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GlitterShip
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GlitterShip is an LGBTQ SF&F fiction podcast - bringing you audio versions of great queer science fiction & fantasy short stories!
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Episode 77: "The Quiet Realm of the Dark Queen" by Jenny Blackford
Mar 31, 202000:51:01Tap to summarizeAnd here’s the RSS feed: http://glittership.podbean.com/feed/ Episode 77 is part of the Autumn 2018 issue! Support GlitterShip by picking up your copy here: http://www.glittership.com/buy/ The Quiet Realm of the Dark Queen by Jenny Blackford Dumuzi—my beautiful brother Dumuzi, lovelier than the first green shoots of barley rising from the dark mud of an irrigated field—Dumuzi was dead. Father had not spoken for six days. Not long ago, he’d been a great king in the fullness of his manhood, but now he was hobbling around the halls of the palace like an old grasshopper waiting for death. His hair was gray; his face was grayer still. Mother was quiet at last. For six full days and nights she’d wailed and screamed on her wide bed of gold, tearing her soft face and her lovely breasts with her nails, pulling great lumps of curled and scented hair from her luxuriant head, berating all the gods for their cruelty to her. The people said that she was no mere mortal beauty but a goddess walking on earth with us, and she did not disagree; but even if this were true, it did not diminish her fury against the other gods. [Full story & transcript after the cut.] Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip Episode 77 for the longest March, 31st, 2020. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to be sharing this story with you. Our story for today is The Quiet Realm of the Dark Queen by Jenny Blackford read by Marcy Rae Henry and Amber Gray. Before we get into the story, I've got a few things to say. First of all, much love to everyone out there in the world as we face this pandemic together. Love to all those who are suffering, whether from the virus itself, from loss of or fear for loved ones, from financial uncertainty, or from the fear of what the next day will bring. As in most times of extreme disaster, we're seeing both acts of extreme sociopathy and extreme kindness. Please do what you can to stay safe. Once you've got your own oxygen mask on, see what you can do for others. GlitterShip was originally going to run a full-sized Kickstarter in an attempt to increase our rates, but a combination of finances, time, and the magical world of Keffy-is-still-working-on-a-PhD made that deeply unfeasible, which only became moreso when the pandemic started really ramping up in the States. That said, we are running a much smaller Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keffy/glittership-a-queer-sfandf-magazine-going-for-year-4 in order to fund the next year of GlitterShip through the end of 2020. The much smaller amount is designed to get us through the year and pay off some previous incurred debts. That said, there are also a few stretch goals just in case. If we go considerably over our goal, we'll pay authors more, yay! As of this recording on March 31st, the Kickstarter is about 2/3 of the way funded. The Kickstarter is live until 9pm United States Eastern time on Friday, April 10, 2020. Thank you so much in advance for helping me keep GlitterShip going. Finally, this episode is from the last issue, but there's going to be a new issue released extremely soon as we get back on track! And now, onto "The Quiet Realm of the Dark Queen" by Jenny Blackford, read by Marcy Rae Henry and Amber Gray. Jenny is an Australian writer and poet. Her poems and stories have appeared in Cosmos, Pulp Literature, Strange Horizons, and more. Pamela Sargent called her subersively feminist novella, The Priestess and the Slave, "elegant". She won two prizes in the 2016 Sisters in Crime Australia Scarlet Stiletto awards for a murder mystery set in classical Delphi, with water nymphs. You can find her at www.jennyblackford.com. Marcy Rae Henry is a Latina born and raised in Mexican-America/The Borderlands. Her writing and visual art appears or is forthcoming in FlowerSong Books’ Selena Anthology, Thimble Literary Magazine, New Mexico Review, The Wild Word, Beautiful Losers, The Acentos Review, World Haiku Review, Chicago Literati, The Chaffey Review, Shanghai Literary Review, Damaged Goods Press/TQ Review. Her publication, The CTA Chronicles, received a Chicago Community Arts Assistance Grant and Cumbia Therapy, her collection of Spanglish stories, received an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship. Ms. M.R. Henry