In today's episode I'm going to tell two stories that are each about sort of joyful events or celebrations.
But in both cases, they take a horrible turn just because of one small decision.
But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the right place, because that's all we do, and we upload two three, even four times every week.
So if that's of interest to you, please tell the follow button that you have something really important you want to tell them and they need to hurry and come to your house as soon as possible, but make sure you leave before they get there.
Okay, let's get into our first story called Peace and Serenity.
On the morning of July 23rd 2006, a 74-year-old artist named Maurice Agus paced back and forth near an art exhibit in Riverside Park in Chesterless Street, England.
And Maurice was frustrated because this was supposed to be one of the biggest days of his entire 40-year career as an artist.
Right now, his exhibit, his masterpiece, should be full of people, but it wasn't.
So Maurice's exhibit was called Dream Space.
It was this massive structure, about half the size of a soccer field, and inside of it was the sprawling network of small colorful, interconnected rooms.
Dream Space was designed so that visitors could sort of wander from room to room and be affected by the music and soothing lighting and have kind of an immersive, serene experience.
And this was by far the largest physical exhibit that Maurice had ever done.
So it had taken a lot of preparation and naturally there had been some construction hiccups, but It was all going to be worth it, because Maurice knew it was about to be seen by a lot of people, since it was located in a really big public park.
However, before they could actually open, there was still one more hiccup to deal with.
This morning, when Maurice had arrived, he'd realized that part of his exhibit had not been set up correctly.
So he and his staff had spent the last few hours rushing around to fix everything and add some finishing touches to the exterior.
And Maurice knew they really needed to hurry here, because making these changes had already taken up way too much time and they were already late in opening the exhibit.
Maurice could see that there were guests who had already purchased tickets who were lining up at the entrance to get into DreamSpace.
And they looked confused and sort of annoyed about why they weren't inside already.
And so naturally, Maurice was afraid that if he didn't wrap this up soon and start letting people in, these people would just start leaving, which meant they would not get to see how amazing his masterpiece was.
And that would be just devastating.
So at this point Maurice just stepped back and he looked at what he and his staff had done so far in terms of fixes and he decided that, you know, things were looking good enough.
They'd addressed the major issues that he had had, And even though Maurice was ultimately a perfectionist and would have liked to do even more additions, just getting DreamSpace open at this point was way more important.
So Maurice told his staff to stop what they were doing and go to the entrance and start letting the visitors in.
A few hours later, around 315 pm, 68-year-old Elizabeth Collings walked into Riverside Park with her 14-year-old grandson.
They lived in the area, and they had just decided to take a walk together in the park.
And Elizabeth was glad they had.
It was like the perfect summer day.
There was a light breeze.
It was very sunny and warm.
And so, with the wind rustling her hair and her grandson happily walking beside her, she felt very at peace.
But just then her grandson stopped and sort of broke her peace by telling her to hey, look at this.
And Elizabeth turned and looked you know where her grandson was pointing and she saw on the other side of the park there was this sprawling, colorful structure with a a huge line of people out front and soothing music coming from its open doors.
And elizabeth thought, you know, whatever that is.
It looked really intriguing and not like anything she had ever seen before.
So she was just excited, as her grandson, to go check it out and so she said let's go.
Just a few minutes later and elizabeth and her grandson had purchased their tickets and actually stepped inside the exhibit,
And Elizabeth knew instantly that this had been a great idea.
The lights were dim inside and the colorful walls seemed to almost glow as they went from room to room.
And all around them, the dreamy, tranquil music played.
And even though it was fairly crowded and pretty hot inside, It still felt quite peaceful and Elizabeth could feel her entire body, just sort of relax.
And for the next 10 minutes or so, she and her grandson just wandered around slowly taking in the atmosphere and the lights and the music.
It was really nice.
At some point, they made their way into this room which had this beautiful blue hue to it.
And there was some light coming in from the room next to them, which was sort of brownish.
And when the color of the room they were in and this brownish light combined, it sort of had this effect of making the room feel almost green.
And then mixed with the music, it was just this really cool experience.
And both Elizabeth and her grandson were just sort of transfixed, sort of taking in this really cool exhibit.
But as they were taking this in, all of a sudden there was this deafening snapping sound.
And the moment that snapping sound happened, elizabeth suddenly felt dizzy and disoriented and as she stared at all the colors around her, the room seemed to almost tilt and she found herself stumbling a few steps like the room was was moving and she was losing her balance, and at first she wondered if maybe the lights and the heat were just getting to her.
Except then, she couldn't help but have this almost floating sensation like the room itself was moving away from her.
And then she realized her feet were no longer touching the floor.
The creator of Dream Space Maurice, had been outside with the guests who were in line waiting to get into the exhibit.
And so far, the day really had been going great.
I mean, he had done all those last minute changes and fixes to the exhibit and he had sort of got it done just in time to open it up.
And now all these people are here and There's at least 40, some odd people in line with more and more joining, and everybody who comes out of the exhibit is, you know, beaming and talking about what an incredible experience it was.
