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PseudoPod 321: I Am The Box, The Box Is Me

PseudoPod 321: I Am The Box, The Box Is Me is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:45 — 28.8MB)

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Show Notes

“I Am The Box, The Box Is Me” uses these creaking and harbors sounds from Freesound.

Spoiler

“treehouse” by mystiscool

“tie the boat” by laurent

“creaking silver birch” by ERH

“dock ramp” by epolk

“tree creak” by department64

“HarborToulon” by DifferentSoundScapes

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I Am The Box, The Box Is Me

by Kyle S. Johnson

The crate, as best I can tell, hangs high above some sprawling dock, some bustling seaport. The smells are pretty unmistakable, but it’s the sounds that do the most telling. Gulls talk, water babbles. A lot of ships come and go. I can hear their massive hulls cutting the waves. I hear their horns, which sound somber and gloomy in the distance, then earsplittingly awake and angry when close. Foggy, lumbering mastodons, I imagine. Things crawling up out of the mist and out of history itself.

When I imagine the sea, the world outside the box, I always picture it dark. I don’t mean that to suggest I’m being fatalistic. I don’t brood because I don’t have time to. I’m far too busy in here, you see. If I started brooding now, I’d tumble down into it, and it would be a forever-slope that I couldn’t climb back up from. I see it as dark because that’s just how it naturally feels through the cracks.

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PseudoPod 320: The Man With The Broken Soul

PseudoPod 320: The Man With The Broken Soul is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:14 — 22.2MB)

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The Man With The Broken Soul

by Matt Wall

There was one Professor George Manson, a teacher of anthropology, whose company my mother would least have advised. He was an espoused atheist, well-known for his existentialist and humanist rhetoric. My mother, a devout Catholic, would have called him the devil himself, but she would have been wrong. I have met the devil, and George was at best a close cousin.

It was George who unwittingly opened the dark door into the unknown which I naïvely tromped through. He did so in a sense of irony, but for all his cleverness, he could not close it.

We would talk long into the night over games of chess and cups of coffee. Our discussions meandered through talk of ancient races, forgotten kingdoms, and dead languages. No topic was left untouched by our ramblings, save those too mundane for our eccentric sensibilities.

‘You remember me telling you about that turn of the century doomsday cult?’ he said.

‘The Order of Ancient Mysteries, was it? They worshipped some Sumerian demon-god. What was his name again? Etikku… Udummu…’

‘Idimmu,’ he said. ‘The word does not, of itself, indicate any specific demon. It is a generic term for a certain classification of evil spirit, but I doubt the good ‘Doctor’ Evangeline knew that, nor did any of his followers. The cult was quite popular among the university crowd.’

‘Didn’t they commit human sacrifice, have blood orgies and all that?’

‘That is the usual accusation for such occult orders,’ he said, ‘But I doubt their activities included anything more subversive than smoking opium and practicing group sex. Anyway, it so happens that I have come upon something of theirs that may be of interest to you. I know you go in for this sort of thing.’

‘Am I really that tawdry?’

He smiled, stood and retrieved a book from his shelf. ‘Have a look at this,’ he said as he sat down.

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PseudoPod 319: Cell Call

“Cell Call” first appeared in BY MOONLIGHT ONLY (2003), a British small press collection edited by Stephen Jones. It has been reprinted several times since then. It has been adapted twice by independent film directors – once in the U.S., under its original title, and another version currently underway in Ireland under the title NIGHTLINE. “I was one of the last people I know to get a cell phone… I wrote this story around the year 2000 and was afraid it would date very quickly as cellphones became historical artifacts. If I were writing it now, I would probably have to update it and call it something like “Text Mess.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:00 — 18.6MB)

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Call Call

by Marc Laidlaw

“I have to throw on some clothes. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Okay.”

“Bye.”

It was an unusually protracted farewell for such a casual conversation. He realized that he was holding the phone very tightly in the dark, cradling it against his cheek and ear as if he were holding her hand to his face, feeling her skin cool and warm at the same time. And now there was no further word from her. Connection broken.

He had to fight the impulse to dial her again, instantly, just to reassure himself that the phone still worked – that she was still there. He could imagine her ridicule: he was slowing her down, she was trying to get dressed, he was causing yet another inconvenience on top of so many others.

With the conversation ended, he was forced to return his full attention to his surroundings. He listened, heard again the wind, the distant sound of still water. Still water which made sounds
only when it lapped against something, or when something waded through it. He couldn’t tell one from the other right now. He wished he were still inside the car, with at least that much protection.

She was going to find him. He’d been only a few minutes, probably less than a mile, from home. She would be here any time.

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PseudoPod 318: Venice Burning

“Venice Burning” originally appeared in FUTURE LOVECRAFT, edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles, and published by Innsmouth Press. The book has since been reissued as a trade paperback by Prime Books, and is available in many major bookstores. It was actually written in Venice, and the character of Josie is inspired by a real jazz singer the author saw performing at a restaurant there.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:06 — 29.7MB)

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Venice Burning

by A.C. Wise

A floating city, a sinking city, a drowned city; there isn’t much difference, really.

When R’lyeh rose, it rose everywhere, _everywhen_. Threads spiral out, stitching past to present to future. There are ways to walk between, if you’re willing to lose a part of yourself. Most people aren’t; it’s my specialty.

I stand on a pier, eyes shaded against the water’s glare. It’s 2015, by the smell – diesel and cooked meat, early enough that such things still exist. It might as well be 2017, or 3051. But this year is where my client is, so I wait, sweating inside a black, leather jacket, watching slick weeds stir below lapping waves.

