Escape Pod 190: Origin Story
Show Notes
Special closing music: “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton.
Origin Story
By Tim Pratt
He didn’t call himself The Aerialist at first. The newspapers came up with that later. He called himself Kid Kangaroo of all things, because of the jumping from rooftop to rooftop, even though I made fun of him, called him “Joey,” made jokes about dingoes. Nobody knows his secret identity but me, and I only found out because I snuck into the treehouse one night to smoke a cigarette and found him changing out of his leotard and tights and domino mask. He was only fifteen. I still remember what he said: “Don’t tell anyone — if my identity is discovered, you and mom and dad could be used against me.”
About the Author
Tim Pratt
Tim Melody Pratt (genderfluid, any pronouns) lives in Berkeley, California with spouse Heather Shaw and their son River.
Pratt’s fiction and poetry have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Erotica, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Strange Horizons, Realms of Fantasy, Asimov’s, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Subterranean, and Clarkesworld, among many other places (for complete details, see the bibliography). She writes a new story every month for patrons at Patreon: www.patreon.com/timpratt
About the Narrator
Serah Eley
Serah Eley is a chaos spirit who first appeared in 2013, from the right cerebral hemisphere of a former podcaster named Steve Eley. Best known as the founding editor and host of Escape Pod, with the famous signoff “Have Fun,” Steve realized he was having more fun as Serah and gave her the body for transition and general mayhem. Now much prettier than Steve and at least seventy percent weirder, Serah lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her spouse Sadi and collects stories too fantastic to be fiction. If you ask nicely she may even tell some of them. Very nicely.
