Drabblecast Covers Collage 2018 01

Category: Drabblecast Page 9 of 27

Drabblecast 368 – Restless in R’lyeh

Drabblecast cover for Restless in R'lyeh by Greg CravensDear Doctor Saperstein,

I’m a 44-year-old librarian from Kansas and a loyal reader of askdoctorsaperstein.com. Last night, after a relaxing day spent gardening, binge-watching “America’s Got Talent,” and organizing my snowglobe collection, I had a nightmare. A hideous octopus-headed monster performed a ukulele solo on “America’s Got Talent,” then killed and ate Howard Stern. Afterwards, Heidi Klum chanted tunelessly in a harsh alien language (possibly German). When I woke up, I was filled with unspeakable dread and all the snow in my snowglobes was whirling around as if someone had shaken each one. What could it mean?

–Worried in Wichita

Drabblecast 367 – The Whisperer in Darkness pt. 2

Cover for The Whisperer in Darkness pt. 2 by P. Emerson WilliamsThen, apparently crossing my incoherent note and reaching me Saturday afternoon, September 8th, came that curiously different and calming letter neatly typed on a new machine; that strange letter of reassurance and invitation which must have marked so prodigious a transition in the whole nightmare drama of the lonely hills. Again I will quote from memory – seeking for special reasons to preserve as much of the flavour of the style as I can.  

To say that the letter relieved me would be only fair, yet beneath my relief lay a substratum of uneasiness. If Akeley had been sane in his terror, was he now sane in his deliverance? 

 

Drabblecast 366 – The Whisperer in Darkness pt. 1

Cover for The Whisperer in Darkness pt. 1 by P. Emerson WilliamsBear in mind closely that I did not see any actual visual horror at the end. To say that a mental shock was the cause of what I inferred – that last straw which sent me racing out of the lonely Akeley farmhouse and through the wild domed hills of Vermont in a commandeered motor at night – is to ignore the plainest facts of my final experience. Notwithstanding the deep things I saw and heard, and the admitted vividness the impression produced on me by these things, I cannot prove even now whether I was right or wrong in my hideous inference. For after all Akeley’s disappearance establishes nothing. People found nothing amiss in his house despite the bullet-marks on the outside and inside. It was just as though he had walked out casually for a ramble in the hills and failed to return. 

 

Drabblecast 365 – This Secular Technology

Drabblecast Cover for This Secular Technology by Ruth LoweLeah woke up, said the blessing upon waking, then turned on her overlay with a mental command. She hissed with displeasure — it was a _gevurah_ day, again. She was supposed to contemplate restriction, discipline, withdrawal. She was beginning to wonder if her teachers were doing this on purpose; the assignments were said to be random, but she no longer believed in randomness. Her soul root was in _chesed_, the diametric opposite of _gevurah_, and she found _gevurah_ days draining at best, excruciatingly painful at worst.

Drabblecast 364 – All of Our Past Places

Drabblecast cover for All of Our Past Places by Brian Delano

Aoife always told me that you could go anywhere, as long as you had the right map. So when it happened, my first thought, when I let myself into her apartment after not hearing from her for three days, was this weird feeling of pride.

She’d done it.

She was gone.

 

Drabblecast 363 – The Totals

Cover for Drabblecast episode The Totals by Bo KaierClutch has killed somebody recently.

This goes without saying.

For as long as Clutch can remember, he has always killed somebody “recently.” If not within the last few hours, then certainly within the last few days. He may have gone as long as a couple of weeks without, from time to time, when circumstances conspired against him. But never as long as a month, no, not for living memory.

 

Drabblecast 362 – Starter House

Cover for Drabblecast episode Starter House by Raoul IzzardDale looked up through the ribbed Lucite dome of Asteroid Cintas II,
his eyes lit from within by thoughts of a bright future. “I never thought,” he said, “I’d own a purebred house.”

Pam locked her eyes on his. “I knew you would. I knew we would. This makes it all worth it.”

They kissed.

A forklift driver smiled at them as he passed, trundling a giant spool of wire through corridors of stacked feedbags. He disappeared into the high dark bay of the feedlot.

 

Drabblecast 361 – Time to Say Goodnight

Drabblecast Cover for Time to Say Goodnight by Jessica Welks“Then Duck left Mr. Tomkin’s farm and went to swim in Glacier Lake, just like he’d always wanted.” Mommy looked up from the last page, but Clara wasn’t sleeping.

“And then what did Duck do?” Clara asked.

“That’s all there is.”

“Duck died?” Mommy had explained about dying on the way home from visiting Grandpa. Clara didn’t really understand, but it made
her sad.

“No sweetie, Duck didn’t die, this is just the end of the story.”

Drabblecast 360 – Trifecta: Locked Boxes

Cover for Drabblecast Locked Boxes Trifecta by Carly LynI didn’t kill God; we should clear that up right away. I just captured him and put him in a little box.

It sounds harder than it actually was. Hannah helped me make it. Her dark, sad eyes so serious and focused behind the wire-rimmed glasses she always wore, her slender fingers tracing the passages from the Bible. A long time ago, God gave instructions on how to build a tabernacle for him to inhabit. That story made us wonder: if the infinite can be confined to a building or a tent or a room, then why not a box?

Drabblecast 359 – Trifecta: Unnatural Growth

Cover for Drabblecast Unnatural Growth Trifecta, by Declan KeaneMy twin brother had been a dry-eyed baby, and he grew into a dry-eyed boy.

“Yaakov, why don’t you ever cry?” I asked him the day we buried my uncle’s family.

