Posts Tagged ‘families’

image of aurora in the arctic

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Cast of Wonders 535: The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen

This story was first published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, issue 124, June 2013

Death, bereavement, harm to animals

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:52 — 59.9MB)

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The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen

by Barbara A. Barnett

In the town of Svalgearyen, on the thirty-third day of the months-long winter night, Grandma Marit abruptly cast her knitting aside and marched toward the door.

“It’s my time,” she declared—a pronouncement that elicited a whimper from Gunther, the bushy little sheepdog who had been curled up at her feet.

Her granddaughter, Adda, set her own knitting down with far more delicacy but also a great deal of surprise. “Where are you going?”

“Well,” Grandma Marit said as she heaved herself into her heavy winter coat, “I can’t die here, now can I?” (Continue Reading…)

chinese bao

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Cast of Wonders 533: The Time Traveler’s Cookbook

Cast of Wonders 533: The Time Traveler’s Cookbook is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:35 — 43.7MB)

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The Time Traveler’s Cookbook

by Angela Liu

  • Day: 4202
  • Place: Northern Laurasia (later known as Mongolia)
  • Time: 66,000,000 BC (late-Cretaceous Period)
  • Meal: Magnolia and Grilled Oviraptor

Mom’s cookbook recommends tenderizing the meat so I fashion a club from a young cycad, but I might as well be beating a rock with a feather.

Don’t eat dinosaur. Just don’t. Mom marked it as a must-have, saying it looks and tastes “like an exotic giant chicken,” but just getting to the meat has been a nightmare. The skin’s teeth breakingly-tough and the sucker hooked me in the thigh with one of its nasty claws during the hunt. I’ve staunched the bleeding with Happy Time Traveler’s super medical glue, but holy hell it still hurts. (Continue Reading…)

A hand holding an oak seedling

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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)

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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…)

two figures facing away from each other, wreathed in abstract stylised curls of fog

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Cast of Wonders 527: Both Hope and Breath

Cast of Wonders 527: Both Hope and Breath is a Cast of Wonders original.

Transphobia, misgendering, rejection

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:58 — 58.6MB)

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Both Hope and Breath

by Riley Tao

It’s perfectly normal for breath to fog up mirrors. Everyone knows that. For most of my childhood, I never thought twice about the way mirrors went cloudy when I drew near. The only time it really mattered was when Dad flew me to school; even well into my upper school years, I never could sit in the front seat without frosting over the rearview mirrors, much less pilot an aerostat myself.

In my senior year at Ettwood Upper, I was the only person still flown to school by a parent–and Dad never let me forget it.

“You know,” Dad said, smoke and mist drifting out from between his lips, “I did the math. If your Aspiration didn’t block you from piloting, I would’ve saved two hundred hours this year.”

I sighed, letting out a cloud of Aspiration. As always, the faint white mist hung in the air for a second before gravitating towards the nearest mirror–in this case, the left-hand passenger window. “Well, I’m sorry that the physical manifestation of my hopes and dreams isn’t good enough for you.” (Continue Reading…)

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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)

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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…)

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Cast of Wonders 522: Ysarin (Staff Picks 2022)

Originally broadcast as Cast of Wonders 500, 17th July 2022

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:27 — 57.1MB)

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Ysarin

by Simon Pan

On days when I came home crying, my grandmother was always there with her song.

It was a tune friendly and old as the roads that crossed Mazael: the sort you shared while you watched the land roll away on horseback, or sitting at a moonlit fireside among familiar faces. I would lean against my grandmother on our rickety porch and breathe in her scent as she sang to the street.

Magic lay in that song, the notes so delicate you could tell a story about each one. As the beginning strands of music twined together, I would be transported to a place that let me forget the ache in my chest, a city of an entirely different skin than our Lenniel. A place of worn streets and thatched roofs wrapped in the smell of woodsmoke and fresh ale. A sunset, a fire, the sky on fire and the streets ablaze with torchlight.

“This is our song, dear,” she would say as she smiled down at me. “Don’t listen to the other children. We will always have our home with us…” Her fingers would press against my chest just above my heart. Somehow she knew the exact place where her spell took root. “Here.”

Even after so many years, that is how I think of home. Sitting there on that porch with the wind stealing my tears and carrying away the sound of magic. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 519: Far From the Home I Love (Staff Picks 2022)

Originally broadcast as Cast of Wonders 509, 28th September 2022

Queerphobic families

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:00 — 44.0MB)

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Far From The Home I Love

by Y.M. Resnik

“Let me get this straight. You were born on Earth, but your passport is Venusian?”

The condescension seeps through the plexiglass barrier separating me from the visa agent. It blankets me in icy disdain. Chides me for having the chutzpah to think that returning home could be easy.

