Posts Tagged ‘ghosts’

illustration of a motel and parking lot

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Cast of Wonders 645: Chloe Chew and the Museum of Undead Art

Cast of Wonders 645: Chloe Chew and the Museum of Undead Art is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:07 — 45.5MB)

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Show Notes

Image by Camila Denleschi from Pixabay

Chloe Chew and the Museum of Undead Art

by Olivia B. Chan

In Chloe Chew’s suffocating hometown, there’s only one place fit for necromancy: the parking lot outside Em’s motel, where summer heat wavers above cracked pavement, blurring the darkness on the horizon. Forest fires have driven away all the tourists, so Chloe’s safe to prepare her resurrection materials between the yellow lines.

She presses her hands to the torn-up canvas as it flaps in the wind off the highway, Asperthbell’s skyline rippling in its peeling acrylic. Her victim is a painting she found in the back of Miss Plent’s classroom, wedged between old answer keys, entirely forgotten. Perfect for a resurrection. She recognizes Asperthbell’s gas station in its streaks of red, but besides that the painting’s portrayal of her hometown is unrecognizable—no ash. No smoke.

The painting’s ghost trembles in her hands. (Continue Reading…)

Australian Billabong

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Cast of Wonders 642: Feeding Spirits

Cast of Wonders 642: Feeding Spirits is a Cast of Wonders original.

Friendly haunting, bereavement

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:39 — 35.2MB)

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Show Notes

Image by Daniel Burkett from Pixabay

Feeding Spirits

by Emmi Khor

What does one feed a hungry ancestor? Fish and chips, chicken parmi, or steak pie didn’t seem like something my recently deceased Popo would enjoy.

I’d just returned from my backyard swamp with a full trash bag, when the phone rang. The call bounced with around-the-world echoes and I’d barely said hello, when Ma started in on her visit to the medium.

“I asked your Popo if she was comfortable. Ai yah, Li-Li,” cried Ma, “she scolded me! She said: Twenty years my granddaughter doesn’t come home. I go all the way to Australia to visit and she doesn’t even offer me a meal.” The click of Ma’s tongue was like a slap. “You should respect your ancestors!” (Continue Reading…)

pink gerbera daisy and dust on a black background

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Cast of Wonders 636: Whatever Remains of the Dead

Cast of Wonders 636: Whatever Remains of the Dead is a Cast of Wonders original.

Gun violence, aftermath of a school shooting, grief.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:35 — 48.9MB)

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Whatever Remains of the Dead

by Lyndsey Silveira

I fish a black dress from the back of my closet, all bunched up and wrinkled after its long exile. I get out the ironing board and try to iron it without burning it. Mom comes in as I’m cursing under my breath at a wrinkle that won’t go away. This small struggle is a nice reprieve from…everything. I don’t even want to go to the funeral, to any of them, but I don’t have an excuse. I wasn’t injured.

She watches me for a moment and says, in that quiet, gentle tone that’s beginning to grate on me, that everyone seems to use around me, “You don’t have to go, you know.”

“I do,” I reply. “His family isn’t going to any of the funerals. Not going makes me look guilty.”

“No one thinks you’re—”

I cut her off. “I necromanced their children’s corpses.”

She winces. It probably wasn’t the best choice of words on my part.

“And you saved your classmates.” She says it with conviction, like she’s proud of me, and it makes me wish I could find it in me to cry.

“Not all of them.” A beat. I stare down at the black fabric, smoothing it down. “I’m going.”

She nods. “All right. While you’re at it, you can iron my slacks.”

“That’s a bad idea.”

She smiles, probably thinking that if I can still banter, I must be doing okay.
(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…)

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Cast of Wonders 600: Double Yellow Lines

Cast of Wonders 600: Double Yellow Lines is a Cast of Wonders original.

death, road traffic accidents

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:27 — 30.8MB)

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Double Yellow Lines

by J. M. Bueno

Wednesday

We sit on opposite ends of the table, Charles’s beautiful breakfast spread laid out between us. He wears his distinctive ear-to-ear smile, and his eyes, beady, like those of a dead fish, never once stray from mine. I keep my own gaze downturned towards the silver cutlery and the perfect omelet on my plate, slowly cutting it open to reveal the runny inside.

“Why so stiff today, Raleigh?” Charles chirps. “Is the food not to your liking?”

I snort. “Charles, the one thing you’re always good at is cooking.”

“You wound me. I’m certain I have other good qualities.”

Proudly displayed in the table’s centerpiece, all rich mahogany and sharp steel, is a large carving knife. I remember the way it gleamed in Charles’s hand last night. From the head of the table, Charles smiles. (Continue Reading…)

A group of people wearing grotesque festival masks

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Cast of Wonders 561: All Good Children Come Out To Play

Originally published in khōréō magazine, September 2022

Episode image by Rodolfo Pimentel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Death of a child

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:23 — 49.7MB)

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All Good Children Come Out To Play

by Karlo Yeager Rodríguez

For longer than I could remember, we had been Lázaro and Marta. We should have been celebrating our ninth birthday together.

Instead, my twin brother was laid out on our table. He looked so small and still and pale: the silent point around which our family and neighbors swirled, dancing and singing and laughing. Abuela Trini held me in her lap and cradled my head in the crook of her arm. Her reedy hum meandered through the cuatro music until my tears dried and my sobs shrank to hiccups.