He shrugged. “Maybe you carry all the tears for both of us, Anna.”

I thought he might be right. In the past month I had cried again and again. I had wept through the night of hiding in the root cellar among the onions and potatoes and jars of pickled vegetables, my face buried in our mother’s skirt. We emerged in the morning to discover the Cossacks had burned down the barn with all of our animals trapped inside. I cried again for the goats. We didn’t even know yet that our cousins down the road had suffered the same fate. Our two older siblings took their turns calming me, but I took the most comfort from Yaakov’s stoic face.

Drabblecast 358 – DoubleHeader: Rachael K. Jones

Cover for Drabblecast episode Rachael K Jones Doubleheader by Spencer Bingham10. _Influenza siderius_ begins as a general malaise. That is always the first symptom. Perhaps you wish to doze on the sofa, but your husband suggests a little fresh air instead. You do feel better after the walk, but by the next morning the listlessness has returned tenfold. Your husband complains when you order takeout instead of making the pot roast, but you feel too tired to care.

 

Drabblecast 357 – Trifecta: Embarrassing Personal Problems

Cover for Drabblecast Trifecta by Unka OdyaIt looks like a quantity of strawberry jam squeezed into a cheap polythene shower cap. Even down to the darkened pips and the intimation someone’s attempted to pick it up and squished it in the middle. Clint adjusts the telescopic sight and tilts his head, upping the magnification, but knocking the thermal readout to the off position. He can feel the heat from here, so it’s safe to say that the temperature is outside the usual parameters.

 

Drabblecast 356 – An Exodus of Wings

Cover for Drabblecast episode An Exodus of Wings, by Melissa McClanahanBefore Heidi came along, Michael did everything he could to keep the damn faeries out of his apartment. Every night he washed and dried his dishes, never left one dripping in the drying rack. Always fished the food particles from the drain, took the trash out, sealed his cereal in glass jars.

 

 

 

Drabblecast 355 – Kiriki Grocery

Cover for Drabblecast episode Kiriki Grocery, by Tory Hoke

Cover for Drabblecast episode Kiriki Grocery, by Tory Hoke

The last day of orientation at New Plymouth University, Work Placement called students up in pairs. Rhonda Morillo took the chair next to a big-boned blond girl–Deirdre, pretty sure–as their peer advisor announced their “exciting cultural opportunity”: stocking shelves at Kiriki Grocery.

 

 

 

Drabblecast 354 – DoubleHeader XVIII: Sylvia Spruck Wrigley

Drabblecast Alienated / The Front Line by Mary MatticeAlone — but not lonely.

Three days, we’ve been on this planet. Over a year, Earth-time. But we don’t talk about Earth-time anymore. It weakens morale, says Sir Overgeneral Halfish.

My morale went out the window when I found out that I was sentenced to be transported off planet.

 

 

 

Drabblecast 353 – Primrose or Return to Il’maril

Cover for Drabblecast episode 352, Primrose or Return to Il’maril, by E.C. Ibes“I will not leave this cavern,” the voice said as soon as I stepped into the cave mouth. A baritone decaying into vibrato, an old man’s voice, full of dignity and pride.

I tried to pinpoint its source, but the air was thick with fog. The haze seemed to originate from inside the chamber, where a mysterious current of cold wind blew from underground. All around me, where the vapour met the pink light, it glowed, the colour of the primrose buds in my terrarium back home. The thought of missing them in full bloom this year, pricked at me. Focus, Virginia, I told myself. Don’t be so bloody addled. There are lives on the line.

Drabblecast 352 – Snow Day

Drabblecast Cover for Snow Day by Caroline ParkinsonThe shovel bit through the foamy snow on the top stair of my front porch, then stopped with a clang. I scraped away the snow to see what was beneath. Ice. Serve me right for not shoveling after the snow had fallen last night. It had thawed, then the temperature had dropped into the deep freeze, and now the steps and the sidewalk were frozen solid.

 

 

Drabblecast 351 – DoubleHeader XVII: Camille Griep

Cover for Drabblecast DoubleHeader of Camille Griep, by Alex ClawThe fiery orange sun hung high over the Bangkok skyline to the south. Professor Tina Montri rearranged her skirt and adjusted the alligator skin briefcase on her lap which held the presentation and research notes from her talk at the university. A breeze stirred on the back of her neck, warm and relaxing. She could almost fall asleep if it weren’t for her precarious perch at the top of a tree.

 

 

Drabblecast 350 – Trifecta XXX: Something Fishy

Cover for Drabblecast episode 350, Something Fishy Trifecta, by Bo KaierIzam’s fingers moved on their own. They found his sunken chest. And counted his ribs.

His father would have slapped his hand away. A stupid habit of a stupid boy. A stupid starving boy who counted his ribs when he was hungry even though it only made him hungrier. Izam knew it was stupid
but he could not help it. He was so hungry.

The ocean was silent. The boat was still, the fishing line as motionless as ever. The last rays of sun sparkled on the waves. There would be no fish today. No food. Izam’s fingers brushed his chest and began counting his ribs again. No food for another day.

The line tugged. The rod tore from his hand.

 

Drabblecast 349 – The Island of White Houses

Cover for Drabblecast episode 349, The Island of White Houses, by Susan ReagelToday I am going to the island.

I climb the slick wood stairs down to Whitmuth beach. The wind blows fierce through the town like usual and swirls back out to sea, smoky with our coal fires and smacking with hot oil from the fry shops up and down the boardwalk.

 

 

 

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