended in a heavy iron ball that looked like it could crush a boulder. The dragon didn't attack. Instead, it sat back on its haunches and tilted its head, looking at Leo with an expression that seemed almost curious. After a moment, a voice erupted from the dragon’s chest. It sounded like a dozen gramophones playing at once, scratchy and slightly out of sync. "You are late," the dragon said. "The visitors usually arrive at ten, but the schedule has been drifting lately." Leo blinked. "I am sorry? I didn't know there was an appointment. I just found a key." The dragon sighed, a sound that released a cloud of harmless white steam from its nostrils. "My name is Rusty. I am the Keeper of the Core. And you are a human, which means you are made of soft parts and bad ideas. Why are you here, soft part?" Leo explained about the curfew, the Mayor, and the copper key. As he spoke, Rusty began to pace, his heavy claws clicking on the metal floor. The dragon explained that this underground city was the Master Control for Oakhaven. Every movement of the Great Clock Tower, every rotation of the Watchmen’s gears, and even the strictness of the curfew was determined by the tension in the Great Mainspring located in the center of the miniature town. "But there is a problem," Rusty said, his ruby eyes dimming slightly. "The Mayor has been demanding more power. He wants the town to run faster, more efficiently, with no wasted seconds. To get that power, I have been forced to harvest the one thing Oakhaven has in abundance: dreams." Leo felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cool underground air. "Dreams?" "Yes," Rusty replied sadly. "When the curfew hits and the town sleeps, the Watchmen act as antennas. They gather the mental energy of the dreaming citizens and beam it down here. That energy is what winds the Great Mainspring. But the Mayor wants more. He wants to harvest thoughts during the day, too. If he does that, the people of Oakhaven will become like the Watchmen—empty shells moving in a loop, never thinking, never feeling. I am a machine, but even I know that is a terrible way to spend a Tuesday." Leo looked around at the beautiful, cold city. "Is that why the key led me here? To stop him?" Rusty stopped pacing and looked directly at Leo. "I cannot disobey the Mayor’s primary commands. My gears are etched with his signature. But you are not a machine. You are a soft part with a copper key. That key is a master override, but it only works if it is inserted into the Core while the system is under maximum tension." "What does that mean?" Leo asked. "It means," Rusty said, baring teeth made of polished silver, "that we have to cause a total mechanical meltdown. We have to make this city run so fast and so loud that the system panics. Then, and only then, can you use the key to reset the Great Mainspring and return the power to the people." "But how do we do that?" Leo asked. "I am just a boy who fixes clocks." "And I am a dragon who is tired of eating dreams," Rusty said. "Together, we are a disaster waiting to happen. The Mayor is coming down here in an hour to initiate the permanent harvest. If we are going to break the world, we had better get started." Leo spent the next hour working faster than he ever had in his father’s shop. Under Rusty’s direction, he began to bypass safety valves and reroute steam pressure. He climbed up the copper cathedral to loosen the governors on the main turbines. He felt a strange kinship with the mechanical dragon. They were both trapped by the Mayor’s obsession with order. As they worked, the cavern began to grow louder. The humming of the pipes turned into a roar, and the miniature city began to glow with a frantic, orange light. The Great Mainspring in the center started to spin with terrifying speed, its metal coils whining under the pressure. "We are almost there," Rusty shouted over the noise. "But look!" At the far end of the cavern, a private elevator was descending. Through the glass, Leo could see the furious face of Mayor Sterling. He was holding a golden remote control, and he did not look happy about the unscheduled maintenance.