I nod in the affirmative, trying to still my shaking hands as I retrieve the required documents out of my bag. I’ve followed the instructions meticulously, right down to bringing everything in triplicate. Ari helped me prepare the application. They’ve always been more detail oriented than I am.

The electronic Siddur in my bag grazes my fingers, reminding me why I am here. I pull it out and clutch the worn synthetic leather carrying-case to my chest as the agent shuffles through the paperwork. I am half tempted to recite one of the prayers found inside, but decide against it. What if the visa agent flags it as suspicious behavior? There aren’t many religious Jews on Venus. Ari and I probably make up a quarter of that population.

“Do you at least have your expired passport?” The agent is fumbling now, casting her eyes about frantically as if searching for the lost passport. Well, she can search until the Messiah comes. She won’t find anything. I didn’t have a passport when I fled. (Continue Reading…)

a purple door

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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)

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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…)

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Cast of Wonders 515: Little Wonders 36 – Halloween

Cast of Wonders 515: Little Wonders 36 – Halloween is a Cast of Wonders original.

Body horror, clowns, lack of acceptance

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:57 — 48.0MB)

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Show Notes

As I Wait for the Killing Blow was previously published in Fireside in June 2021

Interlude

by Christopher Hawkins

“It’s probably just a rash,” my wife said, though I could tell, even then, that she knew it wasn’t true. I could hear it in her voice, the subtle rise at the end that almost made it a question. Her eyes had gone wide, just a little, but the boy never saw it. He was looking up at me with wide eyes of his own, eyes that wanted reassurance. Below them, the tip of his nose burned an angry red, like a pale shoulder left too long in the sun, like a lobster left to boil.

“Probably, yeah,” I told him. “Just don’t scratch at it or you’ll make it worse, okay?” (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 509: Far From the Home I Love

Cast of Wonders 509: Far From the Home I Love is a Cast of Wonders original.

Queerphobic families

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:18 — 45.1MB)

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Far From The Home I Love

by Y.M. Resnik

“Let me get this straight. You were born on Earth, but your passport is Venusian?”

The condescension seeps through the plexiglass barrier separating me from the visa agent. It blankets me in icy disdain. Chides me for having the chutzpah to think that returning home could be easy.

I nod in the affirmative, trying to still my shaking hands as I retrieve the required documents out of my bag. I’ve followed the instructions meticulously, right down to bringing everything in triplicate. Ari helped me prepare the application. They’ve always been more detail oriented than I am.

The electronic Siddur in my bag grazes my fingers, reminding me why I am here. I pull it out and clutch the worn synthetic leather carrying-case to my chest as the agent shuffles through the paperwork. I am half tempted to recite one of the prayers found inside, but decide against it. What if the visa agent flags it as suspicious behavior? There aren’t many religious Jews on Venus. Ari and I probably make up a quarter of that population.

“Do you at least have your expired passport?” The agent is fumbling now, casting her eyes about frantically as if searching for the lost passport. Well, she can search until the Messiah comes. She won’t find anything. I didn’t have a passport when I fled. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 506: Little Wonders 35 – Memories of Home

Cast of Wonders 506: Little Wonders 35 – Memories of Home is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:08 — 41.5MB)

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The Past Laid Out On The Table

by Matt Tighe

The sky above his mother’s house is the bright orange and pink of a frozen dawn when David stops by after work.

‘Mum!’ he yells as he slings the grocery bags at the kitchen bench. They slow to a stop in mid-air. A yellow lemon drops out of one bag and spins lazily, nowhere to go. No when to go.

‘Yes, dear?’

“Have you looked out the window?” David says, trying to keep the edge from his voice. He wishes she would just leave the past alone.

“Oh, I’ll put it all back,” she says, and of course she will. She was always good like that. Always the ordered one. Always the careful one.

“Do you have time for a cup of tea?” she asks. (Continue Reading…)

abstract mountain

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Cast of Wonders 505: And the rain will come from the mountain

This story was previously published in the Author of Tomorrow Prize Anthology 2019, Available on World Reader

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:32 — 72.1MB)

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And the rain will come from the mountain

by Innocent Chizaram Ilo

For my father and all the stories he told me.

I

This is how Papa paints.

In the evenings, when air collects at people’s feet in chilly, invisible spools, he gathers his painting things to the balcony and sits in front of a rotting canvas. The numb fingers of his right hand grip the paintbrush, and the aluminium paint tray sways on his quivering left palm. Papa starts by making a whorl at the top left edge of the canvas. He twirls and twirls the paintbrush, concocting a riotous mesh of colours. It does not make sense. It does not make sense at all. Mama has always warned me never to disturb Papa when he is painting but I still linger, hiding behind the torn brocade curtain in the parlour. (Continue Reading…)