weird sunset

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Cast of Wonders 563: Stolen Sky

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:40 — 45.9MB)

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Stolen Sky

by Storm Humbert

My first night on Earth-Vega was also my first sunset show. The viewing was held on the Sunset Mezzanine, which jutted out from the third floor of the hotel. My human guide, Ruya, gently escorted me through the press of humans to the front railing so that I could see, since we Yelvani are no larger than human adolescents.

From the balcony, the hills seemed to tumble over each other down the gentle grade from the hotel to the edge of the forest, which then climbed gradually up toward the horizon until it terminated at the feet of the distant mountains. The breeze was bracing but not so cool that I had to turn up the temperature of my garment. The view was perfect. Everything the humans made was perfect. (Continue Reading…)

Image of a derelict overgrown blue car

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Cast of Wonders 562: One Last Broken Thing

Originally published in The Dark, February 2021

Swearing (two f-words) & homophobic slurs

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:09 — 48.2MB)

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One Last Broken Thing

by Aimee Ogden

In elementary school, the other kids called Liv’s home that haunted house out on Barnhill Road. Liv herself has never seen a ghost there, but not for want of trying. They called her father lots of things: Freddy Krueger, Charles Manson, David S. Pumpkins. Now that she’s in high school, the other kids call her the spooky girl: to her face, on ugly pieces of paper smashed up small and pushed through the vents of her locker. Stay away from me, spooky girl. Don’t talk to me again in English, spooky girl. I saw you looking at me in the locker room, you spooky fuck. (Continue Reading…)

A group of people wearing grotesque festival masks

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Cast of Wonders 561: All Good Children Come Out To Play

Originally published in khōréō magazine, September 2022

Episode image by Rodolfo Pimentel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Death of a child

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:23 — 49.7MB)

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All Good Children Come Out To Play

by Karlo Yeager Rodríguez

For longer than I could remember, we had been Lázaro and Marta. We should have been celebrating our ninth birthday together.

Instead, my twin brother was laid out on our table. He looked so small and still and pale: the silent point around which our family and neighbors swirled, dancing and singing and laughing. Abuela Trini held me in her lap and cradled my head in the crook of her arm. Her reedy hum meandered through the cuatro music until my tears dried and my sobs shrank to hiccups.

I never meant for any of this to happen when I slipped away to bathe in our secret pool the day before. The one only Lázaro and I knew about, the one nestled in a clearing up the mountain and surrounded by yagrumo trees, the one we had splashed around in, the one with chilly spring-fed waters, the one where the freshwater shrimp tickled our legs and nipped at our feet.

All I had wanted was to be alone. (Continue Reading…)

decorative image of a pink abstract hexagon

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Cast of Wonders 560: Crystal Hexagons on Windowsills

Cast of Wonders 560: Crystal Hexagons on Windowsills is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:34 — 55.0MB)

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Crystal Hexagons on Windowsills

by Prashanth Srivatsa

I was the only one among my friends who did not get the letter. Which is a real shame, because I was the only one who could snap a finger to conjure a flame. (Continue Reading…)

Girl with balloons walking on a landscape made out of an open book

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Cast of Wonders 559: Libricide

Cast of Wonders 559: Libricide is a Cast of Wonders original.

Arson, burns

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:20 — 27.9MB)

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Libricide

by Rachel Linton

When he woke, the air tasted of ash.

For a moment, he contemplated not getting up. There was a physical weight to smoke-filled air that went beyond the actual density of the particles. It crushed him; his throat closed up beneath it. It was never a good day when a neighborhood of ideas was consumed by fire. (Continue Reading…)

Girl with balloons walking on a landscape made out of an open book

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Cast of Wonders 558: Braiding Challah

Cast of Wonders 558: Braiding Challah is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:49 — 42.3MB)

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Braiding Challah

by Rachel Gutin

When my family agreed to take in one of the refugees from Haven 3, I was excited. Sarah was fifteen, just like I was and, even better, she was Jewish too! There were only a few Jewish teens on the ship, and it would be nice to have one more of us.

I knew things wouldn’t be perfect. Taking Sarah in meant sharing my tiny room with her. Once we added the second bed, there would hardly be space to walk between them. Still, I was sure we could make it work.

But my excitement didn’t last for long. The day she arrived, Sarah barely spoke a word to any of us. Every time I asked her a question, she’d nod or shrug or ignore me entirely. That night, she cried herself to sleep, and when I offered her a hug, she cried even harder. I couldn’t figure out how to make her stop. (Continue Reading…)

Girl with balloons walking on a landscape made out of an open book

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Cast of Wonders 557: Printed in Ink and Ashes

Cast of Wonders 557: Printed in Ink and Ashes is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:10 — 55.1MB)

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Printed in Ink and Ashes

by Priya Sridhar

In the basement, scant lightbulbs sputtered in and out. The single torch, propped on a shelf, shone on the pages as I reviewed my copy: The plight of the Hindu laborer must be addressed on a societal level. He is forced to face his burdens alone, often without friends or family.