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PseudoPod 317: Enzymes

PseudoPod 317: Enzymes is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:46 — 17.1MB)

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Enzymes

by Greg Stolze

Maybe I’m not human, maybe I never was. I’m pretty sure humans never feel like I do when I drink gasoline, that sweet intoxication, so pregnant with possibility and power. It’s like the power of the sun, and of a great tree that drew in sunlight to grow, and of an ancient beast that ate of the tree and died, that sank into the earth and was worked on by millions of years until it turned to oil. It’s like all those kinds of power, concentrated step by step, and the toil of the drillers and refineries and pump mechanics too. Gasoline is everything. Gasoline is the elixir of modern civilization and I’m one with it when I drink. All the clouds of exhaust and all the labor of machines and their men, I’m all within it.

Then I drop off and I have to crawl out, I’m man-bodied again, dressed in jeans and a denim shirt with fake-pearl snaps. My fingers are crusted with rust and black under the nails but I run them through my hair anyway. It’s long hair, unkempt and black. I never get it cut, never trim my beard, but they stay the same.

The full text of “Enzymes” is available for free on Greg’s web site.

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PseudoPod 316: The Persistence Of Memory

“The Persistence of Memory” originally appeared in the collection DARK MELODIES (Dark Regions Press 2012). “Think of happy popular piano players/singers – Russ Conway, Liberace, Fats Waller, Fats Domino. And think of what’s behind the smiles.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:03 — 24.9MB)

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The Persistence Of Memory

by William Meikle

Betty woke with a start, heart pounding so loud in her ears that it took several seconds to realize a different sound had brought her so rudely awake; someone was playing the piano in the dining room beneath her.

She sat up in bed, gasping for breath, adrenaline jolting through her like fire.

‘George?’

It couldn’t be her husband, for he had been dead these three years now. But whoever was downstairs knew exactly what to play to get her heart racing; the old songs from when the sun shone and life was good.

‘I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places.’

Her heart refused to slow. The playing reached a crescendo for a final chorus and sent vibrations all through the old house, dust mites bouncing on the floorboards. The last chord rang and echoed in the still night. Then everything was quiet.

Betty stayed sitting upright in bed, straining to hear any sound of movement from below, waiting for the scrape as whoever had been playing stood from the piano stool. But there was nothing, just her heavy breathing that slowly returned to something approaching normal. She would not get any further sleep; that was for sure. She stepped out of bed, wincing at the cold that seeped from the floorboards, and pulled on her old dressing gown. When she got to her bedroom door she stood still for a while, listening, hearing only the slight rush of wind from outside and the far off sound of a car on the main road. She was already starting to dismiss the piano playing as the last remnants of a dream.

‘What else could it be?’

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PseudoPod 314: What Happens When You Wake Up In The Night

First published as a chapbook from Nightjar Press, September 2009, this story won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story in 2011 and appeared in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR for that year. The fee for this story has been generously donated to Cats Protection League – please click the link and consider making some cat’s life a little easier.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:57 — 16.5MB)

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What Happens When You Wake Up In The Night

by Michael Marshall Smith

The first thing I was unhappy about was the dark. I do not like the dark very very much. It is not the worst thing in the world but it is also not the best thing in the world, either. When I was very smaller I used to wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and be scared when I woke up, because it was so dark. I would go to bed with my light on, the one light that turns round and round, on the drawers by the side of my bed. It has animals on it and it turns around and it makes shapes and patterns on the ceiling and it is pretty and my mummy’s friend Jeanette gave it to me. It is not very too bright but it is bright enough and you can see what is what. But then it started that when I woke up in the middle of the night, the light would not be on any more and it would be completely dark instead and it would make me sad. I didn’t understand this but one night when I’d woken up and cried a lot my mummy told me that she came in every night and turned off the light every night after I was asleep, so it didn’t wake me up. But I said that wasn’t any good, because if I did wake up in the night and the light wasn’t on, then I might be scared, and cry. She said it seemed that I was waking every night, and the she and daddy had worked out that it might be the light that kept me awake, and after a while I was awake I’d get up and go into their room and see what was up with them, which meant she got no sleep any night ever and it was driving her completely nuts.

So we made a deal, where and the deal said I could have the light on all night but I promised that I would not go into their room in the night unless it was really important, and it is a good deal and so I’m allowed to have my light on again now, which is why the first thing I noticed when I woke up was that is it was dark.

Mummy had broken the deal.

I was cross about this but I was also very sleepy and so wasn’t sure if I was going to shout about it or not.

Then I noticed it was cold.

Before I go to bed, mummy puts a heater on while I am having my bath, and also I have two blankets on top of my duvet, and so I am a warm little bunny and it is fine. Sometimes if I wake in the middle of the night it feels a bit cold but if I snuggle down again it’s okay.

But this felt really cold.

My light was not on and I was cold.

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PseudoPod 313: The Dead Sexton

This story previously appeared in ACROSS THE BRIDGE the Christmas Annual of 1871 in the magazine “Once a Week”. It is set in Le Fanu’s invented Lake District town of Golden Friars.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:14 — 34.6MB)

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The Dead Sexton

by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

The sunsets were red, the nights were long, and the weather pleasantly frosty; and Christmas, the glorious herald of the New Year, was at hand, when an event—still recounted by winter firesides, with a horror made delightful by the mellowing influence of years—occurred in the beautiful little town of Golden Friars, and signalized, as the scene of its catastrophe, the old inn known throughout a wide region of the Northumbrian counties as the George and Dragon.

Toby Crooke, the sexton, was lying dead in the old coach-house in the inn yard. The body had been discovered, only half an hour before this story begins, under strange circumstances, and in a place where it might have lain the better part of a week undisturbed; and a dreadful suspicion astounded the village of Golden Friars. (Continue Reading…)