    6 min
  3. The Key to the Copper Gates

    4D AGO

    The Key to the Copper Gates

    Visit the “A Bedtime Story” show website to submit your story ideas for a future episode! Welcome to A Bedtime Story. I'm Matthew Mitchell, and tonight's story is titled "The Key to the Copper Gates," Part 1 of this week's series: The Midnight Curfew and the Clockwork City. In the town of Oakhaven, the sun did not set so much as it was told to leave. The town was run by a man named Mayor Sterling, whose waistcoat was always a bit too tight and whose pocket watch was the undisputed law of the land. In Oakhaven, punctuality was not a virtue; it was a survival tactic. The most important rule, whispered by parents to children and written in iron letters over the town hall, was the midnight curfew. When the clock struck twelve, every soul had to be tucked under a duvet, eyes shut, or face the consequences of the Night Watchmen—large, steam-powered automatons that patrolled the cobblestones with heavy, metallic thuds. Leo was seventeen and possessed a natural talent for being exactly where he was not supposed to be. He lived in a small apartment above a clock repair shop, which was convenient because his primary hobby was taking things apart to see if they had a soul. They never did, but he found plenty of springs and gears that seemed to have a sense of humor. Leo was a night owl in a town of forced early birds. While the rest of Oakhaven snored in unison, Leo would sit by his window, watching the Night Watchmen stomp through the mist, their glowing amber eyes scanning the empty alleys for any sign of a rebel. One Tuesday evening, shortly after the eleven o'clock warning bell had chimed, Leo was sweeping the floor of the repair shop when he found something unusual lodged under a heavy oak workbench. It was a key, but not like any key he had ever seen in the shop. Most Oakhaven keys were functional, stubby things made of iron. This one was long and slender, crafted from a copper that seemed to shimmer with its own internal light. The bow of the key was shaped like a compass rose, and the teeth were cut in a pattern that looked remarkably like a skyline. Leo knew every lock in the shop, and he knew none of them would accept such a regal guest. He pocketed the key, his heart racing against the rhythm of the shop's dozens of ticking clocks. He felt a pull, a strange magnetic tugging that seemed to lead him toward the center of town. He knew he only had forty-five minutes before the curfew began, and the Night Watchmen were already being fueled up in their barracks. He slipped out the back door, staying in the shadows of the eaves. The town was eerily quiet. Oakhaven was a place of steep gables and narrow bridges, all built around the Great Clock Tower that stood in the central plaza. As Leo approached the plaza, the key in his pocket grew warm. He watched from behind a fountain as a Watchman lumbered past, its steam vents hissing like a disgruntled tea kettle. Once the coast was clear, Leo darted toward the base of the Clock Tower. The tower was an architectural marvel, covered in brass filigree and spinning dials that tracked everything from the moon’s phases to the exact temperature of the Mayor’s morning coffee. Near the base, hidden behind a decorative ivy plant made of green-painted tin, Leo found a small, circular indentation. It was barely visible to the naked eye, but to a boy holding a copper key, it was as obvious as a lighthouse. He pressed the key into the slot. It fit perfectly, clicking into place with a sound like a satisfied sigh. He turned it, and instead of a door opening, the ground beneath his feet began to vibrate. A section of the cobblestones slid back with mechanical precision, revealing a spiral staircase that descended into a warm, golden glow. Leo looked back at the town. The eleven forty-five bell began to toll, a deep, mournful sound that signaled the final retreat. He could hear the heavy boots of a Watchman turning the corner. He had two choices: return to his room and wonder for the rest of his life, or go down. He didn't think twice. He stepped onto the stairs, and the cobblestones slid shut above him, sealing him in a world of humming wires and ancient machinery just as the final bell stopped ringing. The staircase led him deep underground, far below the sewers and the foundations of the town. The air down here did not smell like damp earth; it smelled like ozone and expensive oil. As he reached the bottom, he found himself in a vast hallway lined with copper pipes that pulsed with a soft, rhythmic light. It looked like the interior of a giant, living machine. He walked for what felt like miles, though without the ticking of his shop clocks, he couldn't be sure of the time. The hallway eventually opened into a massive cavern. In the center of the cavern sat a miniature city, a perfect replica of Oakhaven, but made entirely of gleaming metal and glass. It was beautiful, but there was a strange tension in the air, a feeling that something was winding tighter and tighter, waiting for a spring to snap. Leo realized then that this was the heart of his town, the hidden engine that kept everything running on schedule, and he had just walked right into its gears.