Typewritten stencils, leaving corpses of plastic letters on the ground. Mildew sprinkled the walls and released a foul odor. When I opened new ink, that stink would mix with the mildew.

Rage filled me as I pressed the keys on the typewriter. When I visited my father, he hadn’t even offered me a cup of coffee or asked how I was. Instead, leaning on his store counter, he told me about his latest backaches and arguments with his tenants. When I hinted that I was parched but wanted to pay for a soda, he offered me a cup of white Ovaltine. Its taste reminded me of how I missed my mother’s chai, how it would always soak the tongue with spices.

Father owned a candy shop in Seattle by a trolley stop; it also sold sodas and tobacco for those interested. He would curate newspapers and magazines for travelers and offer hot coffee to loyal customers. For children, he would boil sweetened Ovaltine powder in milk.

“You have grown too fast,” he’d grumbled in Tamil. “And you are eating too much, Shyama. How much money are we sending for your education?” (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 556: Nine Goblins (part 9)

Originally published by the author

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:35 — 54.5MB)

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Nine Goblins

by T Kingfisher

Episode 1 – Episode 2 – Episode 3 – Episode 4 – Episode 5 – Episode 6 – Episode 7 – Episode 8 – Episode 9

Their bonds had been loosened and they had been given water. When the goblins were retied, the elves let them keep their hands in front. Nessilka debated requesting the teddy-bear again, then decided not to push her luck.

“Do you think he believes us?” asked Murray.

“No.”

“He has to know we couldn’t have killed all those people. And they’ve been dead for days.”

“He doesn’t have any way to know how long we’ve been here.” Nessilka sighed. “Think it through, Murray…” (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 555: Nine Goblins (part 8)

Depictions of dead bodies.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:53 — 61.8MB)

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Nine Goblins

by T Kingfisher

Episode 1 – Episode 2 – Episode 3 – Episode 4 – Episode 5 – Episode 6 – Episode 7 – Episode 8

The village square felt agonizingly exposed. The goblins clung to the shadow of the buildings as long as they could, and then there was a water trough for horses partway there, but after that there was nothing to hide behind except bodies.

It was not the first time in Nessilka’s life she’d hidden behind bodies, but if the great gibbering gods were kind, it’d be the last. She thought the smell might follow her for several lifetimes. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 554: Nine Goblins (part 7)

Originally published by the author.

Descriptions of dead bodies

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:45 — 47.8MB)

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Nine Goblins

by T Kingfisher

Episode 1 – Episode 2 – Episode 3 – Episode 4 – Episode 5 – Episode 6 – Episode 7

Sings-to-Trees did argue, but it seemed to Nessilka that it was more a matter of form. The encounter with the cervidian had shaken him badly, and what he really wanted was to get home and send a pigeon to the rangers as quickly as possible.

“You don’t have to go,” he said. “We could all go back. We’ll let the rangers handle it.”

The notion that someone higher up the chain of command would be more able to handle anything was so foreign to Nessilka that she couldn’t really get her head around it. Could elves really be that different?

Naaaah. Elves were elves, but the military was the military. There was something immutable about it. Orcs were pretty different from goblins, too, but their military worked almost the exact same way, except that at the higher levels you were answerable to the priesthood, and nobody ever said anything nice about orcish gods. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 553: Judgment Day

Originally published in B Cubed Press, Post ROE Alternatives, in October 2022

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:35 — 48.1MB)

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Judgment Day

by Liam Hogan

Nine Judges rode in around noon. At the gabbled news the smattering of day-timers pushed away tumblers of whiskey and, with a curt nod from my father–the saloon owner–I stepped out onto the porch, still carrying my broom, to watch them arrive.

No horses. Equal in pace to any of God’s creatures, Judges don’t need them.

Gran says they travel as swift as the gas-guzzling automobiles of old, though the only one of those I ever saw at a county fair wasn’t any faster than a slow man walking.

“This town is in lock down,” Chief Justice Fisher announced, her voice echoing from clapboard walls as she pinned the proclamation to the door of the church with a metal hand. “By order of the Scotus, until we complete Judgment.” (Continue Reading…)

Feathers on a dark background

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Cast of Wonders 552: The Breaks

Originally published in Constelacion Magazine in January 2021

Suicidal ideation; mentions of past self-harm/suicidal behaviour

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:53 — 50.3MB)

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The Breaks

by Scott King

When the clerk at the convenience store takes my twenty for the frozen mac and cheese and the cheap wine, I barely notice the fractal pattern of cracks running across his face. They are unique yet generic, like a one-of-a-kind snowflake in a field of snow. Special, but not.

When I was young, I tried to decipher the meaning of the breaks. My mother had one that ran from below her right eye, across her nose, and then curled around beneath her cheek. It was geometrical, made from dozens of rectangles overlaid, making her look like a digital android, or some sort of science fiction space traveler. For years I prodded, trying to figure out what in her past could have caused such a break, but I was never able to determine anything.

I suppose that is the nature of being human. We are all broken, and sometimes we don’t even know why. (Continue Reading…)