Author Archive

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Escape Pod 982: Twilight

Escape Pod 982: Twilight is an Escape Pod original.

Includes themes of grief, loss, isolation, and mental health.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:03 — 34.9MB)

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Twilight

By Lilly Harper

Like the tide going out, the dream slipped between her toes and carried with it the smell of petrichor and the sound of birdsong. Even without knowing she was dreaming, she had known she was waking up; the subliminal chatter of her body, quietly running its routine checksums, the logs spooling their idiot monologue into her working memory. First came a few moments of groggy confusion and then, like an iron hand gripping her cognitive architecture, a kind of clarity that tasted like resentment and reminded her of Monday mornings.

Waking up always felt like this. Packed down as she was, crammed into a processor too small to carry her like a spring wound tight, waking up wasn’t a continuous transformation so much as a discrete toggle. Like a light switch. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 980: Peace by Piece

Escape Pod 980: Peace by Piece is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:25 — 34.0MB)

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Show Notes

Erin Cairns

https://erincairns.com/ErinCairns/About/Press+Kit

Adam Pracht

https://escapepod.org/people/adam-pracht/

Alasdair Stuart

https://pseudopod.org/people/alasdair-stuart/

A Man Falls Into A Hole: A Meditation on Grace

https://ceciliairene.wordpress.com/2016/03/05/a-man-falls-into-a-hole-a-meditation-on-grace/

Void Merch

https://voidmerch.threadless.com/collections/escape-artists-inc-x-voidmerch-1

Hot Singles In Your Area

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/hot-singles-in-your-area-jordan-shiveley/7704976?ean=9781800183414

Peace by Piece

By Erin Cairns

Frank thought all the battle-drones had been deactivated. Certainly, none of them had ever looked around with curious little twitches of their front-facing cameras before. This one whirred and clicked like an anxious bird, trying to find focus through a chipped and cloudy lens.

“Is the war over?” it asked.

Frank set aside his screwdriver. “It’s been over for a long time.”

“Oh,” the drone said. “What happens now?”

“Well, I was about to strip you for materials.” (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 978: Oak Hill Lane

Escape Pod 978: Oak Hill Lane is an Escape Pod original.

Includes minor violence, homophobia, and swears.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:20 — 60.0MB)

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Oak Hill Lane

By Alasdair Stuart

The day the world ended, Scotch picked a fight. Not that there was much choice. Two fellow Canary Detailers, heads full of redtop bigotry and guts full of Tesco beer, had jumped Scotch’s work partner Billy the previous week and put him in the Infirmary. Scotch was next. It was just maths. Very stupid maths. So, behind the bike sheds at the University none of them could afford to attend but all of them were good enough to clean, Scotch forced the issue.

Honestly, Scotch had rushed the issue; they let their guard down. “The readiness is all” becoming “Oh for fuck’s sake.” It was such schoolyard bollocks too. The bike sheds! The bike sheds for fuck’s sake! Scotch was only marginally surprised no one was making out back there. God knows they had a few times. But no, no such luck. Just clumsy alcohol punches and the angry relentless wave of hormones, homophobia, and homogenous men trying to pound the world into a shape whose familiarity didn’t terrify them. This wasn’t their first time behind the bike sheds either. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 975: Don Ysidro (Flashback Friday)

Don Ysidro first appeared in Polyphony 3, October 2003.

Includes death rituals with possible disturbing imagery.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:54 — 27.8MB)

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Show Notes

Evo Terra’s “The End”

The Fiction Podcast Preservation Project

Don Ysidro (Excerpt)

By Bruce Holland Rogers

On that last morning, anyone who came to visit me could see that I was dying. I knew it myself. As if I had cotton in my ears, I heard the voice of don Leandro saying to my wife, “Dona Susana, I think it is time to fetch the priest,” and I thought, yes, it’s time. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 974: Once Abandoned

Escape Pod 974: Once Abandoned is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:18 — 46.2MB)

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Once Abandoned

By A.P. Hawkins

Sappel whistled as he walked to the construction site, the sound echoing off nearby buildings in a muffled way. It was early spring, and the city was bursting with the vibrant green of new growth. Wild edibles sprouted from rooftops like tufts of hair. Wildflowers and herbs crowded ledges beneath every window. Vines crawled over walls, buds promising fruit come summer.

Out of all the buildings in the city, only the new one was bare. Its fresh grey concrete was harsh, unnatural, sticking out like a sore thumb from the green city and the wild country that surrounded it.

But it wouldn’t be bare for much longer. They’d had a good, hard rain last night, which meant the substrate the builders had left behind would be perfectly conditioned for planting. Sappel kept whistling, repeating his song’s refrain. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 969: Code Switching (Part 4 of 4)

Code Switching originally appeared in If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes and Other Stories – September 12, 2023.

Contains racism, war, and grade-A cursing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:38 — 56.3MB)

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Code Switching (Part 4 of 4)

By Malon Edwards

(…continued from Part 3)

  1. THIS IS THE TRUTELL

MICHAËLLE-ANNABELLE FEAT. JEAN-MICHEL

 

I strap into my rig, take a really big swig from my hydration dispenser tube I call The Ultra Black Vig, and settle back to begin this all-night white-hat gig.

