Posts Tagged ‘family’

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Escape Pod 773: A Wild Patience (Part 2 of 3)

This story first appeared in GigaNotoSaurus (March 2020)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:57 — 37.5MB)

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A Wild Patience (Part 2 of 3)

by Gwynne Garfinkle

The next day, school was in an uproar. The other mothers had talked to their kids too. Some kids were red-eyed and tear-streaked, others cynical with bravado. Jessica and Tom held hands every minute they were together, like they physically needed to. Tom looked like he’d been crying. He was skinny and wan, with long lashes and floppy dark hair. Jessica was bigger and taller than he was, but they fit each other somehow.

Everyone compared notes at the lockers before first period: The fact that none of our moms had living parents or siblings or extended family we’d heard of. The fact that none of our moms worked outside the home. The fact that none of our moms ever had colds or the flu, headaches or nausea, much less any serious illnesses. (They had gone to see Dr. Powell regularly, but now we realized it was for repair and maintenance.)

Then there were the kids who had no idea what we were talking about, like Jimmy Hernandez, who was being raised by his grandparents, and Jody Drucker, whose mom (human, as far as we could tell) was a widow. There even seemed to be some kids with a dad married to a non-robot mom, but they lived in the rundown part of town–kids like Diane Russo, who we quizzed until we were convinced. (Her mom got colds and migraines, had a large extended family, gave birth to two kids after Diane, and worked as a bank teller in Abundante.) I figured these dads wouldn’t have had enough money to pay for a robot mom, though I didn’t say that to their kids. (I didn’t know for a fact that money had been involved, but it made sense.) Besides, maybe these dads really loved their human wives. It was hard to take that for granted anymore. “You are so lucky,” was all we said to Diane.

Diane shrugged. “This all sounds unbelievable,” she said. “Are you sure this is even real?”

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 772: A Wild Patience (Part 1 of 3)

This story first appeared in GigaNotoSaurus (March 2020)

Contains cursing and discussions of sex.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:42 — 46.7MB)

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A Wild Patience (Part 1 of 3)

by Gwynne Garfinkle

We first noticed something was off one April afternoon when Jessica and I came home from school and Mom had lopped her hair off. Though we probably should’ve known something was going on a week or two before that when Cecilia Ivers’ mom started baking cakes full of Tabasco sauce and pickles (bizarre but good).

But anyway, we walked in the front door, and Mom came out of the living room to greet us. Her hair looked cool, and cool was just about the last word I ever would’ve used to describe her. It looked weird, and that was cool. Jessica let out a whistle of startled appreciation. She wanted to cut her hair short and dye it purple, but she knew our dad would freak.

Mom smiled. “Do you like it, Jessie?”

“It’s so not like you,” Jessica blurted out, and added, “No offense!” Up until this point, Mom always had boring mom-hair. (We’d never seen any photos of her from before she met Dad.)

“None taken,” Mom said. “Absolutely none.” There was something strangely intense about the way she said it.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 769: Deal

Escape Pod 769: Deal is an Escape Pod original.

Illness

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:49 — 46.9MB)

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Deal

By Eris Young

Beulah wonders what it would be like to touch the Visitor. Oil-slick iridescent, it is tennis ball-sized and scaled with an animated crystalline skin—or shell—or carapace. It floats, stationary, a foot above the rug in the corner of the living room. Its surface changes by the second, rippling back and forth as if stroked by an invisible hand. If she were to run her fingers—gently, gently—over its surface, would it be keratinous, like an iguana? Or feathery? Would it be warm to the touch?

Kim is still behind her somewhere, hovering in the hallway. Get it out, was all she had said, face white as saguaro blossom in the dim mudroom.

Beulah pulled on her jacket, then pulled it off again. “Babe, I have to go to class. Can’t you—”

Kim shook her head, “Uh-uh. Please.” She had been close to tears, almost hyperventilating. Now, muffled by the wall between hall and living room, Her voice is shaky but a bit firmer.

“Is it out?”

If Beulah turns she can just see a sliver of Kim’s shoulder, her pilly cardigan, the electric pink tips of her hair. Her face is now hidden.

“It takes a minute, you know that.”

Beulah crouches, knees popping, to get a better look, steadying herself on the coffee table.

“How’d you get in here, huh?” (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 763: No Spaceship Go

No Spaceship Go was originally published in Dailysciencefiction.com in November 2010.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:46 — 49.1MB)

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No Spaceship Go

By Annie Bellet

The boys lay on their backs side by side staring up through the open roof of the abandoned building. Dylan clutched Meek’s hand in anticipation as the ground shook and a roar filled the air. Tiny pebbles danced up from the ground around them and dust ran like water off the crumbling walls.

“Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five,” Dylan whispered, “four… three… two… one.”

The shaking increased and he had to release Meek’s hand to shade his eyes. Smoke billowed up into the air, a streak of fire ahead of it. Then the true sonic blast of the rocketship hit them in a wave as the boys squinted to make out the ship speeding through the atmosphere. It sounded like the crackling of a hundred fires, or perhaps the blast of the biggest blowtorch Dylan could imagine.

Meek whooped and crawled to his knees, staring up into the sky.

“Do you think that’s the one we’ll be on someday?” he asked Dylan.

Dylan rolled to his side and propped himself up on one arm. Dust had accumulated on Meek’s round, tan cheeks and Dylan fought the urge to wipe it away.

“Nah, by the time we’ve saved enough to get our home on Elle Four, the ships’ll all be new I bet. We’ll ride on a superfast one for sure.”

“I want to grow peppers.” Meek smiled up at Dylan, his crooked teeth warping the line of his chapped lips.

“What kind of peppers?” Dylan grinned back. They’d had variations of this conversation before and Dylan didn’t pay much attention to Meek as the boy launched into his usual daydream about gardens and pepper plants.

Dylan daydreamed about something else entirely as he fixated on Meek’s lips, his eyes drifting to the dimple in his friend’s left cheek. He didn’t notice at first that Meek had stopped talking and instead stared up at him with those dark, nearly pupil-less eyes.

“Oh, hmm? I’m sorry.” Dylan murmured.

“Pebble for your thoughts?” Meek smiled again. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 759: The Sun From Both Sides (Part 3 of 3)

The Sun From Both Sides was first published by Clarkesworld Magazine, in May 2019.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:09 — 80.3MB)

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The Sun From Both Sides (Part 3 of 3)

By R.S.A. Garcia

(Continued from Part 2 – Escape Pod episode 758)

“Grandmaster Lucochin.”

He started awake, his hand tightening on something. Someone.

The Knight hung motionless over him. He had it by the throat, his fingers digging into the soft flesh beneath the golden full mask and its red speaker.

A gold mask. A Knight of the Royal Sept Valencia. He released the Knight and it straightened, showing no sign that he had almost throttled it in his sleep.

His sleep. He’d fallen asleep.

He looked down at the empty sheets beside him and sucked in a breath. The Knight took a step back as he swung his legs onto the floor.

“Where is my wife?” he ground out, his voice harsh with sleep and fear.

“Grandmaster Valencia awaits you in the Audience Room.”

“Where is my wife?”

The Knight crossed its arms over bare breasts, the only outward reaction to his inexcusable rudeness.

“Grandmaster Valencia awaits you,” the Knight repeated. The rainbow colors of the three-dimensional dodecahedron crest of Sept Valencia covered most of its forearm.

His blood was ice in his veins as he swiftly pulled on his boots. There was no sign Eva had ever been there. Her shoes were gone, the trays of food had been removed and only one mask remained on the table. His heart stuttered when he laid eyes on it, his lungs refusing to draw air. Then he took a breath and let the old calm, the old watchfulness, settle around him. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 758: The Sun From Both Sides (Part 2 of 3)

The Sun From Both Sides was first published by Clarkesworld Magazine, in May 2019.

A few instances of cursing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:27 — 64.3MB)

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The Sun From Both Sides (Part 2 of 3)

By R.S.A. Garcia

(Continued from Part 1 – Escape Pod episode 757)

Once, a man left his home to find his home.

It was not an easy journey, but going home never is.

He gave up all that he was, and all he knew, to experience a great many things. Genuine smiles and thoughtless malice. Shared purpose and individual failure.

And one bright day, in the middle of a river, he found peace. The first true peace in his long life. He learned that a home could be shared, and that in finding his home, he’d become another’s. That was more than enough to bury the fears and chase away the memories. More than enough to keep the world and its cares far, far away.

Until the day he came home, and the world was sitting at their table, brushing invisible dust from white diaphanous trousers with immaculately trimmed and painted fingers. The Knight rose from the wooden chair it had been seated on, the smooth white surface of its full-mask catching the evening light. A pin-hole speaker made a glowing blue circle in the centre of the lower half of the mask, and tinted slits hid the Knight’s eyes. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 757: The Sun From Both Sides (Part 1 of 3)

The Sun From Both Sides was first published by Clarkesworld Magazine, in May 2019.

