Posts Tagged ‘grief’

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Cast of Wonders 668: The Sundress and the Serpent

Cast of Wonders 668: The Sundress and the Serpent is a Cast of Wonders original.

Death of a parent

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:51 — 32.7MB)

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The Sundress and the Serpent

by Craig Church

Tears burn my eyes as I crack open the sliding door and slip out the back of the house. I pull up the hood of my jacket and cinch it tight against the heavy, damp cold, looking over my shoulder to where the flickering light of the television illuminates Dad’s beer gut, rising and falling in time with his guttural snoring. At least one of us can sleep.

The sun will be up before long. I need to get a move on.

I know the path by heart after making this trek so many times, so the soupy morning fog doesn’t deter me. I stroll past the dark, uninhabited vacation homes dotting the shoreline and recall how indignant I was when Dad moved us into a cramped mobile home along this remote stretch of Oregon’s coast. He’d just wanted to run away after Mom died, and didn’t give a second thought to uprooting his teenage daughter. At the time I’d hated him for it.

Now, maybe not so much. (Continue Reading…)

a greyscale image of a ruined stone head

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Cast of Wonders 646: As Brittle as Granite

Cast of Wonders 646: As Brittle as Granite is a Cast of Wonders original.

Death of a parent

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:03 — 24.8MB)

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Show Notes

Image by darrenquigley32 from Pixabay

As Brittle as Granite

by Matt Tighe

Lisa’s father has a crack in his face. It isn’t even a small one, something that she could maybe dismiss as a shadow cutting through the warm afternoon light of the sunroom. It runs from his forehead straight down through his left eye, splits his cheek in half, and just touches the very corner of his top lip. The inside of the crack is grey stone with pale flecks of mineralisation.

“You have cracked, father,” she says. The words come out as they should, steady and measured.

When his eyes move to her, the part of the crack that runs through his eye also moves, sliding sideways with his gaze. He is calm.

“Tell your mother,” he says. (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…)

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…)

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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…)

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Cast of Wonders 449: This is How You Remember (Staff Picks 2020)

Originally published in Cast of Wonders episode 438.

profanity, war, PTSD

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:19 — 48.4MB)

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This is How You Remember

by Phong Quan

I see the crowds before I see you, before I see even the flickering white of your flame. Your culture’s everywhere now—your music, your art, your words—but not your people, and not you, not in this tiny airport in this little place between San Diego and LA. So I hear the whispers—A Torch! A Speaker’s on the flight. Why here? There’s nothing here—and prepare myself to see you for the first time since the War. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 446: The Half-Life of a Broken Heart (Staff Picks 2020)

“The Half-Life of a Broken Heart” by N. R. Lambert previously appeared in Factor Four Magazine, Issue 2 (June 2018), and as Cast of Wonders episode 413 in May 2020

Death of a child

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:10 — 15.2MB)

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The Half-Life of a Broken Heart
by N. R. Lambert

We hear the nursery long before we see it. Feel it too, despite the heavily insulated walls. Deep metronomic concussions roll down the corridor and crash through us. When we reach the entry, marked simply, “Hearts,” the door slides open and a technician ushers us through. The nursery is aggressively antiseptic–shrill LED lighting, a gleaming steel tile floor, and between them, bed after bed of hearts. A chamber of chambers, bumping and pulsing in sync.

“They do that on their own.” The tech says, smiling, glasses glaring back at us.

“We’ve even tried to offset them intentionally, quite drastically, but still…they always sync up somehow. It’s rather uncanny, don’t you think?” (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 438: This is How You Remember

Cast of Wonders 438: This is How You Remember is a Cast of Wonders original.

profanity, war, PTSD

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:04 — 48.2MB)

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This is How You Remember

by Phong Quan

I see the crowds before I see you, before I see even the flickering white of your flame. Your culture’s everywhere now—your music, your art, your words—but not your people, and not you, not in this tiny airport in this little place between San Diego and LA. So I hear the whispers—A Torch! A Speaker’s on the flight. Why here? There’s nothing here—and prepare myself to see you for the first time since the War. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 433: The Last Love Letter

Previously published in Nature Futures, May 13 2020

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:02 — 12.3MB)

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The Last Love Letter

by Gretchen Tessmer

They want me to give your letters to the International Museum for safekeeping. They say the letters need to be preserved and the sooner the better. (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…)

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Cast of Wonders 419: Little Wonders 26: Fathers’ Day

Cast of Wonders 419: Little Wonders 26: Fathers’ Day is a Cast of Wonders original.

Grief

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:19 — 20.9MB)

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The Last PoMatic
by Amanda Helms

Rain dripped down PoMatic!365’s chassis and occluded its camera. Running its tiny wiper over the lens, it continued the Standard Enticement Protocol.

“Step right up, folks! No visit to Blue Seas Boardwalk is complete without a customized poem from PoMatic! Love poems, haiku, sonnets, sestinas, free verse, all tailored to you, from a simple scan of your identichip! No two poems are ever the same!” (Continue Reading…)