    6 min
  4. The Static and the Song

    FEB 14

    The Static and the Song

    Visit the “A Bedtime Story” show website to submit your story ideas for a future episode! Welcome to A Bedtime Story. I'm Matthew Mitchell, and tonight's story is titled The Static and the Song, Part 3 of this week's series: The Frequency of Forgotten Things. The wind at the top of the bridge was fierce, whipping Juno’s hair across her face like a lash. Below them, the river was a churning ribbon of black ink. Felix was crawling along a maintenance catwalk, his backpack clinking with every move. Juno followed, her boots slipping on the cold metal. They had avoided the guards by climbing a service ladder meant for painters and pigeons. High above the traffic, the world felt distant and small. "Tell me again why we are doing the part that involves the falling?" Felix shouted over the wind. "Because the part that involves the bridge staying up is more important!" Juno shouted back. They found the device bolted to the main suspension cable. It was a silver box, no larger than a toaster, but it was vibrating with such intensity that the air around it seemed to blur. A thick cable ran from the box to a second obsidian disc, which was spinning at a dizzying speed. The sound it produced was a low, guttural moan that made Juno’s teeth ache. "We have ten minutes," Felix said, checking his watch. "The vibration is already starting to travel down the lines. I can feel the steel humming under my feet. If we just pull the plug, the feedback might blow the whole cable. We have to phase it out. We have to make the machine believe the bridge has already fallen, or that it was never there at all." Juno pulled out her own disc. The two stones seemed to recognize each other, their glow intensifying until the catwalk was bathed in a strange, violet light. "What do I do?" she asked, looking at the silver box. Felix was busy connecting wires from his backpack to the device’s input port. "I am going to feed a counter-signal into the box," he explained. "But it needs a source. It needs something that is not a prediction. It needs something real, something happening right now. It needs a memory that has not been turned into an echo yet. It needs the sound of a living person." He handed her a pair of headphones connected to his amplifier. "Hold the stone against the box and think, Juno. Don't think about the bridge or the men in gray coats. Think about something that defines you. Think about a moment that felt like it would last forever. Your memory will be the anchor that stops the frequency from drifting into the disaster." Juno closed her eyes. She thought about the smell of the antique shop on a Sunday morning. She thought about the way Arthur looked when he finally found a button that met his standards. She thought about the first time she fixed a broken clock and heard it start to tick again, a small heartbeat of her own making. She pressed her obsidian disc against the silver box. At first, the vibration resisted her, pushing back with a cold, mechanical force. "It is not working!" she cried out. "Keep going!" Felix urged. "Give it more! Think of the messy parts! The parts that do not fit a schedule!" Juno thought of the time she tripped over a crate of telescopes and laughed until she couldn't breathe. She thought of the