Posts Tagged ‘families’

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Cast of Wonders 592: Flawless

First published in 2013 in the short story collection Twisted Winter, edited by Catherine Butler

Image by Leonhard Niederwimmer from Pixabay

 neglect and dysfunctional relationships

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Flawless

by Frances Hardinge

When people stay in hotel rooms, they suddenly turn into toddlers. Weird, creative, screwed-up toddlers.

Let’s smear jam on the wall! Let’s leave apple cores in the drawers! Let’s hide used nappies behind the radiator, so that they fill the whole room with the smell of cooked poo! Hello, whoever cleans this room! I’ve left you a surprise!

Maybe they think there’s some hidden handle we pull to flush the room clean. But there isn’t. The only ‘handles’ are Mum, ‘occasional Kev’ from the village, and me. Kev’s just Occasional and Mum has everything else to do, so cleaning is mostly my job, particularly during the school holidays. (Continue Reading…)

raw meat

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Cast of Wonders 590: Umami

Originally published in October 2019 by Sourcebooks on their FIREreads blog

Episode image by Andreas Lischka from Pixabay

cannibalism, zombies

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Umami

by Amelinda Bérubé

Their progress through the woods had slowed to a stagger, but they kept going. They had to.

Jane shoved one booted foot through the layers of fallen leaves, then the other. Imagination kept her fear burning, prodding her forward with what if on an endless loop. What if that thing that had been her father had lurched impossibly to its feet, bent-necked and grinning, and come after them? But the sun was going down, the sky fading to pink and lavender behind the trees, and they wouldn’t be able to push forward much longer.

Emmett, ahead of her, cried out. “Look!”

Jane squinted in the direction he pointed, but the pale, twilit trees refused to stop moving after she turned her head, sliding past like tall, mocking ghosts. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 587: The Game of Mao

Cast of Wonders 587: The Game of Mao is a Cast of Wonders original.

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The Game of Mao

by Emma Victoria

The Game of Mao has only one rule: don’t explain the rules to the game of Mao.

It’s the only rule we may be told — the rest are clouded in secrecy and it is up to us to figure them out through trial and error. We must follow this set of ambiguous rules exactly, without knowing what they are. There are, in fact, so many rules that many times they go forgotten; it is impossible to memorize them all, so we only remember the common ones, the ones that carry the most serious implications, the ones we’ve decoded after years of experiments.

Today is a Tuesday, which means the rule of Tuesday applies: you cannot walk on sidewalks, all purchases must be made in dimes, and hats must be worn at all times.

(Continue Reading…)

sand trickling out of a hand against a dark brown backdrop

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Cast of Wonders 580: Bodies of Sand and Blood

Cast of Wonders 580: Bodies of Sand and Blood is a Cast of Wonders original.

Transphobia, abusive parents

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:01 — 42.9MB)

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Bodies of Sand and Blood

by Plangdi Neple

Sneaking into your father’s shrine is one of the most stupid things you have ever done, yet you feel entirely at home among the hanging masks and horsetails. Lanterns beside the doorway and at the opposite end of the shrine cast the faces of the other boys around you in an orange glow. The excitement on their dark, ruddy faces can’t match yours though, and your cheeks hurt from smiling too much.

You are seated on the bench furthest from your father’s big bone chair, hoping to be obscured by the shadowy darkness of the corner. The first three benches are crammed with boys jostling for a better seat yet unwilling to move to the empty benches behind. You scoff at their stupidity but pray they don’t stop clamoring for those seats. In your heart of hearts you belong with them, but you know the further away you are from them, the better. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 574: Printed in Ink and Ashes (Staff Picks 2023)

Originally published as Cast of Wonders 557, 14 October 2023

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:26 — 55.5MB)

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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 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)

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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…)

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Cast of Wonders 572: The Time Traveler’s Cookbook (Staff Picks 2023)

Originally published in Cast of Wonders as episode 533, 13 April 2023

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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…)

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Cast of Wonders 570: Both Hope and Breath (Staff Picks 2023)

Originally published as Cast of Wonders 527, 1 February 2023

Transphobia, misgendering, rejection

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:08 — 53.4MB)

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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…)

A girl crouched beside a tree, inside of which is a cosy living room

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Cast of Wonders 569: The Woods in the House (part 2)

Cast of Wonders 569: The Woods in the House (part 2) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:10 — 41.8MB)

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The Woods in the House

by Amanda Cecelia Lang

(part 1)

Finally, I had a decent guess about the cog-works of the witch’s magic. The theory swamped my head until it became my only thought. But how to test it?

