Drabblecast fan Jen Fischer hosts another Drabbleclassics episode this week, bringing you a touching H.P. Lovecraft mythos story called “Maybe the Stars,” by Samantha Henderson.
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This week on the Drabblecast: dirty jobs. We bring you a quirky original tale by Bryan Miller about mad scientists and henchmen gone awry. Enjoy!
The bulletin board posting specifically stated that the internship required “special skills,” “unorthodox hours,” and an “old-fashioned go-getter,” so I can’t really complain as I’m digging up coffins in search of heads.
Even though the graveyard muck is hell on my Cole Haan shoes, I roll up the sleeves of my Oxford shirt and keep working that spade. Dress for the job you want. One day some intrepid young man—or woman!—may be fetching moldering crania for me. Assuming all goes well.
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Another fantastic strange story sure to blow your mind from Drabblecast author Matthew Sanborn Smith.
The local Partyville starts to peel apart around us: the booth, the ball pit, a video game and the netting between them, the pizza on the table, and the table too. Shards of pressboard and plastic fly toward me while molding themselves into the form of a man. A couple of the other moms scream, and their kids run to them. I didn’t expect this, but I know what it is.
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“Get Your Home Improvement On, Sucka…”
Norm and author Desmond Warzel sit down and talk about fiction, ghosts, aliens, and of course his hit stor which frst appeared on the Drabblecast back in August of 2014, “On a Clear Day You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy.”
You’re listening to the Mike Colavito Show on Cleveland’s home for straight talk, WCUY 1200. The opinions expressed on this program do not reflect those of WCUY, its management, or its sponsors.
Fair warning; I’m in a mood today, folks…
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Alternate history on this week’s show– an original story by Edward J. Knight about the American Civil War that we perhaps only narrowly missed!
7 August 1865
My darling Emily,
I do not know if this letter will reach you, but if it does, I hope it finds you well. General Lee has sent word to President Johnson requesting the evacuation of Washington, and I fear that Baltimore will be next. Remember that I have an uncle outside of Boston and he should be happy to take you in, should the worst come to pass. Just tell him that we are engaged to be married and I am sure he will provide for you.
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On this week’s Drabblecast, Norm and author Matthew Sanborn Smith bring you a dose of perspective during these crazy times where weirdness seems to be the norm. Remember those invisible things around us that support and hold us no matter what our struggles our, and remember to cherish each moment of every day.
I wonder what will happen when I’m not up for it, when the weight finally overcomes my rigidity and I snap. Will I be a bloody mess when I turn back? Will I be too afraid to turn back and just take my chances with the landfill?
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This week, another Drabblecast Trifecta, this time with the theme: Friends Close, Enemies Closer. We bring you three stories, with three different narrators, by three different authors! Time Cookie Wars, by Benjamin C Kinney, Sandy, by Bruce McAllister, and Oh What a Privilege to Dwell in the Grand Palace of the Tungerils! by Kelly Moore.
Good evening. Below you are 2,478 feet of air. Yes, study the carpet, little Wesley. Whatever you do, don’t stomp! Just kidding—what you should be doing is taking off your clothes to ready yourself for this journey. All of you—Ms. Linden, and your glasses, too. Don’t worry. Over 2 feet of concrete and rebar lay between that long drop and us anyway…
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In the tiny lifeboat, she and the alien eat bacon endlessly, relentlessly.
They each have their own preference. Hers is the usual, crispy but not too crispy, the creamy fat just firm enough to bite through, the salt making grainy little bumps that she licks off her fingers.
The alien is not humanoid. It is not bipedal. It has cilia. It has no bones, or perhaps it does and she cannot feel them. Its muscles, or what might be muscles, are rings and not strands. It seems to like its bacon softer than she does, almost raw even, though sometimes it eats pieces that were left to fry a little too long.
It eats the bacon a thousand ways. She eats it, too.
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Another gripping and macabre tale from Drabblecast fan favorite Tim Pratt.
Finding that first body wasn’t so bad, though it rattled me at the time. The dead man was curled up on a piece of cardboard in the alleyway I cut through sometimes on my way to the good coffee shop, and I would have assumed he was just sleeping rough, if he hadn’t been on his back, eyes open to the gray morning sky, lips flecked with bits of whatever he’d thrown up and choked on. The flecks were still wet…
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“My headlights were streaked pink with frog blood…”
Norm and author comedian/writer Bryan Miller about comedy and horror, editing and frog country, Lovecraft and fish horror. Also, Bryan’s H.P. Lovecraft-inspired story, “Necessary Cuts.”