fear she felt when she saw the man in the gray coat, and the courage it took to keep running anyway. The low moan of the machine began to harmonize with her thoughts. The violet light turned to a soft, warm amber. The bridge stopped shaking. The air grew still once more. But the victory was short-lived. A hand grabbed Juno’s collar and yanked her backward. She tumbled onto the catwalk, the disc skittering across the metal. The man in the gray coat stood over her, his face twisted in a rare display of emotion. It was fury. "You have no idea what you are destroying," he spat. "We were going to fix the mistakes. We were going to erase the tragedies of this city. We were going to create a perfect frequency where nothing ever goes wrong. You are choosing a world of broken things and wasted time." Juno looked up at him, her chest heaving. "A world without mistakes is not a world," she said. "It is just a recording. And I am tired of listening to yours. Life is supposed to be loud and messy, not a calibrated hum." The man reached for the silver box, but Felix had finished his work. "Hey, Mister!" Felix yelled. "Listen to this!" He hit a final switch on his amplifier. A blast of pure, unrefined static erupted from the speakers. It was a chaotic wall of sound that had no pattern and no probability. It was the sound of a thousand lives being lived at once, unpredictable and vibrant. The silver box could not handle the complexity. It began to smoke, the obsidian discs cracking under the pressure of too much reality. With a final, musical chime, the stones shattered into a million tiny fragments that were swept away by the wind. The man in the gray coat fell to his knees, watching the dust of his work vanish into the night. His form seemed to flicker, his edges blurring as if he were losing his place in the story. Without the frequency to hold him there, he was just another echo. He faded into the shadows of the bridge, leaving behind nothing but a faint smell of ozone. Juno and Felix sat on the catwalk for a long time, watching the sun begin to rise over the city. The bridge was still standing. The traffic below began to move again, drivers unaware that their world had almost ended while they were sleeping. They climbed down the ladder, their legs feeling like jelly. As they walked back toward the shop, Felix looked at his empty backpack. "I think I blew out my favorite speakers," he said with a tired grin. "But it was worth it to hear that box explode. That was a very satisfying crunch." They reached The Dusty Alcove just as Arthur was unlocking the front door. He looked at them, noting their wind-blown hair and soot-stained clothes. "You two look like you have been wrestling with a steam engine," Arthur remarked, stepping aside to let them in. "Just a bit of a long night, Arthur," Juno said, smiling as she took her place behind the counter. "But I think I am ready to get back to work. Are there any more sassy buttons that need organizing?" Arthur chuckled and handed her a tray of silver fasteners. "Always, Juno. Always." Juno looked at the shelf of porcelain cats. They did not look like they were watching her anymore. They just looked like cats. The world was quiet, the frequency was clear, and for the first time in her life, Juno was perfectly happy not knowing what was going to happen next.