Sneaking down 13th without eyes on me became impossible. The beat cops, my kryptonite, manifested whenever I stepped outside. Dad stopped working double-shifts to warden me to-and-from school. On weekends, he locked the apartment and grumbled about sacrificing the overtime. Restless days passed, countless awkward hours cooped up together—watching the boob-tube, fixing meals from cans, pacing grimy ditches into the carpet, back and forth, back and forth, silently missing Tina. Missing our girls. It felt weird not feeling so afraid inside his shadow. But I had other villains to worry about.

How bonkers was it that I felt thankful for that? (Continue Reading…)

A girl crouched beside a tree, inside of which is a cosy living room

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Cast of Wonders 568: The Woods in the House (part 1)

Cast of Wonders 568: The Woods in the House (part 1) is a Cast of Wonders original.

death of a parent, corporal punishment and neglect

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:13 — 44.6MB)

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The Woods in the House

by Amanda Cecelia Lang

Those magic-duped beat cops warned me not to return to Old Lady Sybil’s brownstone. They ordered me to leave the odd-bird alone, let her totter about her dying years in peace. Said the myths us punks on 13th Avenue spread about her were just that. She didn’t skin alley cats for bubbling potions or hex the afternoons with yellow smog. She didn’t whisper haunted prayers and open portals into other realms. Her house was just a house.

And she didn’t kidnap Tina.

The whole neighborhood agreed—from the bodega owner to the apartment rats to the sidewalk gossips. Something wretched had happened to my little sister. Just another big city statistic. Kids like her go missing every day, run off, tumble through cracks, take ill with sinister luck—same as alley cats and treasured parents. One thing the cops promised me: telling wild lies about lonely spinsters was never gonna bring Tina back.

But I know what I saw on Halloween. (Continue Reading…)

Christmas Baubles against a backdrop of a dark sky

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Cast of Wonders 566: Will She Remember the Lights?

Originally published in Underneath the Tree: Twelve Christmas stories from Writers in Northern Ireland in November 2020

Dystopia, Organised Religion as a tool of the State.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:22 — 45.8MB)

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Will She Remember the Lights?

by Samuel Poots

The reader spits out my finance card, its screen flashing a book and cross in luminous green. The young man behind the counter gives me a wary look as he hands the card back and says, in a carefully neutral tone, “Sorry Brother, your account has been locked.”

His words ripple through the queue of people behind me; their stares prickling across my skin like crawling ants. All I can do is murmur an apology, hoping that I sound more confused than guilty, before hurrying out of the store and making my way to the Financial Office across the town square.

Winter winds have stripped the place bare of people. Even the Security Deacons have found excuses to linger indoors, which is one small mercy. The only other face I see as I cross the open span of concrete is that of the Reverend Father shining from his pole-mounted projectors. The image flashes from fatherly love to stern disapproval, so I’m never quite sure which I’ll see when I look up. Normally I take some comfort from the sight. Light blazes from that face, pushing back the growing shadows of this darkest time of the year. It might be a far-cry from the colourful bunting of my childhood, but I take pride in knowing that it’s often my wiring that keeps the Reverend Father always before us. (Continue Reading…)

light bulb with bright sparks

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Cast of Wonders 564: Little Wonders 42 – Flash Fiction Contest Winners

Cast of Wonders 564: Little Wonders 42 – Flash Fiction Contest Winners is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:14 — 29.2MB)

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A Girl Bikes Home Alone at Night

by Georgie Morvis

Pina didn’t want to bike home that night from the party, she told the officers. Dad had texted 10 minutes before he was supposed to pick her up. No can make it. Had too many green bottles. He had been like this since the lung cancer spread through Ma’s body like wildfire.

The bike wasn’t even hers, but Lani’s haole family had just moved to Kona from Denver, so there were plenty kine for her to choose from. She would have brought a helmet and worn brighter clothing, instead of the black tank top and ripped jeans she had on when the officers found her. (Continue Reading…)