Posts Tagged ‘teen protagonist’

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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 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…)

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…)

Image of a derelict overgrown blue car

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Cast of Wonders 562: One Last Broken Thing

Originally published in The Dark, February 2021

Swearing (two f-words) & homophobic slurs

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:09 — 48.2MB)

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One Last Broken Thing

by Aimee Ogden

In elementary school, the other kids called Liv’s home that haunted house out on Barnhill Road. Liv herself has never seen a ghost there, but not for want of trying. They called her father lots of things: Freddy Krueger, Charles Manson, David S. Pumpkins. Now that she’s in high school, the other kids call her the spooky girl: to her face, on ugly pieces of paper smashed up small and pushed through the vents of her locker. Stay away from me, spooky girl. Don’t talk to me again in English, spooky girl. I saw you looking at me in the locker room, you spooky fuck. (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…)

decorative image of a pink abstract hexagon

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Cast of Wonders 560: Crystal Hexagons on Windowsills

Cast of Wonders 560: Crystal Hexagons on Windowsills is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:34 — 55.0MB)

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Crystal Hexagons on Windowsills

by Prashanth Srivatsa

I was the only one among my friends who did not get the letter. Which is a real shame, because I was the only one who could snap a finger to conjure a flame. (Continue Reading…)

Girl with balloons walking on a landscape made out of an open book

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Cast of Wonders 558: Braiding Challah

Cast of Wonders 558: Braiding Challah is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:49 — 42.3MB)

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Braiding Challah

by Rachel Gutin

When my family agreed to take in one of the refugees from Haven 3, I was excited. Sarah was fifteen, just like I was and, even better, she was Jewish too! There were only a few Jewish teens on the ship, and it would be nice to have one more of us.

I knew things wouldn’t be perfect. Taking Sarah in meant sharing my tiny room with her. Once we added the second bed, there would hardly be space to walk between them. Still, I was sure we could make it work.

But my excitement didn’t last for long. The day she arrived, Sarah barely spoke a word to any of us. Every time I asked her a question, she’d nod or shrug or ignore me entirely. That night, she cried herself to sleep, and when I offered her a hug, she cried even harder. I couldn’t figure out how to make her stop. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 553: Judgment Day

Originally published in B Cubed Press, Post ROE Alternatives, in October 2022

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:35 — 48.1MB)

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Judgment Day

by Liam Hogan

Nine Judges rode in around noon. At the gabbled news the smattering of day-timers pushed away tumblers of whiskey and, with a curt nod from my father–the saloon owner–I stepped out onto the porch, still carrying my broom, to watch them arrive.

No horses. Equal in pace to any of God’s creatures, Judges don’t need them.

Gran says they travel as swift as the gas-guzzling automobiles of old, though the only one of those I ever saw at a county fair wasn’t any faster than a slow man walking.

“This town is in lock down,” Chief Justice Fisher announced, her voice echoing from clapboard walls as she pinned the proclamation to the door of the church with a metal hand. “By order of the Scotus, until we complete Judgment.” (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 542: Little Wonders 40 – Stepping out of your comfort zone

Cast of Wonders 542: Little Wonders 40 – Stepping out of your comfort zone is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:15 — 33.6MB)

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Monstech

by Adam Gaylord

It’s tough being a monster nowadays. With the constant threat of terrorism, global warming, and yet another Michael Bay film, the average person just doesn’t have enough fear left at the end of the day for what’s lurking under the bed. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 541: Ashes and Buttercream

Cast of Wonders 541: Ashes and Buttercream is a Cast of Wonders original.

Warfare, refugee trauma

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:20 — 26.0MB)

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Ashes and Buttercream

by Malina Douglas

The domovoi is protecting them. Sofiya knows this, even as her mother’s dismissive remarks prod the fireplace like skewers.

When the flames burn to embers and the ashes in the fireplace thicken, she sees him. A miniature creature with short limbs and stubby toes, a round face and snub-nose, a burnt texture to his skin. He smells like crème brûlée just after the surface has been singed.

She feeds him crumbs from her dinner while he answers with titbits of stories that don’t quite make sense.

Where Sofiya sees blinking eyes and the flash of a grin, her mother sees flames and flakes of ash. She tells Sofiya off for staring into the fire too long. Then she sighs into a kitchen chair, takes out her phone and stares at the screen.

In her mother’s work there are great glowing hearths but no domovois. Sofiya has checked. Her mother stirs steaming pots and fills moulds with dark delights in a chocolaterie. They live in Lviv, where carved faces gaze from curved Art Nouveau archways and baroque façades brush against classical columns. City of stone lions, violins and chocolate. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 539: Little Wonders 39 – Home Ties

Cast of Wonders 539: Little Wonders 39 – Home Ties is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:54 — 33.2MB)

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Show Notes

Minor Magics of Chinatown was originally published in Factor Four Magazine, April 2022

Park’s All-Night Ramyun and Snack Emporium

by Seoung Kim

After the stoplights go to flashing red and the bars make their last calls, Park’s All-Night Ramyun and Snack Emporium lights up, its warm yellow lanterns beckoning customers from the street.

The tiny dining area just outside the truck is already full: a rusalka who always leaves the counter wet; her girlfriend Ms. Llorona, who uses too many napkins crying but refuses to order less spicy noodles; the old yokai lady Mrs. Rokuro with her mile-long neck; and a jiangshi who isn’t eating but stares at every drunk club-goer who stumbles down the street.

Yujin Park crosses their arms and leans back on the freezer, checking their phone for the fiftieth time that shift. It seems like everyone is out enjoying the last summer before senior year — except for them. Their feed is full of rooftop parties and group selfies.

Even if they could escape from the drudgery of scrubbing moldy drains, the thought of showing up covered in a thick layer of grease is too mortifying to bear. (Continue Reading…)

old books, herbs, pestle and mortar

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Cast of Wonders 536: Little Wonders 38 – Advice

Cast of Wonders 536: Little Wonders 38 – Advice is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:02 — 29.2MB)

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A Letter to A Bully’s Mother

by Priya Sridhar

Dear Opal’s Mom:

This is Jem, Opal’s classmate. Last week, you asked my Magical Cupcake club to make two hundred cupcakes for Opal’s birthday–chocolate chip and peanut butter. Even though you pay well, I would have refused on behalf of the Magical Cupcake Bakers. The girls outvoted me since we need the money for new cooking equipment. My friends made all the cupcakes in the school kitchens and used my mom’s bakery ovens when we ran out of room in the ones used for cooking classes. That explains the taste you complained about on BakeHub this morning. As you wrote in your post, it was my special touch you were paying for–and that was missing.

Enclosed are a few extra cupcakes for you and Opal’s dad. These I did make, cardamom vanilla, with some hints of ginger from infused milk. This proves that I haven’t “lost it”, as you posted, my Jersey family baking touch. (Continue Reading…)