Contains violence.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:33 — 52.0MB)

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The Sun From Both Sides (Part 1 of 3)

By R.S.A. Garcia

Once, a woman loved a man, and a man loved a woman.

They lived in a forest, in a small stone-grey hut, set far enough back from a river to escape the seasonal floods. Every day, they woke on a too-soft mattress and turned their faces to each other before they opened their eyes. Her smile would curve her lips as she lay her hand on his cheek, and he would sigh and nuzzle her palm.

Then they would roll away and sit up on either side of the low bed and push their feet into their shoes.

Days were short and cool, or long and hot, but there was always something to do. Firewood to chop, the roof to repair, a garden to tend. They carried out their chores accompanied by his tuneless humming, and when she looked at him, he always knew. They would pause, gazes locked as they took a breath, hands wiping sweaty foreheads, or resting on bent knees, before they both went back to what they were doing.

Nights were for dinner, and fireside reading, and sitting with their shoulders touching on the wooden swing-bench outside the creaky front door as they stared up at the patches of sky visible between the swaying branches. He would use his legs to push them back and forth slowly while she sat with her knees drawn up. Sometimes she let her head rest against his neck, and sometimes he put his head in her lap. Other times, he would play his flute while she lay her hand on his chest and her head on his shoulder. If she fell asleep, he would carry her inside without waking her.

When they fought, with air sucked through teeth, hands on hips and narrowed eyes, it was usually over small things, like whose turn it was to clean up. But they made up quickly, with soft kisses, fingers interlaced as they walked, and bodies entwined at night. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 748: Flash Fiction Contest Winners 2020

Escape Pod 748: Flash Fiction Contest Winners 2020 is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:14 — 33.8MB)

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Flash Fiction Contest Winners 2020

Our stories this week are the winners of the contest, as chosen by you: our listeners and readers. All four stories are Escape Pod originals. Out of 224 stories, the top four stories were:

“Butterfly” by Drew Czernik, narrated by Hollis Monroe
“In Roaring She Shall Rise” by Rajiv Moté, narrated by Katherine Inskip
“Death Poems of the Folded Ones” by Carol Scheina, narrated by S. Kay Nash
“The Day the Sun Went Out” by Hannah Whiteoak, narrated by Tina Connolly

Now, get ready to explore new worlds of space, time, and relationships, because it’s storytime.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 733: Relative Fortune

Relative Fortune was originally published in Galaxy’s Edge in October 2018.

Cursing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:32 — 28.7MB)

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Show Notes

This is the third in a special series of space-themed stories in May 2020.

Relative Fortune

By Brian K. Lowe

When I was seventeen, class president, and a year from the Space Force Academy, Dad fell into an antique gun rack at work, dead from a stroke before he hit the floor.

I had been helping him in the pawn shop after school, partly to make some tuition money and partly because it looked good on my Academy application. After he died it was either take over the shop, or let Mom work it and my brother Rey raise himself while I ran off to the Academy. I opened up two hours after the funeral.

Every night, I’d sweep the floors, dust the shelves, double-lock the front door, and walk upstairs after a 12-hour day of trading in things that people had once thought they couldn’t live without, but now couldn’t live without selling.

But while I was scratching out a living buying and selling second-hand guitars, the real money was in things that had gone Out There. Tools, spacesuits, uniform patches… And when it came to interstellar travel, stuff that had been to another star… Years before I was born, the first guys to come back from Proxima Centauri had gotten rich selling their underwear. The best part was that, thanks to time dilation, they were still young. They’d been able to retire in their thirties. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 731: For Whatever We Lose

For Whatever We Lose was first published in 2019 in issue 37 of Luna Station Quarterly.

Includes one F-bomb. Includes mention of death, loss, and danger.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:39 — 28.8MB)

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Show Notes

This is the first in a special series of space-themed stories in May 2020.

For Whatever We Lose

By Jennifer R. Donohue

I lied to meet an astronaut.

Or my dad did, which is the same thing. I was supposed to be at least eight years old to attend, and I was only six but the tallest in my class. So I got to meet the astronaut that August day, instead of going to the beach, or playing in somebody’s backyard and running barefoot to the ice cream truck when we heard its roving song.

He was the third man on the moon, and at home I still have the framed and autographed NASA black and white of him young and serious in his spacesuit. It used to be one of the pictures on his Wikipedia page, a piece of my memories there on the internet for everybody to see. It’s probably the same promo photo he used for years and years; I wonder how many other kids kept theirs. Thinking of it like that makes him seem still alive, like as long as all those pictures are out there, he can’t possibly be gone. (Continue Reading…)