    7 min
  5. The Echo in the Alley

    FEB 12

    The Echo in the Alley

    Visit the “A Bedtime Story” show website to submit your story ideas for a future episode! Welcome to A Bedtime Story. I'm Matthew Mitchell, and tonight's story is titled The Echo in the Alley, Part 2 of this week's series: The Frequency of Forgotten Things. Juno found Felix in his usual habitat: a garage that looked like a graveyard for television sets and microwave ovens. The air smelled of solder and old ozone. Felix was currently hanging upside down from a rafter, trying to adjust an antenna that looked like it belonged on a lunar lander. He dropped to the floor with the grace of a startled cat when Juno slammed the door behind her. "You really need to work on your entrance, Juno," Felix said, rubbing his shoulder. "Most people use the doorbell. Or at least a polite cough. I almost dropped my favorite wrench." Juno did not have time for pleasantries. She pulled the obsidian disc from her jacket and slammed it onto a workbench covered in copper wire. "I found this, and it talked to me," she panted. "It told me the bridge is going to fall at midnight. And I heard my own voice, Felix. Not like a recording of me now, but a recording of me later. It sounded like I was in the middle of a very weird Tuesday." Felix looked at the stone disc, his eyes widening behind his thick glasses. He reached out to touch it but pulled his hand back as if it were hot. "That is an echo stone," he whispered. "My grandfather used to talk about these. They do not record sound in the way a tape does. They record probability. They capture the vibrations of things that are likely to happen." "How is that even possible?" Juno asked, leaning over the workbench. "Think of time like a giant piano," Felix explained, waving his hands enthusiastically. "Most of us only hear the notes being played right now. But a stone like this can feel the vibrations of the strings that are about to be struck. If you hear an echo, you are hearing a future that is trying to happen. But if you change the vibration, the whole song goes out of tune." Suddenly, the garage door groaned. A shadow stretched across the floor, long and jagged. The man in the gray coat was standing in the doorway, his silhouette framed by the streetlights. He did not look angry; he looked bored, which was somehow much more terrifying. "Give me the disc," the man said. His voice was a sound that belonged in a basement or a tomb. "It is not a toy for children to play with. It is a necessary calibration for the city. Some things are meant to break so that other things can be built." Juno grabbed a heavy wrench from the table. "I do not think so," she said, her voice trembling but determined. "The bridge is full of people. You do not get to calibrate them into a disaster." Felix was already moving toward a control panel on his workbench. "I am sorry about the static, sir," Felix shouted, "but I really hate being told what to do!" He hit a switch, and a massive electromagnetic pulse rippled through the room. The lights flickered and died, and a series of old radios began to scream with static. The man in the gray coat hissed and covered his ears, the high-pitched frequency clearly causing him physical pain. He staggered back, his form flickering like a bad television connection. "Run!" Felix yelled, grabbing Juno’s arm and pulling her toward a small window at the back of the garage. They scrambled through it, landing in a pile of cardboard boxes just as the sound of breaking glass echoed behind them. They ran through the maze of alleys that crisscrossed the industrial district. The city felt different tonight, more menacing, as if the buildings themselves were leaning in to listen to their conversation. Juno felt the disc vibrating in her hand. It was getting warmer, pulsing with a rhythmic thrum that matched her own heartbeat. "It is reaching its peak," Felix said as they paused for breath behind a row of rusted trash bins. "The event is locking in. We have to get to the bridge and find the transmitter. If someone is planning to bring it down, they are not using explosives. They are using sound. They are going to play a note so perfect and so loud that the bridge simply forgets how to stay together." Juno looked at the massive iron structure of the bridge in the distance. It looked solid, but she knew that even the strongest things had a breaking point. "How do we stop a sound we cannot hear yet?" she asked. "We give the stone something else to think about," Felix said, his eyes gleaming. "We create a counter-frequency. I have a portable amplifier in my backpack and enough wire to bypass a small power plant. We are going to go up there and give that bridge a reason to stay standing." They saw a black car parked near the pedestrian entrance of the bridge. Two more men in gray coats were standing guard, their eyes scanning the darkness. Juno realized they could not just walk up the main path. They would have to climb. She looked at the towering suspension cables and the dark water below. "I really hope you are good at climbing," Juno whispered. "I am great at climbing," Felix replied, "as long as I do not look down. If I look down, I generally become a very terrified statue. So, let's just keep our eyes on the top, shall we?"

