Posts Tagged ‘choices’

silhouette of a woman with her arms raised against a backdrop of the golden gate bridge

Genres: , ,

Cast of Wonders 649: Little Wonders 46 – Seize Your Future

Cast of Wonders 649: Little Wonders 46 – Seize Your Future is a Cast of Wonders original.

Abortion themes, loss of agency

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:17 — 25.1MB)

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

Show Notes

What the Water Gave Her was first published in Pop Goes the Page, May 2023

What the Water Gave Her

by Race Harish

The witch was a small man, but otherwise rather ordinary. He had white hair, kind eyes, and a fondness for darjeeling tea. He called himself Mother.

The directions were unclear. But it was unwise to question a witch so she pays that as little mind as she can. The slip of paper bearing the directions crumples in the tight clutch of her fist, the writing surely too smudged and sweat soaked to be of any use to her now. She is glad that she had the sense to commit it all to memory before she began the journey. (Continue Reading…)

abstract phoenix in flame tones

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 633: Born in Flame and Song

Cast of Wonders 633: Born in Flame and Song is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:39 — 60.0MB)

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

Born in Flame and Song

by Jameyanne Fuller

They will tell me, later, I was born singing. I wasn’t. I was born like all children are born, in one bloody, wailing, messy push. But I was born on fire. (Continue Reading…)

a dark haired girl underwater, surrounded by bubbles

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 629: The Otter Woman’s Daughter

Cast of Wonders 629: The Otter Woman’s Daughter is a Cast of Wonders original.

Off-screen historical domestic violence

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:43 — 53.2MB)

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

The Otter Woman’s Daughter

by Eleanor Glewwe

In the stories, when the selkie finds her skin, she always leaves her children behind. When I was little, I was terrified that would happen to me. After it didn’t, I began to wish it had. Not all the time, but in brief, shame-stricken bursts, in the darkness underwater. (Continue Reading…)

watercolour purple dragon against a sunset sky

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 589: The Answer of the Fickle Heart

Originally published in Kaleidotrope, January 2023

Image by Oberholster Venita from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:15 — 63.0MB)

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

The Answer of the Fickle Heart

by Eden Frenkel

Sophie had a fickle heart.

She didn’t know at first what fickle meant—the word reminded her of tossing a coin and waiting to see which way it lands—but her mother kept using it, and her sisters, and her brother. Maybe fickle meant that she liked sewing one day and sword-fighting the next, or that she kissed two different boys (and one girl) within the span of a single fortnight, or maybe it simply meant that she laughed too much, and often cried, and sometimes screamed.

Sophie knew, however, that there was a witch beyond the woods that bordered her village, and that witches could take care of such things for people, for the right price. She also knew that one shouldn’t—at any cost—approach a witch and ask for such a deal, because witches were cunning and snaky and fickle, in their own magical way. But Sophie was fickle too, and she wasn’t afraid. (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 588: In a town like this

This story was first published on Maria Haskins’ Patreon.
Episode image by Brigitte Werner from Pixabay.

underage drinking

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:03 — 21.6MB)

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

In a Town Like This

by Maria Haskins

It’s the first weekend of summer holidays and we’re piling into the backseat of Annette’s dinky old Honda headed to some house party at the far edge of town, passing a bottle of rum and coke between us. It’s one of those two-liter plastic coke bottles and the label is slipping off and the contents are lukewarm by now, but we don’t care. We kiss that bottle and in the passenger seat, Patrik cranks the radio and we’re dancing to Bon Jovi on sweaty vinyl seats. (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 584: Robot Girl

Cast of Wonders 584: Robot Girl is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:06 — 42.7MB)

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

Robot Girl

by Grace Griego

At age nineteen, Robot Girl had dropped out of the most prestigious university in the country, had no objectives in life, and was now stuck pet sitting for the lovely lesbian couple at her old church. Everything she was programmed not to be and do, Robot Girl had now become.

1 Extra Large Pepperoni Pizza

Robot girl tightened her faded, pink Hello Kitty Hair band then typed her order through a delivery service, rather than actually talk to anyone on the phone. Something deep in her wiring went off at this idea, but she didn’t know why. Robot Girl much preferred not to bother anyone if she could help it. And really, she couldn’t help it, it was in her programming. “Remember, Robot Girl! Be nice and polite!” her mother had always told her before she went to school. “Got it! Polite and nice!” Robot Girl never failed to reply, the words coming out stiff and wrong.

