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PseudoPod 558: Toward the Banner of the King

PseudoPod 558: Toward the Banner of the King is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:02 — 32.1MB)

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Show Notes

 

Thanks to our sponsor, ARCHIVOS – a Story Mapping and Development Tool for writers, gamers, and storytellers of all kinds!

Toward the Banner of the King

by T.R. North

In times past I often dreamt I was driving a carriage through the deserted streets of an alien city.  In spite of the strangeness of the city, it seemed utterly familiar to me; in spite of the utter waste it presented, whenever I paused, passengers would appear and alight.

They were all masked, as was I.  Communication between us was unnecessary, as there was only one fit destination in the whole of the city.  They were dressed in fine clothing, but it had the air of costume, and I could find nothing of their true condition in it.

No matter how many passengers I took on, the carriage never filled.

No matter how long I drove, we never drew so close as to see the crest on the yellow banners adorning the distant towers. (Continue Reading…)

Artemis Rising 4: Hecate Awakens

During the month of September, PseudoPod seeks submissions to celebrate ARTEMIS RISING, a special month-long event across the Escape Artists podcasts featuring stories by women and nonbinary authors in genre fiction.

Stepping in as guest editors for our fourth annual ARTEMIS RISING event is PseudoPod Assistant Editor Dagny Paul and Mothership Zeta Assistant Editor Karen Bovenmyer. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 557: ‘Till the Road Runs Out

PseudoPod 557: ‘Till the Road Runs Out is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:24 — 24.0MB)

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Show Notes

Thanks to our sponsor, ARCHIVOS – a Story Mapping and Development Tool for writers, gamers, and storytellers of all kinds!

‘Till the Road Runs Out

by Luciano Marano

The ratty doublewide burned faster than they expected, and when the whiskey-fueled flames reached the meth lab in the trailer’s back bedroom, the explosion was likewise extraordinary.

Hicks gulped the last of the Jack Daniel’s, wiped his mouth with his hand. The flames were warm against his shirtless torso, his muscles hard and lean from his most recent turn inside. He leaned back on the Mustang’s hood, feeling toasty inside and out as he was tickled by the heat of the fire and the fuzzy embrace of booze. He ran a hand over his fresh buzz cut, crossed one booted ankle over the other and casually lobbed the empty bottle into the fire. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 556: Evitative

“Evitative” is the titular and ultimate story of The Aversive Clause, the collection of stories that also included, ‘Sweetness,’ which ran as Pseudopod episode 445.

Says Edwards: “I’ve been listening to audial fiction for longer than I’ve been listening to music. I ‘read’ Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, Treasure Island, the works of Issac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, and countless others in this form starting around four and continuing onto today. My work is always written with the intention of being read aloud. So it’s really something to have a pair of stories in your archive. Thanks for keeping both horror and the spoken word going strong at the same time.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:36 — 33.2MB)

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Show Notes

Shawn Garrett composed the soundbed for this episode, which he dedicates to master avant-garde musicians/field recorders Annea Lockwood & Chris Watson. A list of links to sounds used from Freesound.org are below.

SOUNDBED SOURCES
48558__crk365__birds-23dec07-spesh
278213__fundamental-harmonics__ban-doi-insects-night-time-02
320173__arnaud-coutancier__night-insects
65288__acclivity__cicadasplus

Thanks to our sponsor, ARCHIVOS – a Story Mapping and Development Tool for writers, gamers, and storytellers of all kinds!

by B.C. Edwards

Once the oceans came up and covered the streets over it was like they weren’t ever there. No streets or dead Camaros or boys that abandon you when things get flooded and break down. There were just the tall trees with the high branches and water everywhere and the smudge of mountains I can see off on the horizon if I climb all the way to the top of the tree we use for looking at things. The water filled in all the gaps and erased our telemarketing jobs and our high-heels and the clubs we wore them to. But we’re safe up here, on the little platform Jo-Jo built in the trees. He found me wandering in the muck, cold and alone and his was the first face that I’d seen in forever that didn’t look scared or desperate or tired. The first one since the water and the bombs and all who didn’t try to take one more thing from me, didn’t try to steal me away or trick me into anything. Jo-Jo just smiled and his eyes smiled too and even though he’d lost his words already I knew he meant well. And he showed me how to climb the trees and get up to his platform where there’s nothing to do but climb around, eat the berries and the appleish things that dangle off the branches like Christmas ornaments and screw all afternoon long and laze about watching the world disappear. Jo-Jo catches the birds that build their nests and try to eat our fruit, and then we eat the birds too. That’s about all we do.

