Posts Tagged ‘Beth Goder’

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 627: The Restaurant of Object Permanence (Staff Picks 2024)

First published in Diabolical Plots, April 2024, and as Cast of Wonders 604 in September 2024

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:29 — 21.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

The Restaurant of Object Permanence

by Beth Goder

Kazia files a folder of correspondence and closes the manuscript box. She leaves the archives as the sun is setting. Her head is filled with the collection she is processing, the papers of Elgar T. Bryce, noted American biologist. For eleven years, she has worked as an archivist, arranging and describing the papers of scientists, economists, and professors. She loves the quiet of the archives, the way folders line up in a processed box, tangible history in her hands.

Outside the archives, there’s a strange flyer on the bulletin board. The first thing she notices is the paper, a small blue square, probably acidic, attached to the board by the thin metal line of a staple not yet turned to rust. It’s an invitation to the Restaurant of Object Permanence. To go, one is instructed to eat the flyer.

She pulls the paper from the board and swallows it in one bite. (Continue Reading…)

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay. Graffiti of a boy, screaming, in a Banksy-esque style

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 604: The Restaurant of Object Permanence

First published in Diabolical Plots, April 2024

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:05 — 22.1MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

The Restaurant of Object Permanence

by Beth Goder

Kazia files a folder of correspondence and closes the manuscript box. She leaves the archives as the sun is setting. Her head is filled with the collection she is processing, the papers of Elgar T. Bryce, noted American biologist. For eleven years, she has worked as an archivist, arranging and describing the papers of scientists, economists, and professors. She loves the quiet of the archives, the way folders line up in a processed box, tangible history in her hands.

Outside the archives, there’s a strange flyer on the bulletin board. The first thing she notices is the paper, a small blue square, probably acidic, attached to the board by the thin metal line of a staple not yet turned to rust. It’s an invitation to the Restaurant of Object Permanence. To go, one is instructed to eat the flyer.

She pulls the paper from the board and swallows it in one bite. (Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 599: Little Wonders 45 – Future Legacies

Hitch Hiker, Guide was first published in Flashes Issue 2, a self-published collection of flash fiction, in August 2023

Seeds Travel was first published in Nature 572, 686 (2019).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:54 — 20.5MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

Hitch-Hiker, Guide

by Alasdair Stuart

Frank Duffy saw the astronaut on a gift stall on his way to work one day. A little guy, white and gold plastic, pointing at the sky with all the confidence of the non-sentient. Frank bought it on a whim, and it stayed on his monitor until he left a few years later. (Continue Reading…)

infinity space

Cast of Wonders 493: One Day in Infinity

Cast of Wonders 493: One Day in Infinity is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:31 — 20.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

One Day in Infinity

by Beth Goder

Walrus reaches her hands down into a supermarket in Oregon, willing the roof translucent. Time is frozen like the fish sticks in aisle seven. She weaves her hands through shoppers, careful not to nudge the boy bouncing in the cart or the old man in front of the cake mixes. She breathes in the smell of cucumbers, a loamy quality that speaks of the ground they came from.

First, she removes salmonella from a carton of eggs, sucking out disease until only a swirl of white and yolk remains. She caresses the fish in the display case to tell them they are loved. Next, she sees if anyone is going to die. (Continue Reading…)