The Specter of Ægir

by Jordan Bianchi

Animation • Flash fiction • Audio drama • Asylum Magazine

Audio Drama

Directed, produced and written by Jordan Bianchi

Starring Keith Gallucci as the Narrator

Music composed and performed by Eddie Irvin

Story edited by Amanda Bintz

Graphic Design by Alain Pierre-Lys

Villa Maria College - Animation Project

In 2021, animation students in Professor Joshua Muntain’s “Post Production” class at Villa Maria College of Buffalo, NY teamed up with writer and filmmaker Jordan Bianchi to adapt moments from his audio drama, The Specter of Ægir, into character animations. By channeling a myriad of unique styles and workshopping with Muntain and Bianchi, who assumed the roles of “producer” and “the client”, respectively, the students collectively brought the ghost story to life.

The video (above) contains animations, created by the students, as well as moments from the full audio drama. Ægir Animation stills by Tim Clavier, Mika Ervin, Brianna Scutt, Aurora Mill, Shalayah Smith, Xzavyer Barker and Kyra Cannon. Special thanks to Villa Maria College for supporting this project.

WARNING: This video utilizes a strobe / flash effect that may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised.

The Specter of Ægir

by Jordan Bianchi

***

Under the murky sky I fled. I flew down a curving stretch, the lone driver on a highway that seemed as though it was paved solely for my vehicle. The engine was the only producer of noise. 

I had finally escaped from the funeral parlor. I know I was far too unemotional, a response my wife commented on, before she left. Cars had pulled into the parking lot for hours. My colleagues, oceanographers and marine biologists, gathered to pay their respects to our boss, Dr. Harper. The doctors proclaimed her heart had given out on her. It was sudden. Her people were shocked. But as the tides pull ships, they too would drift away, back to their studies. Would one more leaving be missed? Absolutely not. Funerals bring families and friends together more than any other event – people obsess over death. An open parking spot would be welcomed.

I smelled the river before I saw it. The air that snuck in through my sunroof had a vitalized nuance to it. It supplied the aquarium we worked at with fresh water, pumped inside by the filtration units. They hummed as cargo ships’ lights blinked across the bay.   

After I pulled into my gravel parking spot, I saw her. Selena’s hands were buried deeply in her coat pockets as she watched the tide recede. 

We stood alone on the boardwalk. Artificial light leaked from the neon sign of “Ægir’s Aquarium”. The insignia of a bare-chested god with a harpoon and algae for hair changed in a rhythm with a turquoise ocean that grew and sank behind him.

“Did you spend adequate time at the funeral?” my wife asked. 

“As long as I could bear,” I said. “They couldn’t trace the poison in her blood.” 

The turquoise light illuminated her hair. She pushed a strand back, lost in the mass of water that flowed before us. 

“Now that she’s gone, it’s yours,” I whispered. 

She nodded. She took out a set of silver keys, and for the first time, unlocked her aquarium. She had to wait no longer. Her dues were paid. Even I could tell the creatures needed better conditions. Selena could change that, she assured me, but not as deputy director. All I had to do was help. 

She unlocked the door to her new office. Dr. Harper’s possessions had yet to be collected, reminding us of our sin as she kissed me with a passion I hadn’t received in a long time. Selena was smiling again. There was hope.

Selena slept that night, but when I closed my eyes, all I could see was Dr. Harper’s face after we snuck the venom into her espresso. I dreamt of her laughter, wafts of it, sneaking through the sky.

When the morning came, Selena dressed in her pin-striped suit, even combed her hair. A hint of rose was on her cheeks. She insisted I say hello and have a drink with the board, even in my wet suit. I complied. We were poured crispy champagne, and balding men in jackets saluted her, the newest director of Ægir’s. Their glasses clanked, as did ours, and in the twinkle of her eye, she thanked me. 

An audience filed into the gallery of our largest exhibit, the Oceanarium. I planned to see Selena speak, but I was urgently needed inside the tank to remove a fish that had bitten another. I wasn’t finished by the time she’d reached the microphone, but I saw her through the glass. Selena spoke with poise while she taught the children the names of the fish. If anyone could see me through my mask, they’d see me beaning. 

Once the fish was captured and I scrubbed guts off the glass, I saw a flicker of green. Was it the light? It didn’t seem so. I looked for the source, which took me to the top of the crowd.   

Standing in the sea-green dress of her wake, was Dr. Harper. She stood out from the patrons. Her skin was as pale and lifeless as bleached coral reef. She did not laugh with the crowd at a joke Selena must have told. I looked to Selena to see if she saw her, but she hadn’t. No one had. 

I looked back, and Harper was gone. 

My blood flushed with adrenaline. I swam away from the glass. Leafy sea dragons and moray eels swam around me, specters in the currents. 

Then, the water chilled, and I heard her speak. 

“You will not flee,” her tinny voice said. 

I kicked my flippers to turn, but she was there, floating next to me. The sockets of her eyes were dark and hollow. She laughed and I could see her swollen tongue. The poison hadn’t left her veins. Maggots fell out of her mouth and sank into the jaws of fish.  

I froze. She came close and I could see her bloodshot eyes. She told me gulls carried her here, that clandestinely, she laced herself in bits and tears within their feathers to find us. Said travel was painful, difficult for the deceased. But we weren’t hard to find. That drinks certainly weren’t easy to taint. I tried to swim away, but her bony hand reached out, ripped off my mask and twisted around my regulator. It fell silent.

Dr. Harper glided across the tank, slipped through the wall, and hovered toward Selena. She spit a vivid, vile yellow liquid into Selena’s drink. She did not notice. I pounded on the glass as she put it to her lips, but I was trapped within. A corpse within his coffin.

Cameras flashed through the glass and screams echoed. Selena fell to her knees, her fingers clutching her neck. Her face was vividly blue. The audience crowded around her. Parents shielded their children. 

I sank. Selena collapsed onto the linoleum floor. A man crushed his hands into her chest, but she did not move. My regulator would not start. Across the tank, I saw my mask, caressed by the arms of rose coral.

Beside me, Dr. Harper’s ghost gave a curdled laugh, then dissipated, into the murky sea light. 

Artist Alain Pierre-Lys joined the production to create a graphic design that features the ghost of Dr. Harper from The Specter of Ægir. The piece was exhibited at the Crucible Art Collective’s gallery in Buffalo, NY along with other visual works by Pierre-Lys, all of which were published, with the short story, in the inaugural issue of his magazine, Asylum.