LOW - Now Available

0:07Hey, it's Jack, host of the show. I just released a new podcast and I really want you to go listen to it. It's called Low. It's available for free in any podcast player right now. Okay, here's the pitch. Have you ever walked into a movie and you just weren't the same person when you walked out? You didn't simply say, oh, that was good, and then never thought about that movie again. But instead, it burrowed inside you, and it became a piece of you. I mean, have you ever watched a movie where, when you went to drive home after, simply putting the key in your ignition and starting your car felt like a new experience?

0:44Or maybe you just sat there in the parking lot with your car running, but there was nowhere that you actually wanted to go. Or maybe when you finally got going, you didn't want to drive home, you just wanted to drive around just to drive. to, like, give yourself time to think and breathe. Like, somehow the movie opened up something inside you, something that you didn't know could be opened. That's what this story, Lo, did for me. I didn't just try to make another piece of entertainment for you. I tried to make a door that I want you to open and find a whole other world on the other side. Lo is the story of a guy I met from Russia named Zachariah.

1:23You've heard me tell crazy and dark stories before, but Zachariah's story is by far the craziest and darkest story I've ever heard, much less told. Every time I got off the phone with him, I had chills. I had to go on a long walk. I had to take long showers. And yeah, I would sit in my car with just the keys in my hand thinking about life. I was stunned again and again when I heard this story. What he told me was shocking. The stuff he was involved with was dark, and I was worried about his life. I talked with him for months, and we had lots of phone calls. We went over his whole life again and again so I could hear every little detail, because I had so many questions.

2:08But then, suddenly, he went quiet. He stopped responding to my messages and calls. And that was it. While recording this story, he vanished. Something happened to him, and I have no idea what. I was left with this insane story, and I didn't know what to do with it. I grappled with it for seven years before publishing it. It didn't feel right for me to put it out there. But at the same time, I couldn't do nothing with it. I've never grappled with a story as much as I did this one. I put so much time and energy and thought and emotion into this. And it changed me in so many ways. The story doesn't fit here in Darknet Diaries.

2:55It's a little off-center of what I normally do. Many of you won't even like it, and that's fine. But if you are the person that it was made for, then this is going to hit different. So open your podcast app and search for Low. Hit subscribe and listen. If you can't find it, go to thisislow.com, and you can subscribe there. This is Low. Five episodes and then it's over. I'll see you on the other side.