That’s about all the kid in my belly will do, too. But the kid won’t know any different. It won’t think there was ever something other than the trees and the muck and the water and the men who come by every now and again in their canoes and their ugly paddles and their terrible broken whispers.

You can’t go down there; those men will eat you.

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Flash Fiction Contest 5: A New Beginning

The original paraphernalia for the Flash Fiction Contest had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Stuart, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Lieberman spoke frequently to the forum members about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here.

Mr. Garrett and his oldest daughter, Victoria, hold the black box securely on the stool until Mr. Lieberman can stir the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Lieberman had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. Chips of wood, Mr. Lieberman had argued, had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into the black box.

(Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 555: Four Hours of a Revolution

PseudoPod 555: Four Hours of a Revolution is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:56 — 24.3MB)

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Four Hours of a Revolution

by Premee Mohamed

Rebels, like vampires, prowl by night, sleep by day; they are short on everything in the besieged city – bullets, socks, soap, bread – but mainly they are short of sleep, for they fight under starlight, hide under sun in secret places. And yet their enemies are most vulnerable at night when, like all good civil servants, they retire to their houses and lock their doors. Until they swap schedules neither side will eliminate the other.

So the revolution is easy enough to find as I whisper up the wall of the apartment complex, slide under the half-inch of space left by the open window. They will not open it further, even though the little boarded-up living room is intolerably hot. As it is, they sweat profusely in their sleep, even the lucky few shaded by the walls.

One has, deliberately I assume, curled up in an armchair under a poster reading ‘PUNK ISN’T DEAD BUT IT WOZ UP AWFUL LATE LAST NITE.’ On the poster, two men sleep in a train seat, cartoonishly rendered in hot primaries on a black ground. The rebel in the armchair echoes their pose, but instead of a tired friend she cradles a stolen police rifle, its distinctive silver finish oversprayed with matte black paint, the camera blocked with a glued-in coin. The police carry them proudly, counting on the reflected glare to carry their message far ahead of them; the rebels carry them only at night, counting on stealth.

It is this girl, Whittaker, in the armchair, in this war, that I am here to claim. In due time, as is her right and my duty. For I am Death.

(Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 554: A Doll Full of Nails

PseudoPod 554: A Doll Full of Nails is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:21 — 16.7MB)

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A Doll Full of Nails

By Ville Meriläinen

1.

 

“Once upon a time,” the doll began, “there lived a god who feared the dark.

“He cast a shadow over his creations and heard them whisper his doom when he turned away. He feared them so much he stole fire from the other gods and gave it to the tiny creatures, hoping it would take away the dark in their hearts. Instead, they set the god on fire, and that is how the sun was born.”

“Fascinating,” grumbled the doll maker, setting a glass eye into the socket of his latest masterpiece. This one, he hoped, would be as mute as most, unlike the one sitting on his shelf. “And patently untrue. Be quiet, now, or you’re getting another nail.” (Continue Reading…)

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Flash Fiction Contest 5: The Dream Child

Across the globe, the dreams of the artists are causing many a restless and feverish night. Someday soon the call would come, when the stars were ready. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Flash Fiction Contest; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Flash Fiction Contest would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.

A special Flash Fiction contest portal will open on Submittable at midnight EDT on 8/15 and close at midnight on 9/15. If the portal disappears, submissions are formally closed and will not reopen.

In order to be a valid submission to the contest, each story must adhere to the following rules: (Continue Reading…)