I mean, the day had been going great for Maurice until he heard that snapping sound.
When that loud snap rang out, everybody heard it.
And then Maurice, who was looking away from Dream Space, he began hearing screams behind him.
And then before he could say or do anything, he just sort of whipped around and looked.
And all he saw were these shapes just falling from the sky and smashing into the ground.
And at first Maurice and everybody else around him didn't even know what they were.
Then suddenly Maurice realized those shapes were people.
So earlier in the day, when Maurice and his staff were sort of hustling to get all those last minute fixes done on this exhibit so they could open it to the public, Well, Maurice, who knew this was going to be his last big art exhibit, this was like the end of his career, it was supposed to be the exclamation point on a storied career here, he was so worried that if he didn't get the doors open fast enough, that people in line were going to leave and not even show up, and it would be this catastrophic failure. that he ultimately basically stopped his staff from finishing all the renovations, all the fixes he needed to do, in favor of just getting people in the door.
And the way he sort of rationalized it was.
Well, you know I'm a perfectionist and I would have liked to have done all the fixes.
But
I did enough.
It's good enough.
Let's get this place open.
Let's send people in.
The problem with that is some of the things that he overlooked in his haste to open up the front doors for the public included vital safety precautions.
Some of these missed safety precautions included tying down a series of extra ropes to anchor the exhibit to the ground.
The staff had ultimately tied down the front of the structure but because Maurice rushed them to get the place open, they didn't anchor the back of the exhibit.
And this would turn out to be just a catastrophic oversight.
Dream Space was not a regular permanent art exhibit.
It was not made of walls and concrete with a real foundation.
It was an inflatable exhibit made of plastic sheeting sort of like what shower curtains are made of.
So, even though there was just a light breeze going through the park that day, it was enough to sort of suddenly lift the entire dream space structure out of the ground because again, There was just a couple of anchors, not a full set of anchors.
And so suddenly the wind yanks the space out of the ground.
That was the snapping sound.
And so basically this big structure turned into like a giant hot air balloon.
And everybody inside of it.
The dozens of people, including Elizabeth and her grandson, were thrown 30 feet into the air.
And they're all trapped inside of this plasticky structure that's contorting in the wind up at 30 feet.
And as the wind picked up, the higher up they went, the dream space structure, as it contorted, began ejecting all of the people inside of it out.
And so that's why when Maurice looked, he saw all these people falling to the ground.
In the end, 27 people were injured and two were killed, including Elizabeth Collings.
As for Maurice Agus, the creator of Dream Space, he was convicted of a health and safety violation and given a fine.
But despite that being a relatively light punishment relative to what happened, he was so devastated by the destruction that his creation caused that he never made anything like it again.
This was the last piece of art he ever did.
And in fact, he died just three years later in 2009.
Our second and final story today is called Early Riser.
At 5 a.m. on December 24th, 1885...
30-year-old Samuel Wardell abruptly sat up in his bed in New York City, having just been woken up by the sound of his deafening alarm clock.
And just like every other morning, Samuel immediately got up out of his bed and he trudged across the floor of his one bedroom apartment to the shelf where his alarm clock was and he reset it.
Now, the placing of this alarm clock was very intentional.
Samuel was a very, very heavy sleeper.
And so, by putting the clock all the way over there, it forced him to get out of bed, walk all the way across the room to reset it, and then ideally, he just wouldn't go back to bed.
And for the most part, he wouldn't.
Now, it can't be overstated just how heavy a sleeper Samuel actually was.
In fact, he'd actually taken another step to make sure that he really could not sleep through his alarms.
He'd made some additional alterations to the alarm clock that made it way louder.
Now, this did seem sort of like overkill to most people who knew about it, but it was hard to argue with the results.
Samuel had not been late to work in years.
And that was really important because Samuel had a very early morning job that he didn't want to lose.
He was a city lamplighter.
In 1885, large parts of New York City still relied on gas-burning streetlights when it got dark outside.
So the way it worked is there was a night shift lamplighter not Samuel, this is somebody else who would go around the city and light those lights at dusk.
And then in the early morning hours, the morning lamplighter, Samuel would go put them out again.
And so that's why he had to get up early to go put out the lamps.
And even though Samuel really didn't like getting up this early, The reality was is he did need the job, and also too, he had sort of grown fond of the job.
He had a lot of fun doing it.
Over the years, he'd become very friendly with basically everybody on his local route, and so...
He didn't mind it.
You know, getting up was painful, but it was worth it.
Samuel actually had become so close with the people on his route that that night he was going to be throwing this big Christmas party for all these people.
It was like all his friends from his job were going to come over and celebrate with him and he was really excited about it.
But that was not going to be until much later that night.
You know, for now he just needed to reset his alarm clock, get dressed and go out and put out those lamps.
Fast forward to the end of the night and Samuel now, as he's done with his work, he's back home, all his friends are over, and he's He's pouring some ale from this big barrel that his friends had brought over for this party, and he's just having a great time.
