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Escape Pod 881: Wild Geese

This story first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (December 2020)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:53 — 45.6MB)

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Wild Geese

by Lavie Tidhar

With rustling wings the wild geese fly
Round fields long strange to hand of toil
Called by the officers in charge,
We labour on the desert soil.

—Trans. from the Shijing by James Legge (1871)

 

With the end of summer the wild geese appeared, heralding the changing of the seasons. In the bazaars on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar the usual crowds of Silk Roaders engaged in ever more heated commerce. Soon it will be winter: ice and dust storms, and the train crews grumbling and swearing on the tracks, and any sensible hobo would be long gone, to work out the winter as far south-west as possible. Now boots and fur coats made their grand appearance on the stalls of the Naran Tuul, and Silk Roaders from Tehran and Yekaterinbug, Gdańsk and Dushanbe argued bitterly with each other and haggled over wholesale prices, shipping berths and train routes.

Efrem knew they would soon be gone. Traders were like wild dandelion seeds, ubiquitous and easy to take flight. Efrem, who rode the rail to Ulaanbaatar from Yiwu the year before, considered themselves almost a local at this point. Now they chewed on a khuushuur and contemplated the chase.

The first wild goose of the season had been spotted, somewhere to the west of Dalanzadgad.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 876: Like Stars Daring to Shine

Like Stars Daring to Shine was first published by Fireside Magazine, July 2022.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:08 — 43.2MB)

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Like Stars Daring to Shine

By Somto Ihezue

When the boy opens his housing unit’s steel door and the incandescent lights pour into his face, he does not blink away. “Little suns” — this is what everyone calls them. The massive disks hover in the atmosphere, spilling streams of radiant light to the ground. The boy stares into the trees, mere meters from the door, and the forest encaving the unit stares back. A breeze finds him, whistling through the trees and into his dungarees. Threadbare with a Batman logo printed on them, the over-alls belonged to his mother when she was a child. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 875: The Hagfish Has Three Hearts

“The Hagfish Has Three Hearts” was originally published in Cossmass Infinities (September 2021)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:06 — 74.8MB)

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The Hagfish Has Three Hearts

by Monica Joyce Evans

The beacons were in the wrong place.

Noma swallowed her roasted squid and clicked, still staring at the sea. It was hard to be accurate on land, of course. She’d have a better sense once she got in the water. But the beacons had moved.

Which wasn’t possible.

She turned the squid in her hands. The water was quiet and gray under the brilliant blue sky, barely touched by the hot wind. There was always wind on the coast, cradling the thatched village and the ancient hotel and the fish market. Pairs of men and women were laying their silver catches in lines on the wet sand, amberjack and dorado and corvina. The inshore trawlers had left before dawn and were now cautious points on the horizon, keeping a respectful distance from the bright aquamarine line that marked where humans were allowed in the water.

Noma set her squid down and clicked again. Out past the trembling shoals of fish, the aquamarine line had shifted. Not quite aligned with the currents, or the tideline. Wrong.

She felt her hearts beating rapidly and took a moment to quiet them. Nobody could move the beacons, even if they wanted to. Nobody knew how. The whales could, but had no reason to do so. At least, none that Noma could think of. Whales were inscrutable. And unforgiving.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 874: Common Speech

Escape Pod 874: Common Speech is an Escape Pod original.

This story deals with plagues and description of injuries.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:28 — 55.6MB)

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Common Speech

By Elise Stephens

Dr. Jaiyesimi Obiaka tugged at her sweat-damp collar, wiped her eyes, and tried to focus on the copied pages of the final experiment she and Ganiru had created together. Just looking over his familiar handwriting blurred her vision with tears.

Jai’s colleagues had told her to stay home, to take time to grieve, but she’d allowed herself just two days to mourn her husband’s death before donning her lab coat again. She had to be pragmatic. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 871: The Contrary Gardener (Part 2 of 2)

The Contrary Gardener originally appeared in Eclipse Online, October 2012 and has been reprinted in:

  • Science Fiction: The Best of the Year 2013, ed. Rich Horton, Prime Books, 2014.
  • The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, ed. Jonathan Strahan, Night Shade Books, 2014.
  • Telling the Map: Stories (Small Beer Press collection, 2017)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:49 — 55.1MB)

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The Contrary Gardener (Part 2 of 2)

By Christopher Rowe

(Continued from Part 1)

Even in the ‘Ville, even in a family of master cultivators, tickets were not easy to come by, so it was not unusual that Kay Lynne had never been to the Derby. What was unusual was her absolute lack of desire to attend the race.

Kay Lynne genuinely hoped that her instinctive and absolute despisal of the Derby and all its attendant celebrations was born of some logical or at least reasonable quirk of her own personality. But she suspected it was simply because her father loved it so.

“You managed to get two tickets this year?” she asked him, and was surprised that her voice was so steady and calm.