The manuscripts I read are haunted. Commas vanish forever into the void. Subjects and verbs struggle in bloody disagreement. Infinitives are cleaved with a dull axe. Sentence fragments ablated at one ragged end lay strewn between the margins.
I take an exorcist’s solemn pride in banishing these warped creatures from the village, sending slapdash monstrosities back to the murky dark from whence they came. The pages come in and the pages go out; my reward is the warm tingle of equilibrium, having restored order to some tiny corner of the world…
Episode Trailer can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC-qJxNuA6s
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Norm pays tribute and bids farewell to the greatest unsung hero of the podcast for the past two years: editor Sandra Odell. This fantastic story and many others have been brought to your ears through her hard work!
Our story is another original Drabblecast commissioned story for Women & Aliens month, this week by Darcie Little Badger. Solitude is often a time to help reflect on ourselves, and realize just how wonderfully connected we are to the universe around us. But how do we cope with such inevitably connectivity? What are our responsibilities to those fastened to us or colliding with our destinies us? Grab your kayak, hit the beach and find out…
“The prima donna sun has not yet risen to outshine every other star in the Milky Way. Overhead, a flash of light arcs between Orion and Taurus, the hunter firing at the bull. With a grunt, Mathilda lowers her kayak and admires the streak of light across the sky, thinking of her childhood in Los Angeles. There, shooting stars—most stars, really, except for the terrazzo and brass ones on the Hollywood walk of fame —were rare and wondrous. Things are different now. Mathilda still considers the stars to be wondrous…”
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Our first Women & Aliens Month commission for 2020– It’s a goodie, a full-cast production of a Drabblecast original by Rachel K. Jones and Khalida Muhammed-Ali. Wash up, it’s time for dinner!
On this diplomatic mission, I, Scholar, have two objectives: first, to advise Master Feeder TikTik on Earth customs and linguistic differences, and second, to accurately record what transpires so we may determine an exchange of gifts…
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The Drabblecast begins it’s 9th Annual Women & Aliens Month”– a full month of original commissioned stories by women about (you guessed it) aliens. First though, the Drabblecast presents a story by author Margaret Atwood about musicals, fungus, aliens and… well, you’ll see!
The Martians descend to Earth in their spaceship. They intend to go to New York – they want to see something called ‘a musical’ – but they get the directions mixed up, as many before them have done, and end up in Canada instead, as many before them have also done. Specifically, they land on a chunk of rock in the boreal forest somewhere on the Laurentian Shield. There is no one around, or no one you might recognize as ‘one’…
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Sally was coming down the lake road, so I waved to her and called her by name. I always liked to see Sally. I
liked all of them, you understand, but Sally’s the prettiest one of the lot. There just isn’t any question about it.
She moved a little faster when I waved to her. Nothing undignified. She was never that. She moved just enough faster to show that she was glad to see me, too…
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On this week’s show Norm makes a case for adult diapers in preparation for the apocalypse before giving us a taste of “The Peoria Plague,” a 1972 radio drama that doesn’t feel so “1972” at all.
The feature story this week, “The Full Moon Group” by Dianne M. Williams is a Drabblecast original and reminds us that creatures of all walks of life need a little support now and then…
Time was running out, and Matt couldn’t stand the thought of driving home for the change. He turned off the car in the parking lot across the street from the stone church and checked the address. The internet ad said: “Shifter Support — we welcome all shifters. We take security seriously…”
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Norm begins this episode with a metacast update on what’s been going on behind the scenes at the Drabblecast lately. He initiates a call to action for all Weird Nation to consider registering as organ donors and to find out more at www.organdonor.gov
Our story this week by short story legend Flannery O’Connor explores the question, “Am I the asshole?” Special thanks to our guest host and narrator, Random Hospital Cafeteria Worker.
The old woman and her daughter were sitting on their porch when Mr. Shiftlet came up their road for the first time. The old woman slid to the edge of her chair and leaned forward, shading her eyes from the piercing sunset with her hand…
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This year’s Drabblecast Christmas Special brings you another original commissioned holiday story from the master of Christmas weirdness himself: Tim Pratt.
Happy Holidays Weirdo’s!
I was in a grubby little bar down in Florida, sitting on a stool beside a plastic palm tree decorated with Christmas lights, when I heard a cough, and smelled cold ashes. I folded up my list and tucked it into my pocket. Without looking around, I said, “Ruprecht. Long time.” A very long time, actually, but I’ve always been good with names…
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I don’t know where it was—that miniature golf course in the sand—but it had to be the Gulf of Mexico somewhere. We were driving from one coast to the other, like always. “The Great Southern Route,” my dad called it. It had to be Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, or Texas—one of them. I was seven…
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