is currently seeking publication of two novellas. She is an Associate Professor of Humanities and Fine Arts at Harold Washington College Chicago. Amber Gray is a theatre artist and lover of stories. She enjoys mimicking and creating character voices, especially in song, for her own amusement and the annoyance of those around her who have to put up with it. Thank you to Marcy for being such a good friend and neighbor, and for inviting her to have such a fun time with this project. The Quiet Realm of the Dark Queen by Jenny Blackford Dumuzi—my beautiful brother Dumuzi, lovelier than the first green shoots of barley rising from the dark mud of an irrigated field—Dumuzi was dead. Father had not spoken for six days. Not long ago, he’d been a great king in the fullness of his manhood, but now he was hobbling around the halls of the palace like an old grasshopper waiting for death. His hair was gray; his face was grayer still. Mother was quiet at last. For six full days and nights she’d wailed and screamed on her wide bed of gold, tearing her soft face and her lovely breasts with her nails, pulling great lumps of curled and scented hair from her luxuriant head, berating all the gods for their cruelty to her. The people said that she was no mere mortal beauty but a goddess walking on earth with us, and she did not disagree; but even if this were true, it did not diminish her fury against the other gods. “My life is nothing without him,” she’d screamed again and again. “Why did you not take me instead, or my husband, or my worthless, thankless, useless daughter?” I was the useless daughter, of course. I had failed to save my brother from the demons that hunted him to the Underworld. My mother would never forgive me. Finally, Mother swallowed enough sweet wine laced with poppy juice and honey from the alabaster cup I held to her lips to bring merciful sleep. Death would perhaps have been more merciful for her. As I put down the cup and smoothed her hair, my mother woke herself just enough to hiss, “Far better that you had been taken, daughter, than him, Dumuzi, the beloved of my heart. Why did you not give yourself to the demons instead? Why did you let them take him? Why? How could you let them take him? My Dumuzi!” And, truly, I understood. My brother Dumuzi had been more than beautiful, when he had walked this earth. My suitors—brought by my father’s wealth and my mother’s beauty—had been enthusiastic enough, over the years, until each in his turn had seen my brother. Only a few men are immune to the charms of a pretty boy, and will always prefer the soft roundnesses of woman to a boy’s firm flats and hollows. Even those men, those devoted lovers of women, wanted my brother more than they wanted me, once they had met him. But all left the palace disconsolate: Dumuzi had eyes for none but peerless Ishtar, daughter of the Moon, queen of heaven and earth, goddess of love. I had not always been in second place. I was the firstborn child of our parents; when I was a toddler, I was my father’s delight, my mother’s plaything. Father ordered his artisans to make me golden carts with silver wheels, and dolls carved from fragrant cedar with eyes of lapis lazuli and hair of gold. Mother dressed me in tiny versions of court ladies’ dresses in blue and purple, fringed with silver and pearls, tinkling with the myriad silver moon-crescents sewn to them. But in my fourth year, my mother’s belly swelled again. Even as a newborn babe, Dumuzi shone tender as the spring sun on a field of emmer wheat. I was forgotten. Kings and wise men came from the ends of the earth with gifts of jewels and spices, merely to gaze on my brother’s shining face. The peasants bowed down to him; the slaves openly worshipped him as a god. But now that Dumuzi was dead, now that the demons had taken him to the Underworld in exchange for his lover, the goddess Ishtar, no man could bear to look upon my face; they turned their heads in angry grief for my brother. Women screamed and wept, tearing at their cheeks and their clothes. If they had dared, they’d have attacked me with their bare hands. Even the sheep, which Dumuzi had loved above all other beasts, refused to walk to their grassy fields. The noises that they made were so full of grief that they would have brought sorrow to the heart of the most joyful stranger. The sun was hot in the sky, burning the crops, and the fertile irrigated fields were cracked, dry mud. Only the old vizier came to my room and wept with me for my brother’s death. Perhaps the people were right; perhaps it would have been better if I had died, instead of him. But it was not my fault that Dumuzi...