    6 min
  6. The Needle and the Void

    FEB 10

    The Needle and the Void

    Visit the “A Bedtime Story” show website to submit your story ideas for a future episode! Welcome to A Bedtime Story. I'm Matthew Mitchell, and tonight's story is titled The Needle and the Void, Part 1 of this week's series: The Frequency of Forgotten Things. Juno was the kind of teenager who preferred the company of inanimate objects to actual people, mostly because objects rarely asked you about your plans for university or commented on the state of your hair. She worked at a shop called The Dusty Alcove, a place where time seemed to have given up and decided to take a nap. The store was filled with typewriters that only typed in vowels, chairs with too many legs, and mirrors that showed you how you looked three minutes ago. Her boss, Arthur, was an elderly man who wore three sweaters regardless of the temperature and spent most of his time trying to organize a collection of buttons by their level of sassiness. "You see this one, Juno?" Arthur said, holding up a small pearlescent button with a chipped edge. "This one thinks it is far too good for a simple cardigan. It has the soul of a ballroom gown and the attitude of a duchess." Juno smiled and continued dusting a shelf of porcelain cats that seemed to be watching her every move. She enjoyed the quiet chaos of the shop. One afternoon, while moving a particularly heavy crate of antique telescopes, she noticed a loose floorboard behind the counter. Underneath it sat a box made of a wood so dark it looked like a hole in the universe. There was no label, no shipping manifest, and certainly no instructions. Curiosity, which usually led Juno into trouble but at least kept her entertained, took over. She pried the lid off to find a record player. It was not a standard model. It was carved from obsidian, with a needle made of a clear, shimmering diamond. Beside it lay a single disc, also made of stone, perfectly smooth and cold to the touch. Juno knew she should probably tell Arthur, but he was currently in the basement having a stern talk with a leaky pipe. She could hear him muffled through the floor. "Listen here, you dripping menace," Arthur shouted, "I have had quite enough of your rhythmic nonsense!" Juno carefully placed the obsidian disc onto the turntable. There were no buttons to press, no wires to plug in. As soon as the needle touched the stone, the air in the shop grew heavy and still. The usual hum of the street outside faded into a vacuum of silence. Then, a sound began to bleed out of the machine. It was not music. It was the sound of a crowded room, the clinking of glasses, and the low murmur of a thousand voices. She leaned in closer, her heart performing a nervous tap dance against her ribs. Among the sea of noise, a single voice became clear. It was her own. "I am telling you, the umbrella did not walk away on its own," her voice said from the record, sounding slightly more tired than she felt now. "And if I see that turtle again, I am calling the authorities." This was strange because Juno did not own an umbrella, and she had a profound fear of turtles. The recording grew louder, and then she heard a man's voice, cold and sharp as a razor blade. "The bridge will fall at midnight," the man said. "The frequency must be maintained at all costs. Do not let the girl interfere." The record player hissed, and a spark of blue light jumped from the needle. Juno pulled back, her breath coming in short, jagged gasps. She looked at the clock on the wall. It was six in the evening. She had six hours before whatever she heard was supposed to happen. She felt a sudden, overwhelming sense of responsibility. She took the disc off the player and tucked it into her jacket just as Arthur emerged from the basement. "You look like you have seen a ghost, or perhaps a very large spider," Arthur remarked, wiping his hands on his third sweater. "Just a bit of dust, Arthur," Juno said, trying to keep her voice steady. "I think I am going to head out early if that is alright." Arthur waved a hand dismissively, already distracted by a box of haunted thimbles. "Go on then. Try not to fall into any plot holes on your way home." Juno stepped out into the cool evening air. The streetlights were flickering on, casting long, spindly shadows across the pavement. She felt the weight of the stone disc against her side. It felt like a ticking heart. She began to walk toward the bridge, her mind racing through a list of everyone she knew who might be able to explain why a piece of rock was telling her the future. She thought of Felix, a boy from her chemistry class who spent more time building illegal radios than studying periodic tables. If anyone understood strange frequencies, it was him. As she turned the corner, she noticed a man in a long gray coat standing by a lamppost. He was perfectly still and utterly silent. He looked exactly like the kind of person who would have a voice like a razor blade. Juno quickened her pace, her boots clicking a frantic rhythm on the cobblestones. She did not look back, but she could feel his eyes on her, a cold pressure at the base of her skull. She realized then that the recording was not just a warning; it was a target. She had five hours and forty-five minutes to find Felix and save the bridge, and she had the distinct feeling that the man in the gray coat was not interested in a polite conversation about her day.

