Archive for Episodes

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Cast of Wonders 623: The Cat That Worked From Home (Staff Picks 2024)

First published as Cast of Wonders 583, April 2024

Image by Aleksandar Cvetanović from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:46 — 35.4MB)

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The Cat That Worked From Home

by Dan Peacock and Rachel Peacock

Macaroni’s workstation is set up just the way he likes it. He has a little laptop with little buttons for his little golden paws, adjusted to a comfortable height. His scratch post is within easy reach; all he has to do is lean over his mousepad and mouse and

Mouse!

Macaroni tackles the computer mouse and rolls around with it until he is sure it has been sufficiently killed. Satisfied, he returns to his work. It’s a good day to be working from home; the sun is coming through the window just right, and a warm rectangle of light is spreading across the carpet, ready for his lunch break.

Macaroni stops. There’s a noise from outside. He jumps up onto the windowsill and sees Gingerbread, his next-door nemesis, clambering over the garden fence.

Macaroni runs downstairs and out of the cat flap. The orange fur on Gingerbread’s back rises, but he quickly relaxes.

“Clear off,” Macaroni says. “This isn’t your garden. I’m trying to work from home here.” (Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 622: Open Skies and Hellfire (Staff Picks 2024)

First published as Cast of Wonders 582, April 2024

Bombs, terrorism

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:04 — 28.9MB)

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Open Skies and Hellfire

by Olivia B. Chan

I liked to think of myself as a morally sound individual. It was easier to do when I wasn’t smuggling gunpowder to a teenager who may or may not have planned to blow up the caverns with it.

The smudgy teenager asked, “How much?”

I said, “An unreasonable amount. What are you going to do with all this, anyway?”

Caver kids had a certain look, and this one exemplified it. In the dark of the cramped tunnel, our two lanterns converging to cast multifaceted shadows, her skin clung to her bones. “How much do I pay?” (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 621: Bodies of Sand and Blood (Staff Picks 2024)

First published in Cast of Wonders 580 in April 2024

Transphobia, abusive parents

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:03 — 41.3MB)

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Bodies of Sand and Blood

by Plangdi Neple

Sneaking into your father’s shrine is one of the most stupid things you have ever done, yet you feel entirely at home among the hanging masks and horsetails. Lanterns beside the doorway and at the opposite end of the shrine cast the faces of the other boys around you in an orange glow. The excitement on their dark, ruddy faces can’t match yours though, and your cheeks hurt from smiling too much.

You are seated on the bench furthest from your father’s big bone chair, hoping to be obscured by the shadowy darkness of the corner. The first three benches are crammed with boys jostling for a better seat yet unwilling to move to the empty benches behind. You scoff at their stupidity but pray they don’t stop clamoring for those seats. In your heart of hearts you belong with them, but you know the further away you are from them, the better. (Continue Reading…)

silhouetted horses against a backdrop of the starry sky

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Cast of Wonders 620: Fording the Milky Way (Staff Picks 2024)

First published as Cast of Wonders 577, February 2024

Abusive relationships, dysfunctional families

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:32 — 32.3MB)

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Fording the Milky Way

by Megan Ng

There’s a festival celebrated in China that’s dedicated to young lovers. It is not one celebrated here, but Ma tells me about it all the same. Storytelling is our way of killing time as she makes supper for the ranch hands or patches Pa’s shirts, and whenever she’s sitting comfortably with her hands full I know I’m about to hear something interesting. Ma’s stories aren’t like the ones in books– hers seem more thrilling and real, even though I know she’s making most of them up.

She tells me a story about a beautiful weaver girl who lives among the stars and falls in love with a human cowherd. She tells me about a vengeful mother goddess who rips the sky in two with a hairpin to keep the lovers apart forevermore.

On the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, the Jade Emperor takes pity on them, Ma says. He allows all the magpies of the world to form a bridge between the heavens, so that the weaver and her cowherd can see each other for a single night. (Continue Reading…)

a small gingerbread man in a bowl of gingerbread

Genres: , , ,

Cast of Wonders 619: A Properly Spiced Gingerbread

This story was originally published in DreamForge Magazine in March 2022 and later won the 2022 Critters Readers Choice Award for “Best Magical Realism Short Story.”

Image by Slava Sidorov from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:07 — 18.0MB)

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A Properly Spiced Gingerbread

by David Hankins

Run, run, as fast as you can. You can’t escape the Gingerbread Man. Granny had warned that magic could kill, but Lucy hadn’t expected to die at the hands of a cookie. (Continue Reading…)

stately home garden distorted by a kaleidoscope

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Cast of Wonders 618: Beneath the Unreal Gardens of the Virtual Villa

Cast of Wonders 618: Beneath the Unreal Gardens of the Virtual Villa is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:12 — 63.5MB)

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Beneath the Unreal Gardens of the Virtual Villa

By M.K. Hutchins

Self-defense class in the virtual reality sim is supposed to be safe. My green dummy-partner lumbers toward me like a particularly unthreatening zombie and grabs my throat. I clasp my hands together, crash down on those green elbow joints, then strike up at its nose with everything I have, just like Mrs. Rodriguez showed us.