Transcribe →Episode #76: "Of Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons" by Jennifer Lee Rossman
Jun 24, 201900:29:45Tap to summarizeOf Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons By Jennifer Lee Rossman They weren't real, but they still took my breath away. The model dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasties lived on and swam in the waters around three islands in Hyde Park. Enormous things, so big that I'd heard their designer had hosted a dinner party inside one, and so lifelike! If I stared long enough, I was sure I'd see one blink. I turned to Samira and found her twirling her parasol, an act purposely designed to bely the rage burning in her eyes. She would never let it show, her pleasant smile practically painted on, but I'd spent enough time with her to recognize that fury boiling just beneath the surface. Befuddled, I looked back at the dinosaurs, this time flipping down my telescopic goggles. The craftsmanship was immaculate, the color consistent all along the plesiosaur's corkscrew neck, and the pudgy, horned iguanodons looked structurally sound, what with their bellies dragging on the ground. Dinosaurs were Samira's everything; how could seeing them practically coming to life not give her joy? [Full story after the cut.] Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 76 for June 24, 2019. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to be sharing this story with you. Today we have a GlitterShip original, which is available in the Autumn 2018 issue that you can pick up at GlitterShip.com/buy, on Gumroad at gum.co/gship08, or on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and other ebook retailers. If you’ve been waiting to pick up your copy of the Tiptree Award Honor Listed book, GlitterShip Year Two, there’s a great deal going on for Pride over at StoryBundle. GlitterShip Year Two is part of a Pride month LGBTQ fantasy fiction bundle. StoryBundle is a pay-what-you-want bundle site. For $5 or more, you can get four great books, and for $15 or more, you’ll get an additional five books, including GlitterShip Year Two, and a story game. That comes to as little as $1.50 per book or game. The StoryBundle also offers an option to give 10% of your purchase amount to charity. The charity for this bundle is Rainbow Railroad, a charity that helps queer folks get to a safe place if their country is no longer safe for them. This is a great deal, so if you want to take advantage of it, go to Storybundle.com/pride soon! The deal only runs through June 27th, depending on your time zone. Today’s story is “Of Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons” by Jennfer Lee Rossman, but first our poem, “Shortcake” by Jade Homa. Jade Homa is an intersectional feminist, sapphic poet, lgbtq sensitivity reader, member of The Rainbow Alliance, and editor-in-chief of Blue Literary Magazine. Her poetry has been published in over 7 literary magazines, including BlazeVOX, A Tired Heroine, The Ocotillo Review, and Sinister Wisdom (in print). Jade’s work will be featured in an exhibit via Pen and Brush, a New York City based non profit that showcases emerging female artists, later this year, along with being featured in a special edition of Rattle which highlights dynamic Instagram poets. In her free time, Jade loves petting dogs, eating pasta, and daydreaming about girls. Shortcake by Jade Homa you called me your strawberry girl / and I wondered if it was / the wolf inside my jaw / or the red stained across my cheeks / or the way I said fuck / or that time I yanked your / hair / or every moment / you swallowed me whole And now “Of Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons” by Jennifer Lee Rossman, read by April Grant. Jennifer Lee Rossman is that autistic nerd who complains about inaccurate depictions of dinosaurs. Along with Jaylee James, she is the co-editor of Love & Bubbles, a queer anthology of underwater romance. Her debut novel, Jack Jetstark's Intergalactic Freakshow, was published by World Weaver Press in 2018. She tweets about dinosaurs @JenLRossman April Grant lives in the greater Boston area. Her backstory includes time as a sidewalk musician, real estate agent, public historian, dishwasher, and librarian. Among her hobbies are biking and singing. Of Clockwork Hearts and Metal Iguanodons By Jennifer Lee Rossman They weren't real, but they still took my breath away. The model dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasties lived on and swam in the waters around three islands in Hyde Park. Enormous things, so big that I'd heard their designer had hosted a dinner party inside one, and so lifelike! If I stared long enough, I was sure I'd see one blink. I turned to Samira and found her twirling her parasol, an act purposely designed to bely the rage burning in her eyes. She would never let it show, her pleasant smile practically painted on, but I'd spent enough time with her to recognize that fury boiling just beneath the surface. Befuddled, I looked back at the dinosaurs, this time flipping down my telescopic goggles. The craftsmanship was immaculate, the color consistent all along the plesiosaur's corkscrew neck, and the pudgy, horned iguanodons looked structurally sound, what with their