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Mama had believed enough to sacrifice her savings and emigrate here, all for the sake of her poor, insane, eight-year-old daughter. Mama had found a place on a map, a city that wouldn’t exist without air conditioning and irrigation. A place with no history.
The road stretches east. The ancient ruts are filled with dust. Tufts of yellowish grass rise up through the pebbles. The village remains out of sight for almost the entire walk, but the man counts his steps, just as he measures everything, and he knows exactly when he’ll arrive. The insects leave him be, while the lizards watch him from afar.
It came to me that I should run away from home taking nothing but myself and so I thought I would and so I did. I’d not gone ten turns of the spiral before a small leathery suitcase began to tag along in my invisible wake. “Take me! Use me! Fill me!” it said. “Please, please fill me; I need to be filled.”
The Shandling show features a Goddess of Ping-Pong, a sometimes incandescent paddle carved out of a tree felled by a lightning bolt, and the climactic finish where Shandling smashes the final winner, and the ball goes into the air and–just as in the baseball version–knocks out the gym’s lights, showering everyone with sparks.
“The Okra, Sorghum, Yam,” by Bruce Holland Rogers, read by Rachel Swirsky, and brought to you by Podcastle. Published in Realms of Fantasy, October 2003. So the following summer when the second princess came to Old Kwaku’s hut, he said, “What do you want?” “My father said that I must learn wisdom from you.” “And […]
“The Voices of the Snakes,” by Karina Sumner-Smith, read by Rachel Swirsky, and brought to you by Podcastle. Published in Issue #2 of Fantasy Magazine, February 2006. “Hello poison, hello grave-specter, hello nightmare,” the little green grass snake called, his tiny voice high and all his sibilants hissed. He flicked his tongue and uncurled his […]
In this city, there are glass sculptures that catch the light from stars as yet unborn. In this city, there are buildings made of woven silk and mirrorwood. They fold themselves around one another like lovers, and their passionate sighs are the wind in the subway. In this city, subway trains rattle on tracks of bone and ivory. In this city, the night is bright with the livid green of burning ectoplasm. In this city, darkness can be touched, and feels like heavy velvet. In this city, the night breathes.
The floor is sulking. She almost always wears shoes in the basement, and the cement lies all day in agony listening to the first floor’s boards sighing loudly in ecstasy at the touch of her bare heels. All it can hope for in its slow, cold way is that the woman will scoop the cat boxes, squatting on her heels, after she starts a load of laundry. Today oh joy oh joy she does. The floor is practically writhing at the smell of her (she always showers after the scooping, so her scent is thick)—the tangy rich odor. The cement feels (or maybe it’s just wishful thinking) just a bit of her damp warmth.
The wooden box promises to make Dale the life of any party or social gathering, 1001 tricks, gags and illusions. The Queen of Hearts Deluxe, The Dancing Ball, The Invisible Empress, simple tricks with exotic names. He wears a velvet top hat and carries around a white-tipped wand, and people call him Magician.
When Dale vanishes a coin for his sister Sonia and materializes it from behind her ear, she grabs her ear frantically and knocks the quarter into a heating vent. She rocks her wheelchair back and forth and Dale has to clamp onto the handles to keep her from tipping over.
“Believe” by Katherine Sparrow, read by Ann Leckie. Content courtesy of PodCastle.
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