Posts Tagged ‘E. M. Linden’

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Cast of Wonders 681: Little Wonders 48 – Coping Mechanisms

Cast of Wonders 681: Little Wonders 48 – Coping Mechanisms is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:01 — 31.6MB)

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Show Notes

Episode art adapted from an image by Hello Cdd20 from Pixabay

A Chest Full of Storm Clouds

by Elisabeth Ring

It’s Philip’s text that finally does it.

“Happy birthday!” it says. Just those two words. Not, “Happy birthday! I miss you!” Not, “Happy birthday! I’m sorry!” Not, “I was wrong. I love you. Please take me back.”

Happy. Birthday. Exclamation mark.

As if the long, emotionally fraught blocks of text above it, mostly from me, and un-responded to by him, don’t exist. As if he hadn’t broken my heart in a million pieces even before he left. As if we’re the kind of friends you remember to text on their birthday but not well enough to come up with anything more creative than just “Happy birthday!”

Reading that text, I feel something break loose deep inside. I maybe haven’t been handling the breakup well to begin with, plus work has been extra tough lately and I’m going to have to juggle credit cards to pay for everything this month. This text just unleashes everything I’ve been keeping locked up and I know I need to get to a storm chamber or I might actually explode. (Continue Reading…)

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

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Cast of Wonders 605: The Projectionists

First published in The Deadlands, May 2022

death, grief, off-screen violence, authoritarianism

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:13 — 40.1MB)

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The Projectionists

by E. M. Linden

Nobody talks about what happened in Hasan’s city, so he looks for clues. His memories are jumbled up and broken. Boots thudding. Shards of glass. Shoulders and fists slamming on the thin wooden door of his flat. He remembers one night some men forced their way in. The latch is still broken. But Hasan’s father says no. That was only because Hasan locked himself in once and the neighbors had to rescue him. It’s a funny story, not a scary one. And his mother is with relatives. Hasan doesn’t need to worry. (Continue Reading…)