bellies dragging on the ground. Dinosaurs were Samira's everything; how could seeing them practically coming to life not give her joy? "What's wrong?" I asked quietly, so as not to disturb the crowds around us. Well, any more than our mere presence disturbed them by default. (It wasn't every day they saw a girl in a mechanical chair and her butch Indian crush who wore trousers with her best jewelry, and they did not particularly care for us. We didn't particularly care what they thought, which really didn't engender ourselves to them, but luckily polite society frowned on yelling at people for being gay, disabled, and/or nonwhite, so hooray for us.) "It's wrong." "What is?" She gestured emphatically at the islands, growing visibly distressed. "It! Them! Everything! Everything is wrong!" If Samira's frustration had a pressure valve, the needle would have been edging toward the red. She needed to get out of the situation before she burst a pipe. I knew better than to take her hand, as she didn't always appreciate physical touch the way I did, so I gently tugged at the corner of her vest as I engaged my chair. The miniature steam engine behind me activated the pistons that turned my chrome wheels, and Samira held onto my velvet-padded armrest as we left the main viewing area and took refuge by one of the fountains in the Crystal Palace. She sat on the marble edge, letting a hand trail in the shimmery water until she felt calm enough to speak. "They did it all wrong, Tilly. They didn't take any of my advice." She rummaged through her many pockets, finally producing a scrap of paper with a dinosaur sketched on it. "This is what iguanodon looked like." Her drawing showed an entirely different creature than the park's statue. While theirs looked sluggish and fat, kind of like a doofy dragon, Samira's interpretation was nimble and intelligent, standing on four legs with a solid but agile tail held horizontally behind it. And its nose horn was completely absent, though it did have a large thumb spike, giving it the impression of perpetually congratulating someone on a job well done. It certainly looked like a more realistic representation of a living creature, but these things lived, what, millions of years ago? Even someone as brilliant as Samira couldn't possibly have known what they were really like. But I couldn't tell her that. Girlfriends are supposed to be supportive, and I needed to do everything I could to gain prospective girlfriend points before I asked her out. "What evidence did you give them for your hypothesis?" I asked instead. "All we really have are fossils, right?" Her face lit up at the invitation to delve into her favorite subject. "Right, and we don't even have full skeletons yet of most of them. But we have limbs. Joints. And if we compare them to skeletons of things that exist now, they don't resemble big, fat lizards that could hardly move around. That makes no biological sense, because predators could just waltz up and eat them. They had to be faster, more agile. They wouldn't have survived otherwise." "So why wouldn't they have listened to you?" I asked, perplexed. "Because they don't understand evolution," she said, though she didn't sound convinced. "Or they don't want to be shown up by a girl. A lesbian girl with nonconforming hair and wardrobe who dares to be from a country they pretend to own." She crossed her arms and stared at her boots. "Or both. But there's no excuse for the plesiosaurs. No creature's neck can bend like that." I wasn't sure exactly how I was supposed to respond to that. Samira never complained about something just to commiserate; she expected answers, a solution. But I couldn't very well make them redesign the statues, no matter how happy that would have made her. So we just sat together quietly by the fountain, fuming at the ignorant men in charge of the park, and I schemed for a way to fix things for the girl that made my eyes light up the way dinosaurs lit hers. Every problem had a solution, if you tinkered hard enough. After my accident, I took a steam engine and wheels from a horseless wagon and stuck them on a chair. My mum hadn't been amused to lose part of her dinette set, but it got me around to...
Transcribe →GlitterShip Episode #75: "The Chamber of Souls" by Zora Mai Quýnh
Jun 20, 201900:39:06Tap to summarizeThe Chamber of Souls by Zora Mai Quỳnh Today it is announced that our quarantine is over and our refugee camp sufficiently detoxified to enter the Waterlands of Lạc, the home of our rescuers. Cheers and song rise in the air as the airship descends from the sky. A magnificently carved rồng on the bow of the vessel glistens of lacquered red, orange and gold scales, as its body, decorated by gems, wraps under the hull to reappear in a long curved tail on the other side of the vessel. Thirty days ago, our sinking fishing boat cramped with a hundred refugees fleeing Việt Nam emerged from a hidden corridor of the South China Sea. We were rescued by the Guardians who descended from a similar vessel that barely skimmed the surface of the water and we, arms waving and voices strained in desperation, failed to observe what should have been obvious — that our rescuers bore an element of foreignness that we were wholly unprepared for. [Full story under the cut.] Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip Episode 75 for June 20, 2019. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to be sharing this story with you. Our story for today is The Chamber of Souls by Zora Mai Quynh, read by Zora and Rivia. Before we get to it, if you’ve been waiting to pick up your copy of the Tiptree Award Honor Listed book, GlitterShip Year Two, there’s a great deal going on for Pride over at StoryBundle. GlitterShip Year Two is part of a Pride month LGBTQ fantasy fiction bundle. StoryBundle is a pay-what-you-want bundle site. For $5 or more, you can get four great books, and for $15 or more, you’ll get an additional five books, including GlitterShip Year Two, and a story game. That comes to as little as $1.50 per book or game. The StoryBundle also offers an option to give 10% of your purchase amount to charity. The charity for this bundle is Rainbow Railroad, a charity that helps queer folks get to a safe place if their country is no longer safe for them. Zora Mai Quỳnh is a genderqueer Vietnamese writer whose short stories, poems, and essays can be found in The SEA Is Ours, Genius Loci: The Spirit of Place, POC Destroy Science Fiction, Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler, Strange Horizons, and Terraform. Visit her: zmquynh.com. Rivia is a Black and Vietnamese Pansexual Teen who has a passion for reading, video games and music. She says “I’m gender questioning but also questioning whether or not I’m questioning…Isn’t gender just a concept?” You can hear her vocals on Strange Horizon’s podcast for “When she sings…” The Chamber of Souls by Zora Mai Quỳnh Today it is announced that our quarantine is over and our refugee camp sufficiently detoxified to enter the Waterlands of Lạc, the home of our rescuers. Cheers and song rise in the air as the airship descends from the sky. A magnificently carved rồng on the bow of the vessel glistens of lacquered red, orange and gold scales, as its body, decorated by gems, wraps under the hull to reappear in a long curved tail on the other side of the vessel. Thirty days ago, our sinking fishing boat cramped with a hundred refugees fleeing Việt Nam emerged from a hidden corridor of the South China Sea. We were rescued by the Guardians who descended from a similar vessel that barely skimmed the surface of the water and we, arms waving and voices strained in desperation, failed to observe what should have been obvious — that our rescuers bore an element of foreignness that we were wholly unprepared for. “Where do you hail from? Are you in need of assistance?” a Guardian called down to us. The language spoken was Vietnamese, but it sounded as if the tongue of the speaker had been wrapped around a poem and restrung in curves back to us. A slight echo of melody lingered after each word. Silence spread among us at the strangeness of the dialect and though we could make out the gist of what was spoken, it was interwoven with words and tones we did not recognize. Whispers of warning spread that our rescuers may be agents of the very government we fled. Tentatively, my mother stepped forward to speak what many had waited ten years to voice, “Yạ, greetings, we are refugees, fleeing our homeland of Việt Nam because of the cruelties we experienced there. We respectfully request asylum.” At that, three Guardians leapt onto our boat. Their long black hair, arranged in motley styles that interlaced colorful braided metallic strands with feathers, flapped in the wind as they examined us in our squalor and malnutrition. Their speech clearly carried Vietnamese tones, but their eyes and skin, the features of their faces, their height—they were as tall as the tallest American soldiers, if not taller, and their strange dark tunics, decorated with metallic accouterment, that sheathed one arm and left the other arm bare spoke of a culture completely unfamiliar to us. “Yạ, greetings, grandmother,” a Guardian with jet-black hair spiced with metallic blue said, bowing deeply. “The sea has brought you to us and you are now under the protection of the Waterlands of Lạc, we grant you all sanctuary. I am called ‘Jzan Nguyệt’ after the moon that once carried the tides of our Waterlands. And it is in my hands that you will rest the security of your people, for I am jzan who is the protectorate of these Waterlands.” We were delivered into quarantine soon after our rescue. It was Jzan Nguyệt who brought the news to us: “You will be taken to an atoll island where we will prepare you for entry into our Waterlands.” Mother’s forehead furrowed instantly with concern. I knew what she was thinking; I saw it in her eyes -- the fear of incarceration. So many stories carried their way back to us from people who made it to refugee camps in Malaysia and Thailand, -- stories of starvation, sickness, and festering away like prisoners while waiting for dreams that never materialized. “Are we prisoners?” Mother’s voice quivered. “No.” “Then why...?” “Because in our country, your senses are severely impaired. You must acclimate. Because you carry toxins and you must detoxify lest you bring death and illness to our people.” In that moment, in Nguyệt’s voice, I did not hear the graceful generosity we