Posts Tagged ‘Pine Gonzalez’

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Cast of Wonders 696: The Purpose of a Pyromaniac Descendent

First published in Tales & Feathers, February 2025
Episode art by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:21 — 23.8MB)

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The Purpose of a Pyromaniac Descendent

by Wen Wen Yang

I don’t know why I expected the afterlife to be different from my beforelife.

In fact, I hadn’t expected an afterlife at all. As the youngest person in dìfǔ, with no descendants, I certainly didn’t anticipate gifts. I was a first-generation American who had a vague idea of the Chinese holidays, but stopped paying attention as soon as I left home.

I woke up in my grandparents’ home. My chest felt hollow, and I realized I didn’t have a heartbeat. Congenital heart defects are bullshit, by the way.

Nǎinai and Yéye greeted me with much hand-holding. We didn’t hug while living. (Continue Reading…)

axe and chopped wood

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Cast of Wonders 616: Worse than a Wolf

Cast of Wonders 616: Worse than a Wolf is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content warning for implied past sexual assault

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:29 — 36.4MB)

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Worse than a Wolf

by Wen Wen Yang

The sound of the metal grinding against the whetstone reverberated up my arms. My father was sharpening his ax, preparing for the day’s work. “I invited Mu to dinner tonight,” he said.

I shuddered.

Mu was a woodsman whose family came from a neighboring village in China and had settled in the same rural town in Oregon a decade before my family. How happy my family was to hear our dialect! It almost made this foreign country feel safe. (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…)