The single room of his tiny apartment was now packed with about 30 people, and they too were all having just a great time.
They didn't care how small it was.
This was just like an awesome party.
Now, by this point, Samuel and his friends had already spent the last few hours drinking.
And so they were quite drunk, but they were having a great time laughing and eating and everyone's just having so much fun.
And so, even though it was definitely getting late and Samuel did have to work the next day, it just felt like the party was not about to end anytime soon.
And Samuel was not quite ready to turn it off yet.
He was having too good of a time.
And so when one of his friends randomly stood up and sort of drunkenly suggested they have an amateur boxing match, Samuel immediately voiced his approval, along with everybody else.
They cheered.
They're like, yeah, let's do it.
And so Samuel and the other party guests.
They cleared the furniture out from the single room to set up the boxing ring.
And then Samuel and the others all stood back and cheered while two of their friends began fighting each other in the middle of the apartment.
It was like this totally crazy booze-fueled just madness happening inside of this place.
And Samuel was having the time of his life not thinking remotely about how absolutely miserable it was going to be waking up in now just a few hours, when his alarm went off at 5 am.
He was just doing his best not to think about it.
You know, enjoy the party.
That's it.
And so for a while, the madness continued.
Until eventually people did get really tired and began leaving.
And before long, it was just Samuel standing in his now totally destroyed apartment from this party.
And so, at this point Samuel, he looked at his clock and he saw he had, you know, barely two hours before he would have to get up for work.
And he's thinking, oh my gosh, this is going to be so awful.
I'm going to feel so miserable. but it was totally worth it.
What a great party.
And so very drunkenly, Samuel kind of stumbled his way over to his bed.
He just fell right down on top of it and he fell asleep.
And sure enough, you know, just about two hours later at 5 a.m. sharp, his alarm went off.
Hours later, on Christmas afternoon, a local police officer walked up to Samuel Wardell's front door and knocked.
The officer was there because Samuel's boss had called the station when Samuel had failed to show up for work that morning.
And this was so out of character for Samuel that right away his boss contacted the police and said please, someone needs to go check on him and make sure he's okay.
And so now the officer waited at the door for Samuel.
But when no one answered, he tried the door handle. he found it was locked but this was a very rickety tiny home and the officer could tell it would not take much to basically kick the door in and so after calling out for samuel a few more times and knocking you know pretty loud and still not getting a response the officer just stepped back and then kicked the door and blasted it open.
And so the officer stepped inside the home and immediately saw Samuel.
And when he did, he understood why he had missed work.
It would turn out, when Samuel went to bed after his big party, he forgot to move his bed back into the position that it normally was in.
You know, he had moved the furniture around for that boxing match and just didn't put it back.
And so instead, he wound up going to sleep with his bed all the way across the room under the shelf where he kept his alarm clock.
And this was like the worst place for Samuel to fall asleep.
Because you know he had set his alarm to go off at 5 am the, But his alarm clock was not a normal alarm clock.
Samuel had intentionally altered his alarm clock to be way louder than a standard alarm clock.
But the way he had done that was fairly unique.
He had run a wire between a normal alarm clock and this shelf that had hinges.
Basically, the shelf, could you know, be situated like this, or it could fold down, basically making it flush to the wall.
So it could hold stuff or be flush to the wall.
And so when his normal windup alarm clock would go off in the morning and begin to ring, it would begin to vibrate and would sort of move across the shelf, and connected to it was this wire that ran to the hinges.
And at a certain point, when this alarm sort of got far enough, it would pull enough to disable the hinges and the shelf that was situated like this would suddenly fall.
And in order to make this alarm really, really loud, Samuel had put a 10-pound rock on that shelf.
So the instant the hinges dropped, that 10 pound rock came crashing down and smashed into the floor, causing a huge noise that consistently woke samuel up.
But on the morning, after his big party, because samuel was sleeping now directly under the shelf, because he didn't move his bed back, That 10-pound rock didn't hit the ground.
It fell and smashed directly into Samuel's head and broke his skull.
After being discovered by that police officer, Samuel was rushed to a local hospital but later died from his injuries.
A quick note about our stories.
They are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
The Mr Ballin Podcast Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr Ballin.
Our head of writing is Evan Allen.
Our head of production is Zach Levitt.
Produced by Jeremy Bone.
Story editing by Evan Allen.
Research and fact-checking by Shelley Xu, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway and Camille Callahan.
Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear.
Audio editing and post-produced by Wit Lacascio and Cole Lacascio, Perry Kroll, and Jordan Stidham.
Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain.
Production coordination by Samantha Collins.
Production support by Antonio Minata and Delana Corley.
Artwork by Jessica Clogsden-Kiner.
Theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast.
And just a reminder every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr Ballin Podcast you can also now watch on the Mr Ballin YouTube channel that very same day.
And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe.
Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin.
If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad-free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXMcom slash podcast plus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice.
So that's going to do it.
I really appreciate your support.
Until next time, see ya.