were accustomed to, but a fierceness that seemed immovable. Despite our fears, though, our “quarantine” was more like a paradise vacation. Instead of barbed wire fences, rationed food, and poorly ventilated stalls, we were surrounded by miles of green coral reef, a never-ending buffet of rice, nut dishes, fresh fruits, vegetables, and cool bamboo mats to sleep under the rounded canopy of the sky. Quarantine reflected the imagined freedom that many among us dreamed of. The freedom that I envision is different though. I want inclusion, to belong somewhere — to be valued – to be more than the label Việt Nam gave to me—the untrustworthy child of a political dissident. How that freedom will look in the rescuers’ land, I do not know. Would we be equal members of their society, or a relief effort from some war-torn country? As we board their airship, I notice that our steps, frenzied and awkward when we entered quarantine, are replaced by lightness as children skip, lovers hold hands, and elders stroll side-by-side. My own mother is all smiles, her arm crooked unevenly through the arm of my aunt as they board together. Despite all of this, I can’t help but feel an odd mixture of excitement, anxiety, and remorse about journeying to a land that will become our new home -- to replace the one we lost. The airship picks up speed, rising into the sky and the Guardians pull on ropes and equipment, preparing for flight. I hear sobs break out as we watch them. It is not what they are doing that is disturbing; it is how fast they are moving. Our eyes can only catch their faces and limbs momentarily before they are in different locations on the airship. In quarantine, they had moved with languor and ease. The thrill of our trip is foreshortened as it becomes apparent that wherever we are going, we will not be among peers. “What is happening?” someone wails, “how is it that they can move so fast?” I reflexively dig my fists into my eyes to block out the movements of the Guardians. The sound of balloons filling with hot air and the smell of thick plumes of steam dominate my senses and I breath in the warm humid air wishing I were back home. When I finally lift my fists from my eyes, the vessel is surrounded by a blue film behind which the clouds move by at such a tremendous speed that they are just a blur. I not only see the movement but I also feel it in the gut of my stomach. It begins as a slow nauseous churning that becomes pain seizing my entire body. I fall over, buckling on the deck, collapsing alongside my countrymen whose kicking legs and flailing arms bruise my sides. In the din, I hear the gruff shouts of Guardians in their twisted tongue as the vessel decreases markedly in speed. “Your people cannot travel at our speeds—it appears to result in severe internal degeneration,” a Guardian says to me and immediately my spirit sinks. What was it? What was it that makes us so different from them when they look just like us? When they speak our words? When they bear our faces? “We must leave you behind. At this decreased acceleration, we will be open to attack. We are charged to take Nan Ngọc swiftly back to the G...
Transcribe →Episode 74: "Best for Baby" by Rivqa Rafael
Jun 17, 201900:26:25Tap to summarizeBest for Baby by Rivqa Rafael When I jack in, I shove the plug into its socket harder than I should. The disconnect–reconnect tone combination sounds; the terminal is as grumpy as I am. Who wouldn’t be? I’ve been kept back late in the lab to finish a job. Which was stolen from me. By the person who asked me to do this, as a “favor.” Who also happens to be my supervisor, so I can’t say no. I load up the interface, drilling straight down to the zygote’s chromosomal level. Hayden’s been a bit careless, like he always is on the rare occasions he actually gets in the wet lab. I get to work, fixing his mistakes. Back in my body, I’m grinding my teeth and hunching my shoulders. Before I sink deeper into the VR, I take some deep breaths and roll my shoulders the way Lena showed me. Her yoga obsession has fringe benefits for me—my body needs to be relaxed if I’m going to do my job properly. Just for a moment, I’m back in our living room with Lena coaxing Kris and me to stretch with her. It’s enough to refocus me. For all that it’s a science, there’s an art to working in the interface. The prion scalpel is tiny—obviously—and delicate; it needs to be handled with care, the type of care that only comes from being completely in tune with your neural implant and the system it’s connected to. It’s something Hayden seems to lack. Keeping my movements graceful (thank you, Lena), I begin to repair the damage. In here, I’m both the pipette and the hand depressing the button; I’m the prion scalpel; I’m the machine. The translation overlay is just a guide; I’ve been able to recognize bases by shape for a long time now. When I started, I thought I’d never remember the sequences, but I know our most common mods by heart now. [Full story after the cut.] Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 74 for June 17, 2019. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to be sharing this story with you. Today we have a GlitterShip original, which is available in the Autumn 2018 issue that you can pick up at GlitterShip.com/buy, on Gumroad at gum.co/gship08, or on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and other ebook retailers. If you’ve been waiting to pick up your copy of the Tiptree Award Honor Listed book, GlitterShip Year Two, there’s a great deal going on for Pride over at StoryBundle. GlitterShip Year Two is part of a Pride month LGBTQ fantasy fiction bundle. StoryBundle is a pay-what-you-want bundle site. For $5 or more, you can get four great books, and for $15 or more, you’ll get an additional five books, including GlitterShip Year Two, and a story game. That comes to as little as $1.50 per book or game. The StoryBundle also offers an option to give 10% of your purchase amount to charity. The charity for this bundle is Rainbow Railroad, a charity that helps queer folks get to a safe place if their country is no longer safe for them. http://www.storybundle.com/pride Our story today is “Best for Baby” by Rivqa Rafael, but first, our poem, which is “Aubade: King Under the Mountain” by Tristan Beiter. Tristan Beiter is a poet and speculative fiction nerd originally from Central Pennsylvania. His poems have previously appeared in GlitterShip, Eternal Haunted Summer, Bird’s Thumb, and Laurel Moon. When not writing or reading he can usually be found crafting absurdities with his boyfriend or shouting about literary theory. Find him on Twitter @TristanBeiter. Aubade: King Under the Mountain by Tristan Beiter I wake to the crackle of the thousand-year hearth in the center of the room, to the bells tolling. Never church bells, but the deer harness hanging on the wall. I stretch towards his space, removing my earplugs—which I have taken to wearing since even the tomtes snore something terrible. Luxuriate in the furs: big piles of wolf pelts and bear skins that make up our bed under the intertwined roots of these seven great pine trees which are our roof, warm, with the wind through them and older than even Klampe-Lampe, who has risen already and left. But he’ll be back soon. I can see the pile of battered, burnished gold and silver, still waiting to bedizen him, bracers and torcs and earrings and necklace upon necklace—careless ugly riches that have lasted generations of trolls living hundreds of years, all mounded up and displayed on knobbled bodies and in untamed hair. I pluck my earring, bracer, heavy silver beads from the ground and put them on. When he returns, he’ll carry me in his left hand to the throne room under the mountain. And now for “Best for Baby” by Rivqa Rafael, read by A.J. Fitzwater. Rivqa Rafael is a lapsed microbiologist who lives in Sydney, Australia, where she writes speculative fiction about queer women, Jewish women, cyborg futures, and hope in dystopias. Her short stories have been published in Defying Doomsday, Crossed Genres’ Resist Fascism, and elsewhere. She is co-editor of feminist robot anthology Mother of Invention. AJ Fitzwater is a dragon of repute living between the cracks of Christchurch, New Zealand. Their fiction appears in such venues as Clarkesworld, Lackingtons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Glittership. A collection of their Cinrak the Lesbian Capybara Pirate stories will be out in May 2020 from Queen of Swords Press. Their stranger than fiction can be found on Twitter @AJFitzwater Best for Baby by Rivqa Rafael When I jack in, I shove the plug into its socket harder than I should. The disconnect–reconnect tone combination sounds; the terminal is as grumpy as I am. Who wouldn’t be? I’ve been kept back late in the lab to finish a job. Which was stolen from me. By the person who asked me to do this, as a “favor.” Who also happens to be my supervisor, so I can’t say no. I load up the interface, drilling straight down to the zygote’s chromosomal level. Hayden’s been a bit careless, like he always is on the rare occasions he actually gets in the wet lab. I get to work, fixing his mistakes. Back in my body, I’m grinding my teeth and hunching my shoulders. Before I sink deeper into the VR, I take some deep breaths and roll my shoulders the way Lena showed me. Her yoga obsession has fringe benefits for me—my body needs to be relaxed if I’m going to do my job properly. Just for a moment, I’m back in our living room with Lena coaxing Kris and me to stretch with her. It’s enough to refocus me. For all that it’s a science, there’s an art to working in the interface. The prion scalpel is tiny—obviously—and delicate; it needs to be handled with care, the type of care that only comes from being completely in tune with your neural implant and the system it’s connected to. It’s something Hayden seems to lack. Keeping my movements graceful (thank you, Lena), I begin to repair the damage. In here, I’m both the pipette and the hand depressing the button; I’m the prion scalpel; I’m the machine. The translation overlay is just a guide; I’ve been able to recognize bases by shape for a long time now. When I started, I thought I’d never remember the sequences, but I know our most common mods by heart now. Finding my rhythm, I begin to work a little faster; I’ve almost forgotten about Hayden and his insistence on getting his grubby hands all over this project. I don’t have forever in here—the zygote needs to go back on ice—but