Nice. Robot Girl had grown to hate that word. It was the kind of word a fellow classmate would use to describe you because they didn’t know what else to say. (Continue Reading…)

Cast of Wonders 578: Cold Blessing

Cold Blessing was originally published by PULP Literature (Issue 32, Autumn 2021)

Harm to children

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:03 — 42.3MB)

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

Cold Blessing

by Kelsey Hutton

The wind had gnawed his skin raw by the time they reached the nun’s door, the damp air sunk deep into his bones.

A warm orange glow leaked out of the small cottage into the night. While his daughter bounced about in front of him, immune to winter’s bite, he spread his hand out on the door. There, briefly. Not warmth, but a respite from the cold.

Then he shook himself straight and crushed the ice out of his moustache. He wasn’t here for respite. He was here so he would never need respite again.

He pulled Maisy in front so she could dart through the door as soon as the nun opened it. “Ready, girl?” he said. “Be good now, hear?” (Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 573: The Hidden Forests of Earth and Mars (Staff Picks 2023)

Originally published as Cast of Wonders episode 532, 4 April 2023

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:24 — 52.2MB)

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

The Hidden Forests of Earth and Mars

by Anna Zumbro

Seventeen hours before some of us are to launch on a nine-months-and-forever journey to Mars, my little brother Enoch lands on my tricked-out Park Place and even he knows before counting his cash that he can’t pay the rent. We’ve been lowballing him so he can stay in the game (he’s six), but I bankrupted my dad last turn on this square so he knows what’s coming.

His face twists into a pout, then calms with obvious effort. Kids who are going to Mars have to learn to bounce back from disappointment. He knows that, too.

“It’s a good thing,” my stepdad Hugh says, sweeping Enoch’s money toward me. “There’s an old astronaut tradition that you should lose a game before you launch. Uses up your bad luck.” (Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 540: That Good Night

Cast of Wonders 540: That Good Night is a Cast of Wonders original.

Bereavement

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:26 — 42.6MB)

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

That Good Night

by Francesco Rahe

This is how the old pass.

Like fog on a sunny summer day. Like a gray cirrus cloud fading before the pearly moon. Like a brush of cool wind on a starry night. Like a snowflake melting upon a windowpane.

They pass in the night, silent, with a single peaceful breath. They pass in hospital beds, amid beeping machines, with a rattle of oxygen shaking free from their chests. They pass with families around them, with aged spouses clasping their hands, or they pass alone, with no one at all. They pass and they enter the shadowlands and no matter who is with them when they pass, this final step they take alone. They enter the shadowlands alone, they stride its craggy shore, they sail their coracles past the moonlit sky, and they do not return. (Continue Reading…)

A hand holding an oak seedling

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 532: The Hidden Forests of Earth and Mars

Cast of Wonders 532: The Hidden Forests of Earth and Mars is a Cast of Wonders original.

climate change and ecological collapse

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:24 — 53.0MB)

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

The Hidden Forests of Earth and Mars

by Anna Zumbro

Seventeen hours before some of us are to launch on a nine-months-and-forever journey to Mars, my little brother Enoch lands on my tricked-out Park Place and even he knows before counting his cash that he can’t pay the rent. We’ve been lowballing him so he can stay in the game (he’s six), but I bankrupted my dad last turn on this square so he knows what’s coming.

His face twists into a pout, then calms with obvious effort. Kids who are going to Mars have to learn to bounce back from disappointment. He knows that, too.

“It’s a good thing,” my stepdad Hugh says, sweeping Enoch’s money toward me. “There’s an old astronaut tradition that you should lose a game before you launch. Uses up your bad luck.” (Continue Reading…)

Genres: , ,

Cast of Wonders 526: La Puerta (Staff Picks 2022)

Originally broadcast as Cast of Wonders 517, 11th December 2022

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:17 — 68.1MB)

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

La Puerta

by Ren Braueri

La puerta siempre estaba abierta. Just in case Javier ever came back.

But let me not begin there, because…if I started there – I’d have to tell you how it was all my fault. Instead, let me start with the day Papá brought La Puerta home. (Continue Reading…)

a purple door

Genres: , ,

Cast of Wonders 517: La Puerta

Cast of Wonders 517: La Puerta is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:54 — 67.6MB)

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

La Puerta

by Ren Braueri

La puerta siempre estaba abierta. Just in case Javier ever came back.

But let me not begin there, because…if I started there – I’d have to tell you how it was all my fault. Instead, let me start with the day Papá brought La Puerta home. (Continue Reading…)