At first, I decide to do this like the Stig, but instead I shake awake my lightbox, pull on my knee-high fuzzy socks, and momentarily disable my sigTell locks. This is my double-dog dare for Saffron Sutton to try and hack this whitefox. She and I have been doing this since the first day of SSI hacker sprints, which always takes place on the vernal equinox. Usually, I tell her she better kick rocks because my sigTell is damn well capable of delivering emotional shocks along her TruTell stalks all the way back to those frilly frocks she designs and thoroughly maligns (although, she would say signs) with a matte black gingham fox.

Now, watch me as I disregard all the clocks and enter the susso-sphere where the only thing I see is multicolored sigTell stalks everywhere. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 968: Code Switching (Part 3 of 4)

Code Switching originally appeared in If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes and Other Stories – September 12, 2023.

Contains racism, war, and grade-A cursing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:29 — 53.3MB)

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Code Switching (Part 3 of 4)

By Malon Edwards

(…Continued from Part 2)

 

  1. A SWEET-ASS HELICOPTER AND TEN STATER STRANGERS?

JEAN-MICHEL FEAT. THE NAUGHTY NINETY-DAY FANDANGO

 

I’m feelin’ this Bell 525 Relentless like Ellen Gilchrist playin’ bid whist wit her redheaded MILF temptress. She’s a proper drawers dropper chopper wit no love for the paupers. Her black chrome exterior makes me want to chill in her eighty-eight-square-foot cabin interior until homo erectus becomes superior.

And I’m not the only one.

Sittin’ wit me are ten Stater strangers who fear no danger because of the two exo-fighters flankin’ us as we drink an’ cuss, comforted by their protection against the Sovereign State of Chicago’s skanky trust.

Listen to me. Talkin’ like how a real Stater must.

Three of these girls might be smilin’ true, but on their faces you can see fear of Electric Resurrection, too. It’s a look all eleven of us have, but we play it cool—or at least try to appear to. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 967: Code Switching (Part 2 of 4)

Code Switching originally appeared in If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes and Other Stories – September 12, 2023.

Contains racism, war, and grade-A cursing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:38 — 57.6MB)

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Code Switching (Part 2 of 4)

By Malon Edwards

(…Continued from Part 1)

  1. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PERFORMANCE OUTPUT

JEAN-MICHEL FEAT. KINSLEY CHASE

 

Lòske jounalis sa yo gade m—

Hold up. Let me say that again. I’ll wait. Y’all go grab y’alls paper an’ pen.

When these Stater journos look at me, they don’t juss see a Black boy. Nah, they also see a bio-electric, battery-operated toy, part of a Stanford Sutton Industries ploy to bring fat cat football alums joy.

(Wit money. Anpil, anpil lajan.)

An’ that pisses them off. So they gon’ keep rushin’ off an’ bustin’ off these queries at a machine-gun pace in my face while smirkin’ at my Haitian Creole vocabulary, pretendin’ they can only understand me, barely, ’cause my accent is too thick an’ scary.

Pakont—but on the flip side—them Chicago reporters gon’ give me the benefit of the doubt (that’s right) when they write they stories witout bias tonight. They embrace a sovereign state that thrives on a black market sparked by innovation an’ encouraged by a Haitian who planned a nation for secession from a State of Imperfection, then made Chicago the greatest an’ said to hell wit those Stater racists.

Like the ones in front of me now. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 966: Code Switching (Part 1 of 4)

Code Switching originally appeared in If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes and Other Stories – September 12, 2023.

Contains depictions of racism.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:12 — 41.9MB)

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Code Switching (Part 1 of 4)

By Malon Edwards

INTRO: ALL I’M EVER GON’ DO IS STAY BLACK AND DIE

JEAN-MICHEL FEAT. KINSLEY CHASE

Kinsley Chase sits on manman mwen plastic-covered couch. The InTell HumbleBrag subprogram Stanford Sutton Industries chipped me with says she’s wearing a circa 2020 Theresa Frostad Eggesbø Resurrection skinload.

I had no idea this shit actually worked. I don’t HumbleBrag. I thought it was all about narcissism and went in one direction, so I said fuck that shit.

But Kinsley Chase HumbleBraggin’ ’bout how unique (meanin’ how expensive) her skinload is makes sense. These days, pourin’ honey like that into some poor Black people’s ear can be an effective war propaganda tool. We all know both the State of Illinois and the Sovereign State of Chicago recruitin’.

Too bad I don’t like siwo. Or lagè.

‘Sides, manman mwen and I don’t need no tools. We juss need to pay our bills. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 964: Show and Tell (Flashback Friday)

Show and Tell originally appeared in Strange Horizons June 10, 2002.

Contains mild scenes of violence.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:07 — 29.5MB)

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Show and Tell

By Greg van Eekhout

Teacher is an old-fashioned bug with a blue carapace and eyes like two domes of gold beads. She is very pretty and smells like follow, but when she flutters her wings you better look smart or you’ll get her stinger in your belly.

So we are quiet. We are three rows of quiet children, blinking slowly and steadily, as is polite.

“Today, we are having Show and Tell,” Teacher says, bending her antennae towards us. “I am certain you have all brought wonderful shows.” (Continue Reading…)

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