“Just this one,” he replied, turning his back on her before she could hand the ticket back. “I decided this year would be a good one for you to go instead. There’s a good card, top to bottom.” (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 870: The Contrary Gardener (Part 1 of 2)

The Contrary Gardener originally appeared in Eclipse Online, October 2012 and has been reprinted in:

  • Science Fiction: The Best of the Year 2013, ed. Rich Horton, Prime Books, 2014.
  • The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, ed. Jonathan Strahan, Night Shade Books, 2014.
  • Telling the Map: Stories (Small Beer Press collection, 2017)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:17 — 35.2MB)

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The Contrary Gardener (Part 1 of 2)

By Christopher Rowe

Kay Lynne wandered up and down the aisles of the seed library dug out beneath the county extension office. Some of the rows were marked with glowing orange off-limits fungus, warning the unwary away from spores and thistles that required special equipment to handle, which Kay Lynne didn’t have, and special permission to access, which she would never have, if her father had anything to say about it, and he did.

It was the last Friday before the first Saturday in May, the day before Derby Day and so a week from planting day, and Kay Lynne had few ideas and less time for her Victory Garden planning. Last year she had grown a half dozen varieties of tomatoes, three for eating and three for blood transfusions, but she didn’t like to repeat herself. Given that she tended to mumble when she talked, not liking to repeat herself made Kay Lynne a quiet gardener. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 868: Any Other Customer

Escape Pod 868: Any Other Customer is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:35 — 31.5MB)

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Any Other Customer

By Rachel Gutin

Lewis was poking at his tablet, trying yet again to open the training module from Station Commerce, when the sensor above his shop door chimed. “Not now!” he snapped without looking up.

“But… but I….”

Blast it! His tailor shop’s margins had been razor-thin even before Commerce cracked down on him for logging his transactions on paper. And just in case the mandatory training in “proper record-keeping protocols” wasn’t punishment enough, they’d also hit him with a hefty fine. He couldn’t afford to scare away a customer. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 862: The Pill (Part 2 of 2)

The Pill originally appeared in the collection Big Girl with PM Press, part of the Outspoken Author series.

Discussion of dieting, disordered eating, and anti-fat bias.

Also, disturbing imagery.

And swearing.

And sexy times.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:06 — 54.2MB)

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The Pill (Part 2 of 2)

By Meg Elison

(Continued from Part 1)

The Pill sold like nothing had ever sold before. The original, the generic, the knockoffs, the different versions approved in Europe and Asia that met their standards and got rammed through their testing. There was at last a cure for the obesity epidemic. Fat people really were an endangered species. And everybody was so, so glad.

One in ten kept dying. The average never improved, not in any corner of the globe. There were memorials for the famous and semi-famous folks who took the gamble and lost. A congressman here and a comedian there. But everyone was so proud of them that they had died trying to better themselves that all the obituaries and eulogies had this weird, wistful tone to them. As if it was the next best thing to being thin. At least they didn’t have to live that fat life any more.

And every time it was on the news, we sat in silence and didn’t talk about Dad. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 861: The Pill (Part 1 of 2)

The Pill originally appeared in the collection Big Girl with PM Press, part of the Outspoken Author series.

Discussion of dieting, disordered eating, and anti-fat bias.

Also, disturbing imagery.

And swearing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:40 — 52.2MB)

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The Pill (Part 1 of 2)

By Meg Elison

My mother took the Pill before anybody even knew about it. She was always signing up for those studies at the university, saying she was doing it because she was bored. I think she did it because they would ask her questions about herself and listen carefully when she answered. Nobody else did that.

She had done it for lots of trials; sleep studies and allergy meds. She tried signing up when they tested the first 3D printed IUDs, but they told her she was too old. I remember her raging about that for days, and later when everybody in that study got fibroids she was really smug about it. She never suggested I do it instead; she knew I wasn’t fucking anybody. How embarrassing that my own mother didn’t even believe I was cute enough to get a date at sixteen. I tried not to care. And I’m glad now I didn’t get fibroids. I never wanted to be a lab rat, anyway. Especially when the most popular studies (and the ones Mom really went all-out for) were the diet ones. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 854: Pickled Roots and Peeled Shoots and a Bowl of Farflower Tea

Pickled Roots and Peeled Shoots and a Bowl of Farflower Tea originally appeared in Galactic Stew, Zombies Need Brains, 2020.

Brief descriptions of violence and bodily harm.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:05 — 66.5MB)

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Pickled Roots and Peeled Shoots and a Bowl of Farflower Tea

By Chaz Brenchley

 

there’s rue for you, and here’s some for me

 

Just that morning, she’d had a novice shave her head for her. He was a promising lad – no, more than promising, he was a promise halfway to being realised already – but still ridiculously young, all awkwardness and angles, nervous of his own body let alone anybody else’s. Let alone hers.

Of course he’d cut her. She’d felt the cold bite of the blade and then its sudden absence as he snatched his hands away, his suppressed cry of self-recrimination, the tentative pressure of a cloth to stem the bleeding. She raised a hand and laid it over his, pressing firmly, teaching him not to be shy. Not with her body, not with her blood. (Continue Reading…)

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