    6 min
  7. The Archives of Alistair

    FEB 7

    The Archives of Alistair

    Visit the “A Bedtime Story” show website to submit your story ideas for a future episode! Welcome to A Bedtime Story. I'm Matthew Mitchell, and tonight's story is titled The Archives of Alistair, Part 3 of this week's series: The Midnight Museum and the Lost Key. The service elevator descended with a groan of metal and a sound like a thousand angry wasps, finally depositing Eliza onto the third sub-level of the Archives. The air here was cool, dry, and heavy with the scent of old paper and leather. The Archives were a labyrinth of shelving units, housing the museum's documents, records, and the forgotten personal effects of figures connected to its history. Eliza found the section labeled "Finch, A." immediately. It wasn't a file cabinet, but a small, heavy wooden trunk tucked beneath a massive blueprint rack. The trunk was secured with a simple, un-locked latch, another theatrical detail from her unseen challenger. Inside the trunk were bundles of brittle, yellowed letters, a pair of dusty wire-rimmed spectacles, and a leather-bound journal. Lying on top of the journal was the beautiful, oversized silver and obsidian key. The Chronos Scribe key. Eliza let out a long, slow breath of relief, the tension draining out of her shoulders. She grabbed the key, its weight instantly reassuring. But she didn't leave. The journal was open to the last entry, and she knew she had to read it. This was the true 'memory' the note-writer wanted her to discover. The journal was dated the day Alistair Finch vanished. The entry was short and frantic: "The Scribe is too powerful. It knows too much. Its prophecy is true—it will predict tragedy for the city. I cannot allow the board to wind it tonight; they will panic and cause the very disaster it foretells. I have hidden the key, but a single, final message must be left for the one who finds it. The Scribe's work is flawed, but my other creation, the little canary, is not. The canary alone holds the true key to its safety. It must be found and locked away. The Archives. Level Three. Near the trunk. I must flee now." Eliza looked at the blueprint she found in the locket: the clockwork canary. Alistair Finch hadn't been a madman who disappeared; he had been a man terrified by the accuracy of his own creation. He hadn't just hidden the winding key; he had hidden the key to stopping the Scribe. She closed the journal and immediately noticed a small, recessed square in the wall behind the empty space where the trunk had been. She pressed on it, and a tiny, perfectly carved wooden bird cage, no bigger than her hand, swung out on a silent brass hinge. Inside was the clockwork canary, resting peacefully on a little perch. It was exquisite, carved from dark cherry wood and intricately detailed. The midnight hour was upon her. A low, resonant chime began to echo up from the main hall. Eliza knew she only had moments. She had to get the winding key to the Scribe, but more importantly, she had to lock away the canary as its creator had requested. She took the small cage and the journal, secured the trunk, and raced back to the elevator. It was a terrifying, heart-pounding ascent. She burst out onto the main floor and ran toward the central display, the chime of the clock now deafening. Just as the final, massive twelfth chime reverberated through the hall, Eliza reached the Chronos Scribe. She thrust the silver and obsidian key into the winding mechanism and twisted. The gears within whirred to life, and the automaton’s arm began to move. The quill dipped into the inkwell and started to write the week's prediction. As the Scribe finished its single, stark sentence, Eliza quickly opened a small, unused security box that was cleverly hidden beneath the display podium. Following Alistair Finch’s instructions in the journal, she carefully placed the clockwork canary inside, locked the box with the spare security key she always carried, and pocketed the box key. The prophecy on the parchment was exactly what Alistair Finch had dreaded: "Major Financial Ruin." The museum board would indeed panic. But Eliza knew the truth. The canary, the key to its safety, was now safe. She had done the trade: she traded the Clockmaker's secret for the winding key. Just then, a small, black kitten with enormous green eyes padded out from behind the velvet rope, let out a soft meow, and rubbed against her ankle. A simple, silver pendant hung from its collar—a tiny, winged hourglass. The unseen challenger wasn’t a person, but the museum’s clever little cat. It must have found the key earlier, played with it, and used the notes Eliza sometimes left for herself to create the entire, elaborate treasure hunt. Eliza laughed, a genuine, joyful sound that broke the museum's tension. She had the key, the prophecy was written, and she had a new, much more interesting secret to keep.

