Posts Tagged ‘ocean’

West Pentire headland, in sepia tones, with thrift in the foreground and waves crashing against the rocks

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Cast of Wonders 641: Bells Long Silent

Cast of Wonders 641: Bells Long Silent is a Cast of Wonders original.

violence (including gun-violence) in a historical setting, and the death of a relative

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:58 — 48.0MB)

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Bells Long Silent

by J. A. Prentice

All this happened long ago and even then, things were coming to an end. The great days of smuggling were behind us and the Revenue was tightening its noose. All tongues spoke of their new man, Captain Bray, who had hacked off a smuggler’s head with a single swing of his sword.

I lived with my mother and uncle in a white house with small glass windows that bent the light. I had of my father no memories and no inheritance save my features, which my mother said were the very model of his. Mother told me he was a fisherman, but often I suspected she lied, and he had been a smuggler. (Continue Reading…)

a girl diving underwater, reaching out for an object

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Cast of Wonders 634: Pearl Diving

Cast of Wonders 634: Pearl Diving is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:53 — 25.9MB)

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Pearl Diving

by J L Akagi

Makoto Matoba is enduring her third ever “scaly day” when her mother drives her down to the shore. She hasn’t yet adjusted to the itchy-scratchy rash covering her legs. Nor the tight agitation crawling over her entire body. Even worse, the Los Angeles pollution is thick today which irritates her developing gills.

Mako doesn’t get periods—she’s not that kind of girl—but she imagines this is what cis girls feel like when they do. Cramping and urged to retreat into themselves like hermit crabs.

When Mako and her mother arrive at Toes Beach, the sunset shines through the thin haze stretched over the California sky. Mako lowers her feet from the dashboard to sit up a bit at the sight of the pink sky meeting the flat, gray line of the ocean.

They clamber out of the car, and Mako eyes the water, scowling. “Mom, don’t make me pearl dive today. I can’t, I just can’t.” (Continue Reading…)

liopleurodon

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Cast of Wonders 499: Robo-Liopleurodon!

Previously published in Robot Dinosaur Fiction on July 27 2018

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:38 — 24.5MB)

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Robo-Liopleurodon!

by Darcie Little Badger

My intern screamed. That’s rarely a good sign. Near the starboard rail, Abigail clutched a dripping, freshly towed plankton net. The collection vial dangling from the muslin funnel glinted in the sun, as if filled with silver particles.

“Doctor!” she shouted. “Nanobotplankton!” (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 476: When Whales Fall

Originally published in The Colored Lens, January 2016

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:59 — 34.3MB)

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When Whales Fall

by Darcie Little Badger

As the whale corpse landed, Discordant Hum felt auspicious vibrations in the cold abyssal water. “A giant fell,” she said. “It’s ours.” Her body glowed green-pleased. Quick Squeak and Melodious Chord, Discord’s sisters, swam in tight circles above her head.

“What about neighbor broods?” Melodious asked. “They may want it, too.” She waved a tentacle, one of six hanging down her belly, its tip shorn during the last territorial fight.

“You have five spares,” Quick said.

“As a sculptor, I need them all!” (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 213: Beneath the Loveliest Tints of Azure

Originally published in Lore Vol. 2 (November 30, 2013)

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:21 — 28.0MB)

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Beneath the Loveliest Tints of Azure

by Jeff Samson

“You sure picked a hell of a day to start.”

The guard stared up at Ted with a look somewhere between aggravation and indifference. He slouched over his desk, his belly spilling over a portion of its tidy surface. His chair creaked in protest as he swiveled lazily. 

“I’m sorry?” Ted said, deepening his voice to match the guard’s husky bass.

The guard wiped a hand over his head, polished bald but for a faint horseshoe of salt and pepper hair buzzed to the same length as the patchy stubble on his face. He pushed himself away from his desk, growling as he rose.

“Ken Allen,” he said, enveloping Ted’s comparably slight hand in a powerful grip.

“Ted Kirsch.” Ted stifled an urge to wince.

“I know–Hurrel’s replacement. Been expecting you.” Ken pursed his lips. “Sorry if I seem a bit gruff. It’s just, well, visiting days aren’t exactly best for breaking in fresh meat. Know what I mean?”

Ted nodded that he did. Then quickly realized that he didn’t.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 196: She Sleeps Beneath the Sea

Originally published in Faerie (Issue 31, Summer 2015)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:58 — 31.3MB)

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Show Notes

Shveta’s inspirational image, La Dormeuse, by Alain Lacki.

Theme music is “Appeal to Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available at MusicAlley.com.

She Sleeps Beneath the Sea

by Shveta Thakrar

She sleeps beneath the sea. Shh, shh, plish, splash. The susurration brushes past her unresponsive ears as the surf tucks itself below her chin, a sleek coverlet of warm salt water in shades of blue and green and bordered with seed pearls of foam. Reclining on her side, her dark tresses matted against the damp sand and one brown hand supporting her head, she hints at secrets in the mysterious tongue of slumber: a slight gasp here, a soft sigh there.

When she dreams, she finds herself in a world of glass. It is aquamarine, it is teal, it is turquoise and balmy and wet, and it is the sea, oh, the blessed, blessed sea. It is home, her home.

As she looks around, she begins to wonder. It is like this every time, this bubble world beneath the sea that has somehow become glass and mountains and castles. Everything cut from jewels, everything radiant in the sunlight spilling from above.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 157: The Seal King (Part 2)

Cast of Wonders 157: The Seal King (Part 2) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:26 — 28.0MB)

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The Seal King (Part 2)

by Jennifer Noelle Welch

Rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle…

Lou’s forehead hurts where it rests, mashed against the keel, and tracing the source of the sound, her brain awakens with a pinch. The coat is wrapped around her shoulders, and somewhere a steel cleat is vibrating. Raising her head, she remembers. The skiff, the size of a tiny teacup, spinning lazily towards the horizon. Are those really the first stars? had been her last thought, before her eyes swam and the darkness swallowed all.

In the stern, the seal king hugs his curled legs, shuddering uncontrollably, his eyes locked on her face.

“You did it,” she whispers. “How did you…”

Forming the words, he seizes, his voice fluttering into her head instead. S-swam. I had t-trouble pulling you back in. I’m s-sorry. He nods at her side, and Lou finds a bleeding scrape above her hip.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 156: The Seal King (Part 1)

Cast of Wonders 156: The Seal King (Part 1) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:40 — 21.8MB)

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The Seal King (Part 1)

by Jennifer Noelle Welch

The girl with apricot-colored hair sits on a dock the color of driftwood, her back against a stone wall retaining the land against the push and pull of the sea. Buoys bob and clang. On this small peninsula on the shoulder of the Atlantic, close-set fishermen’s cottages cluster together for comfort. When the wind rakes the swells into whitecaps, yellow foul-weather waders lift on the clotheslines.

It is early September, and the saline haze of summer still hangs ripe and full over the harbor. Louellen, or Lou, as she is called, pulls the frayed cuffs of her father’s coat farther over her hands and presses her spine against the afternoon of too-busy family and heckling high-school classmates. The splashing kids have cleared the dock platform and small swimming beach for another season, leaving her mind to dance with everything and nothing.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 143: Dagon

Originally published in issue #11 of The Vagrant (November 1919).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:01 — 25.6MB)

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Dagon

by H. P. Lovecraft

I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone, makes life endurable, I can bear the torture no longer; and shall cast myself from this garret window into the squalid street below. Do not think from my slavery to morphine that I am a weakling or a degenerate. When you have read these hastily scrawled pages you may guess, though never fully realise, why it is that I must have forgetfulness or death.
(Continue Reading…)