I never meant for any of this to happen when I slipped away to bathe in our secret pool the day before. The one only Lázaro and I knew about, the one nestled in a clearing up the mountain and surrounded by yagrumo trees, the one we had splashed around in, the one with chilly spring-fed waters, the one where the freshwater shrimp tickled our legs and nipped at our feet.

All I had wanted was to be alone. (Continue Reading…)

cat on roof

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Cast of Wonders 516: The Cat of Lin Villa

Cast of Wonders 516: The Cat of Lin Villa is a Cast of Wonders original.

Background mentions of an abusive relationship; infidelity

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:24 — 47.4MB)

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The Cat of Lin Villa

by Megan Chee

I did not care for Mr. Lin, the man who claimed to own the villa that I lived in. But when his new wife moved in, I found her much more agreeable. She came out to the courtyard every evening to give me treats: handfuls of coconut-scented rice, slices of stewed pork, fish steamed with ginger.

In return for the delicacies, I honoured her with my company. When she made nonsensical meowing noises at me, an offensive imitation of cat language, I made the same silly noises back at her. I even permitted her to stroke my fur. I really did spoil her.

She never realized how well I understood human speech, so she told me her secrets unreservedly. Soon I knew everything there was to know about her. I knew she was thought to be very beautiful by human standards. I knew her marriage to Mr. Lin had been a great fortune for her penniless family.

I knew he hit her when he was angry, and he was often angry. (Continue Reading…)

CoW 484 banner

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Cast of Wonders 484: Langsuir (Staff Picks 2021)

Original published as Cast of Wonders Episode 453 on May 26, 2021

This story features stillbirth, death, murder, abuse, rape, slavery and misogyny.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:42 — 22.1MB)

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Langsuir

by Nadia Mikail

The langsuir is a woman who has died giving birth. Malay folktales have a multitude of women featured as wrathful, devious spirits: the hantu kum-kum thrives on the blood of virgin girls, desperate to maintain her youth even in death; the hantu kopek lures men to cheat on their wives, jealous that their afterlife contains no husband of their own; the pontianak goes after the people who have wronged her, tearing out their organs.

People usually shake their heads, they think: oh, well, that is the envious, terrible nature of Eve. Personally I think it is more how humans are treated in life that influences how they behave in death, and in this culture the women are angrier than most. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 458: Little Wonders 31 – Acceptance

Cast of Wonders 458: Little Wonders 31 – Acceptance is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:37 — 22.1MB)

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Rosie’s Ghosts

by Srikripa Krishna Prasad

They sway in front of the bay window, sunlight tinting their translucent bodies gold. Rosie watches from under her eyelashes, her book lying uselessly on her lap despite her attempt to focus. Don’t look, she thinks, shame burning her throat, but they are magnetic as they dance together, the short woman’s head fitting perfectly into the crook of her partner’s neck. Their laughter rings in the air; Rosie knows it intimately. She hears it often when they reminisce about their time in this house, when they touch each other, when they waltz impromptu around the room. The creature in her chest cries out for this joy, this bright love that has transcended even death, despite how much she tries to suppress it.

The short woman leans up, and the tall woman leans down, and their lips meet, their arms bracketing each other tenderly, like they hold something precious. (Continue Reading…)

Barn owl at night

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Cast of Wonders 453: Langsuir

Cast of Wonders 453: Langsuir is a Cast of Wonders original.

This story features stillbirth, death, murder, abuse, rape, slavery and misogyny.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:50 — 21.3MB)

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Langsuir

by Nadia Mikail

The langsuir is a woman who has died giving birth. Malay folktales have a multitude of women featured as wrathful, devious spirits: the hantu kum-kum thrives on the blood of virgin girls, desperate to maintain her youth even in death; the hantu kopek lures men to cheat on their wives, jealous that their afterlife contains no husband of their own; the pontianak goes after the people who have wronged her, tearing out their organs.

People usually shake their heads, they think: oh, well, that is the envious, terrible nature of Eve. Personally I think it is more how humans are treated in life that influences how they behave in death, and in this culture the women are angrier than most. (Continue Reading…)

magic butterflies

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Cast of Wonders 452: Little Wonders 29 – Flash Fiction Contest Winners

Cast of Wonders 452: Little Wonders 29 – Flash Fiction Contest Winners is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:04 — 20.6MB)

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Porch Light for the Lonely

by Alyson Grauer

When the wide western sky is black, embroidered with thousands of silver stars, and crickets sing unseen in the dry grass, critters come to the porch of the old house. The rug has long since lost its color from years of harsh sun. The wrought-iron bench is rusted, enamel flaking away like tree bark. The mailbox is crooked, and the torn curtains blow gently in the wind. Though it’s the sturdiest house left on the block, it sits unlived in, untrespassed. Only the flies and spiders know how empty it truly is inside.

Many cats come: strays, abandoned pets, and feral. They drape themselves about the empty porch, meowing with quiet yearning. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 430: Where a Heart Would Fit Perfectly

Cast of Wonders 430: Where a Heart Would Fit Perfectly is a Cast of Wonders original.

A few profanities and themes of self harm and suicide

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:41 — 29.5MB)

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Where a Heart Would Fit Perfectly

by S. Qiouyi Lu

Penny looked in the mirror and frowned. No matter which way she turned, her dress seemed too sequined, too flashy, too… ridiculous. And her makeup felt garish even in the dim light backstage. But that was how all the dancers were made up—the stage lights would wash their faces out otherwise.

Just grin and bear it, Penny told herself. At least you’re getting paid this time. (Continue Reading…)