Posts Tagged ‘truth’

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 624: My Mother’s Voice and the Shadow (Staff Picks 2024)

Colonialism; Generational Trauma

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:32 — 61.2MB)

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My Mother’s Voice and the Shadow

by A. W. Prihandita

I pressed my palm onto my chest and said, “Marie.”

I pointed at my mother, took a deep breath and braved her abyssal eyes, asking, “And you? What is your name, Mother?”

I shouldn’t have been in her room, but my father was away, and I was a curious child. I stood in quiet trepidation and waited to know her.

She towered over me, shadow-like in the dark, but by a sliver of moonlight I could see the empty, crooked smile on her lips. It made me shiver—it always did. It looked like the painted simper of a porcelain doll, with eyes too wide and skin too white—except my mother’s skin was dark and wrinkly like shrunken leather. Her pitch-black eyes were an echoing emptiness, a starless midnight sky to fall into, with no thoughts to catch you, only darkness.

My mother was mute and feeble-minded—or so my father said. I would’ve believed him until the end of my days, had the shadow not shown me otherwise. (Continue Reading…)

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay. Graffiti of a boy, screaming, in a Banksy-esque style

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 606: My Mother’s Voice and the Shadow

Cast of Wonders 606: My Mother’s Voice and the Shadow is a Cast of Wonders original.

Colonialism; Generational Trauma

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:11 — 60.7MB)

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My Mother’s Voice and the Shadow

by A. W. Prihandita

I pressed my palm onto my chest and said, “Marie.”

I pointed at my mother, took a deep breath and braved her abyssal eyes, asking, “And you? What is your name, Mother?”

I shouldn’t have been in her room, but my father was away, and I was a curious child. I stood in quiet trepidation and waited to know her.

She towered over me, shadow-like in the dark, but by a sliver of moonlight I could see the empty, crooked smile on her lips. It made me shiver—it always did. It looked like the painted simper of a porcelain doll, with eyes too wide and skin too white—except my mother’s skin was dark and wrinkly like shrunken leather. Her pitch-black eyes were an echoing emptiness, a starless midnight sky to fall into, with no thoughts to catch you, only darkness.

My mother was mute and feeble-minded—or so my father said. I would’ve believed him until the end of my days, had the shadow not shown me otherwise. (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 574: Printed in Ink and Ashes (Staff Picks 2023)

Originally published as Cast of Wonders 557, 14 October 2023

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:26 — 55.5MB)

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Printed in Ink and Ashes

by Priya Sridhar

In the basement, scant lightbulbs sputtered in and out. The single torch, propped on a shelf, shone on the pages as I reviewed my copy: The plight of the Hindu laborer must be addressed on a societal level. He is forced to face his burdens alone, often without friends or family.

Typewritten stencils, leaving corpses of plastic letters on the ground. Mildew sprinkled the walls and released a foul odor. When I opened new ink, that stink would mix with the mildew.

Rage filled me as I pressed the keys on the typewriter. When I visited my father, he hadn’t even offered me a cup of coffee or asked how I was. Instead, leaning on his store counter, he told me about his latest backaches and arguments with his tenants. When I hinted that I was parched but wanted to pay for a soda, he offered me a cup of white Ovaltine. Its taste reminded me of how I missed my mother’s chai, how it would always soak the tongue with spices.

Father owned a candy shop in Seattle by a trolley stop; it also sold sodas and tobacco for those interested. He would curate newspapers and magazines for travelers and offer hot coffee to loyal customers. For children, he would boil sweetened Ovaltine powder in milk.

“You have grown too fast,” he’d grumbled in Tamil. “And you are eating too much, Shyama. How much money are we sending for your education?” (Continue Reading…)

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

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 557: Printed in Ink and Ashes

Cast of Wonders 557: Printed in Ink and Ashes is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:10 — 55.1MB)

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Printed in Ink and Ashes

by Priya Sridhar

In the basement, scant lightbulbs sputtered in and out. The single torch, propped on a shelf, shone on the pages as I reviewed my copy: The plight of the Hindu laborer must be addressed on a societal level. He is forced to face his burdens alone, often without friends or family.

Typewritten stencils, leaving corpses of plastic letters on the ground. Mildew sprinkled the walls and released a foul odor. When I opened new ink, that stink would mix with the mildew.

Rage filled me as I pressed the keys on the typewriter. When I visited my father, he hadn’t even offered me a cup of coffee or asked how I was. Instead, leaning on his store counter, he told me about his latest backaches and arguments with his tenants. When I hinted that I was parched but wanted to pay for a soda, he offered me a cup of white Ovaltine. Its taste reminded me of how I missed my mother’s chai, how it would always soak the tongue with spices.

Father owned a candy shop in Seattle by a trolley stop; it also sold sodas and tobacco for those interested. He would curate newspapers and magazines for travelers and offer hot coffee to loyal customers. For children, he would boil sweetened Ovaltine powder in milk.

“You have grown too fast,” he’d grumbled in Tamil. “And you are eating too much, Shyama. How much money are we sending for your education?” (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

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…)

Genres: ,

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…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 309: The Moon, the Sun and the Truth

Originally published in Shimmer, Issue 38 (July/August 2017)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:11 — 14.4MB)

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Show Notes

From the author: In January 2017, Dan Rather “tipped his journalist Stetson” to Anderson Cooper. I had a brief fangirl moment in which I imagined them meeting on some desolate hill and nodding stoically at each other. And then I just kept asking myself questions about what that world would look like. Eventually, I found this story, in a very different time and place than its inspiration, with different faces that echoed very similar fears.

The Moon, the Sun, and the Truth

by Victoria Sandbrook

Dust rising over the next scrub-covered hill gave away the rider’s position even before the incoming trash-guzzler’s growl settled around Andy’s ears. She waited as patiently as you could on a jittery horse that didn’t know you well, in sun that’d singe any hint of bare skin.

They’d been waiting an hour. Time enough in the desert to dream up how many ways this data drop could go. Could be this rider had the data chip and she’d be drowning her sorrows at the tavern by sunset. Could be he was a Directorship plant and there would be a gun for her.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 239: Hackers’ Faire (Artemis Rising 3)

Cast of Wonders 239: Hackers’ Faire (Artemis Rising 3) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:12 — 28.9MB)

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Show Notes

Illustration by Mat Weller. Artemis Rising logo designed by Scott Pond.

Theme music is “Appeal to Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available from Promo DJ or his Facebook page.

Hackers’ Faire

by Rati Mehrotra

Some jerk in a speeding racer had wrecked Tiya’s cat. I was all for recycling its remains, but Tiya would have none of it. She wept until I gave in and promised to get it fixed at Hacker’s Faire.

I’d sworn not to go back there, not unless our lives depended on it. Everything at the Faire has a price, and I had little left to sell or barter. I had optioned my useful parts years ago, before I met Hanna and settled down – if squatting in an abandoned warehouse with eight other families can be called settling. Anyway, I had left my old life behind, and I kept quiet about my Truthtelling skills.

But Tiya’s our youngest and I couldn’t bear to see her cry. So I dusted my drum, slung it on my back and told her not to worry. “If Mama asks,” I said, “tell her I’m at the greenhouse.”

(Continue Reading…)