    6 min
  8. The Velociraptor's Visitor

    FEB 5

    The Velociraptor's Visitor

    Visit the “A Bedtime Story” show website to submit your story ideas for a future episode! Welcome to A Bedtime Story. I'm Matthew Mitchell, and tonight's story is titled The Velociraptor's Visitor, Part 2 of this week's series: The Midnight Museum and the Lost Key. The Natural History wing smelled distinctly of ozone, formaldehyde, and the faintest hint of old wood polish. As Eliza stepped through the archway, the colossal skeleton of a woolly mammoth seemed to loom over her, a silent, intimidating guardian. This was definitely a place where "history is frozen." But the 'time still flows' part of the riddle was still nagging her. She moved past the dioramas of prehistoric life, her flashlight beam dancing over the glassy eyes of taxidermied beasts. The usual silence of the museum was amplified here, broken only by the slight metallic click of her footsteps on the polished concrete floor. She was looking for anything out of place, a flicker of movement, a misplaced object, or a clue that could confirm her suspicions about the winged hourglass note. Then, she saw it. In the center of the largest diorama—a dramatic scene depicting a pair of velociraptors stalking a small herd of plant-eating dinosaurs—something was definitely not a preserved artifact. Tucked right beneath the towering fossilized jaw of one of the raptors was a small, slightly rusted, but clearly functional grandfather clock. Its pendulum swung back and forth, a deliberate, metronomic rhythm. A loud, steady tick-tock, entirely out of place among the frozen history. "Time still flows," Eliza murmured, the riddle now making perfect, if bizarre, sense. The grandfather clock was counting down. She climbed carefully over the velvet rope and into the diorama, navigating around the carefully placed synthetic boulders. The clock wasn't just old; it looked like it belonged to the same era as the Chronos Scribe, with dark, heavy wood and brass weights visible behind a glass pane. Taped to the glass was a second, equally cryptic note, also signed with the winged hourglass. This one read: "To trade the key, you must show courage. The memory is hidden inside the jaw that frightens the most. Only true curators know the fake from the real." Eliza suppressed a sigh. Whoever this person was, they certainly had a flair for the dramatic. She was standing in a room full of enormous, terrifying jaws, all of which were fossils. Which one was the one that "frightens the most?" She looked up at the velociraptor skeleton that stood immediately over her. Its jaw was clearly a highly detailed, perfect replica; the real, fragile fossil was stored safely away. The teeth, though fake, were terrifyingly sharp. Was this the fake jaw the note referred to? The 'fake from the real' that a 'true curator' would know? The person who left the note had complimented her knowledge. Using the light on her phone, Eliza began to run her fingers along the inside of the raptor's replica jawbone. It was smooth, hard plastic, modeled to look like bone. Then, near the hinge, her finger snagged on a barely perceptible seam. With a gentle push, a small, circular panel in the "bone" clicked inward. Inside the resulting hollow, there was no key. Instead, there was a small, silver locket hanging on a thin leather cord. It was tarnished and worn, but Eliza recognized the unique, stylized "A.F." initials engraved on the front—Alistair Finch. The Clockmaker. She opened the locket. Inside, there was no picture, but a tiny, rolled-up piece of parchment. She carefully unrolled it. It wasn't a memory, but a drawing. A detailed, intricate blueprint for a second, smaller clockwork device—a tiny clockwork canary. Beneath the drawing, in the same ornate script as the note, were four words: "The Archives. Level Three." This was getting more complicated, but Eliza realized she was now involved in a genuine treasure hunt, not just a simple recovery. The key was a lure, drawing her into uncovering a hidden secret about the Scribe’s inventor. The key's trade wasn't for a memory, but for a piece of the story itself. She glanced at the grandfather clock. The hands were moving quickly now. She had maybe twenty minutes left. The Archives were located deep in the basement, three levels down, accessible only by a single, creaky service elevator. Eliza slipped the locket and the note into her pocket. She had to hurry. This wasn't just about saving her job anymore; it was about honoring the legacy of a man she admired, and solving a puzzle left behind by a clever, unseen adversary. With renewed determination, she scrambled out of the dinosaur diorama and sprinted toward the service elevator, the echoing tick-tock of the grandfather clock spurring her on.

    6 min
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5
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About

A Bedtime Story is a short-form nightly show featuring a unique tale generated by AI, then edited and performed by Matthew Mitchell.

Information

  • Creator
    Matthew Mitchell
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    299
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2024-2025 Matthew Mitchell. All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    A Bedtime Story