Green blood sprays all over me.

I cough, splutter, stagger back. Who’d program a dummy that way? Several girls gape in horror. Two guys start laughing. No one else made their dummy gush blood.

Mrs. Rodriguez smells wounded social prey like a great white shark—Carcharodon carcharias. She hurries over with a plastic-fake, angelic smile. “As you can all see, Anne has gotten into the spirit of things! Excellent work, Anne!” (Continue Reading…)

axe and chopped wood

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Cast of Wonders 616: Worse than a Wolf

Cast of Wonders 616: Worse than a Wolf is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content warning for implied past sexual assault

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:29 — 36.4MB)

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Worse than a Wolf

by Wen Wen Yang

The sound of the metal grinding against the whetstone reverberated up my arms. My father was sharpening his ax, preparing for the day’s work. “I invited Mu to dinner tonight,” he said.

I shuddered.

Mu was a woodsman whose family came from a neighboring village in China and had settled in the same rural town in Oregon a decade before my family. How happy my family was to hear our dialect! It almost made this foreign country feel safe. (Continue Reading…)

disco dancers

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 615: Optimal Care

Cast of Wonders 615: Optimal Care is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content Warning: Terminal illness of a young person

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:40 — 29.8MB)

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Show Notes

2076 words

Optimal Care

by Matt Tighe

“Hey T! You about?”

James rounds the corner of the kitchen, his dark hair lank, his face pale, his breathing all-too shallow.

Tenderbot is standing at the kitchen island bench. It pushes the sandwich and milk forward. The Home Care Unit has already scanned the boy and computed a 92% chance he will reject the sandwich, but Tenderbot always attempts to optimise care.

James sits down and opts for the glass.

“Your platelet count is down. Eat,” Tenderbot says.

“Oh, come on, T. You think a sandwich is going to save me?” (Continue Reading…)

three happy pumpkins on a woodland path

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 614: T-Rex Tex-Mex

Cast of Wonders 614: T-Rex Tex-Mex is a Cast of Wonders original.

Implied murder

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:01 — 17.9MB)

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Show Notes

Additional audio production by Summer Brooks of EscapePod

Trick-or-treaters: Rebecca Ahn, Amy Brennan, Katherine Inskip, Samuel Poots, Ryn Richmond

531 words

T-Rex Tex-Mex

by Sarina Dorie

“Whoa! Hold on, partner!” the host of the party asked with his fake Texan accent. “What is that costume supposed to be?”.

Of all the insufferable things, he was wearing a cowboy hat on his green, scaley head.

Dinosaurs did not wear hats. (Continue Reading…)

three happy pumpkins on a woodland path

Genres: , , ,

Cast of Wonders 613: The Gingerbread House

Cast of Wonders 613: The Gingerbread House is a Cast of Wonders original.

Off-screen death

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:56 — 21.9MB)

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Show Notes

Additional audio production by Wilson Fowlie of CatsCast

Trick-or-treaters: Rebecca Ahn, Amy Brennan, Katherine Inskip, Samuel Poots, Ryn Richmond

1248 words

The Gingerbread House

by Jenny Hart

The air has only just begun to smell of autumn as I head for Gingerbread Cottage, where I am to house sit two cats for the winter. I have packed warm clothes and antihistamines, and the emailed instructions are both simple and strange. Feed the cats and clean up after them and yourself. But don’t let them out, no matter how much they ask.

It’s easy work and easy money. It’s also a chance to hide from my sins, and those who would hold me accountable for them. (Continue Reading…)

three happy pumpkins on a woodland path

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 612: The Illusionist’s Tent

Cast of Wonders 612: The Illusionist’s Tent is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:24 — 29.4MB)

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Show Notes

Additional audio production by Eric Valdes of Podcastle

Trick-or-treaters: Rebecca Ahn, Amy Brennan, Katherine Inskip, Samuel Poots, Ryn Richmond

1360 words

The Illusionist’s Tent

by H. K. Payne

I was told we had the night off, but I guess no one told you kids that. Tell me, whose idea was it to come trick-or-treating through our camp? I suppose it was yours, since you’re the only one here. You do realize we’re a bunch of broke circus performers, don’t you? Well, since you’re here, we might as well get this over with. Which do you want: the trick or the treat?

Treat? All right, let’s see. What have I got… Here you go. A handbill folded into the shape of a bird.

What do you mean, it doesn’t look like a bird? It’s a swan, obviously.

You have some nerve, showing up outside a man’s tent on his night off, demanding a treat and then insulting his paper-folding abilities. Yes, I know it’s not a very good paper swan, but what do you expect? This isn’t my area of expertise. You’re the one who came to an illusionist asking for a treat.

(Continue Reading…)