Good one! When I was younger I was taught that certain Native American tribes would not allow anyone to photograph them. They believed that the photo contained a part of the soul of the person in it, and things could be done to that soul through the picture.

I must say I loved it! (Though I think because I am female, that I’m a little sensitive to the topic. LOL) This is now in my top three! :0)

Thanks for another good one!

Think of it this way. Diane is an imaginative andd passionate young girl whose life has been seriously rocked by her mother abandoning them. Her father is doing his best, but he’s overwhelmed and an emotionall wreck. Now let’s say she manages to see some of the photos of that guy “abusing” Flat Diane, what is that going to do to her? Nightmares and false memories of abuse are far from impossible, kids have been screwed up by less and imagined more.

I think we can alll agree that as children we knew where at least some of our parent’s hiding places were. Diane’s father is an inexperienced only parent, there’s no way he can be there at all times, and she’s angry about her situation and craves answers that he can’t provide. My parents were divorced, and I know that I found things that i shouldn’t that disturbed me greatly. Try reading court documents about your parents accusing each other of all kinds of terrible things, it’s almost as traumatic as having been in the middle of it. Thankfully my parents took shots at each other and left my sister and myself out of it, but I can easily imagine that if allegations of abuse, not to mention pictures, were found it would have been devastating.

For anyone who’s thinking “but she knew things she coulddn’t have”, I ask, did she? Never, at any point in the story does Diane display any knowlege that her father doesn’t already have. remember, she doesn’t detail her supposed abuse at all, it’s alll very ague, he fills in the details for himself. She picked up the fact that her uncle was abusing her aunt, but there’s no reason to assume a supernatural explanation for that. Abuse within families is often a poorly kept secret, and her father doesn’t exactly seem surprised by the idea.

So in the end, it seems just as likely to me that Diane’s trauma is entirely emotional and stems from her fractured family life. Her father, desperate to help and, by his own admission, emotionally wrecked, siezes on this idea of Flat Diane sharing some sort of psychic connection with Diane. This leads him to kill a man in an effort to save his daughter. To me, this adds a whole extra level of interest and psychology to the story. The man he killed was probably guilty of some ccrime, but this leaves open the question of whether or not Diane’s father became a monster in an effort to stop a monster. And of course Diane’s nightmares didn’t end, they weren’t being caused directly by anything that man did, they were caused by ddeep psychological trauma, not actual abuse.

I’m sure I’ll be in the minority here, but i can’t see any reason that this would have to be a supernatural story. personally, that makes it all the more frightening to me.

Figured out my familiarity. I read this in F&SF back in ‘04. Liked it then, loved it on the ‘cast. Great story, great reading. You should do more good stuff, as the bad stuff is really irritating.

Very well written, Daniel, and very well read, Steve. Keep up the great work.

But now I have ample reason to say I’m hooked. everything about this story just seemed to… work. The characters were believable and subtle (I loved how Ian figured out what was going on, instead of falling to the cliche’ of many other horror stories), the reading was excellent, and the time length all worked together to much better flesh out characters and plot. It was a short story that felt like a little novel all on it’s own.

As a little bit more evidence on just how well everything fit, I didn’t even realise that steve was reading until half-way through, up until then I had just been identifying his voice with Ian.

Once again, nice job! Das ist ganz gut!

As it turned out, the story does not take child abuse lightly or exploit it at all. It’s like a slightly supernatural take on every dad’s worst nightmare. The characters were well drawn and believable, especially Diane, which is very important. The ending was not what I expected, in a good way. One of the best stories yet.

PP keeps gettting better. Nice work all.

One of the nastiest things was the implications that Ian’s wife might have either been involved, or at least condoned this act. That bit sent chills through me.

Thanks for selecting this story!

This is my favorite of Daniel Abraham’s stories. Thanks for podcasting it!

Anyway, thanks again for the warning. I know that a horror podcast carries a certain implied warning anyways. I’ll be back next week.

Not my favorite on Pseudopod, but not my least favorite either. Felt a little long in the middle.

Can’t wait for the next story!