I’m in the zone now and there’s still plenty of time. I’ve got this. Sure, I’m not going to get any credit for it, but Hayden’s going to owe me. I’m logging everything, so he can’t conveniently “forget.” If I play my cards right, this might be the last step to me finally getting a promotion. Goodness knows I deserve one. Maybe Hayden would even back me up. I zoom out to look back at my work so far, and gasp. Something’s wrong. I should be about halfway done, but it’s like I was never here. No, worse. There are deadly cancer mutations here, lots of them, right where I was working. All types that wouldn’t show up until later in life, too. None of it was here before, and time is short. You had to know Hayden pretty well to pick up his aura of desperation as he talked up the state-of-the-art equipment. PCR machines and centrifuges just look like boxes with touchscreens if you don’t understand what they do, after all. The couple lacked the air of anguish that infertile couples usually have when they walk through. Or the wonder often displayed by more-than-twos and gonadically incompatible—my heart panged as I thought of what it would take for us, how we’d—stop, it was pointless even to think about it, I told myself for the millionth time. I just worked here; I’d never be a client. Kris had already banned me from talking too much about work. Like me, she was implanted. You grow up knowing your place, not rocking the boat, aiming for what’s feasible. Lena was more willing to indulge me the fantasy; would we split everything evenly, or would one of us provide the mitochondria and the other two a set of chromosomes each? Both could work. I snapped myself out of it. Kris was right about this one; I just wished I could convince myself to believe it as thoroughly as she did. These two eyed the machinery with indifference. Probably here for mods, and mods only. If they weren’t using a surrogate, I’d drink my Taq polymerase. “Impressive. How ...
Transcribe →Episode #73: Désiré by Megan Arkenberg
Jun 13, 201900:45:34Tap to summarizeDésiré by Megan Arkenberg From Albert Magazine's interview with Egon Rowley: April 2943 Egon Rowley: It was the War that changed him. I remember the day we knew it. [A pause.] We all knew it, that morning. He came to our table in the coffee shop with a copy of Raum – do you remember that newspaper? The reviewers were deaf as blue-eyed cats, the only people in Südlichesburg who preferred Anton Fulke's operas to Désiré's – but Désiré, he had a copy of it. This was two days after Ulmerfeld, you understand. None of us had any idea how bad it was. But Raum had gotten its hands on a letter from a soldier, and Désiré read it to us, out loud, right there over coffee and pastries. [Full story after the cut.] Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip Episode 73 for June 13, 2019. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to be sharing this story with you. Our story for today is Desire by Megan Arkenberg, read by Dani Daly. Before we get to it, if you’ve been waiting to pick up your copy of the Tiptree Award Honor Listed book, GlitterShip Year Two, there’s a great deal going on for Pride over at StoryBundle. GlitterShip Year Two is part of a Pride month LGBTQ fantasy fiction bundle. StoryBundle is a pay-what-you-want bundle site. For $5 or more, you can get four great books, and for $15 or more, you’ll get an additional five books, including GlitterShip Year Two, and a story game. That comes to as little as $1.50 per book or game. The StoryBundle also offers an option to give 10% of your purchase amount to charity. The charity for this bundle is Rainbow Railroad, a charity that helps queer folks get to a safe place if their country is no longer safe for them. http://www.storybundle.com/pride And now for “Desire” by Megan Arkenberg, read by Dani Daly. Megan Arkenberg’s work has appeared in over fifty magazines and anthologies, including Lightspeed, Asimov’s, Shimmer, and Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year. She has edited the fantasy e-zine Mirror Dance since 2008 and was recently the nonfiction editor for Queers Destroy Horror!, a special issue of Nightmare Magazine. She currently lives in Northern California, where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in English literature. Visit her online at http://www.meganarkenberg.com. Dani loves to keep busy and narrating stories is just one of the things she loves to do. She’s a former assistant editor of Cast of Wonders, a retired roller derby player and current soap maker and small business owner. She rants on twitter as @danooli_dani, if that’s your thing. Or you can visit the EA forums, where she moderates the Cast of Wonders boards. You can find stories narrated by Dani on all four of the Escape Artists podcasts, at Star Ship Sofa, and on Audible.com (as Danielle Daly). Désiré by Megan Arkenberg From Albert Magazine's interview with Egon Rowley: April 2943 Egon Rowley: It was the War that changed him. I remember the day we knew it. [A pause.] We all knew it, that morning. He came to our table in the coffee shop with a copy of Raum – do you remember that newspaper? The reviewers were deaf as blue-eyed cats, the only people in Südlichesburg who preferred Anton Fulke's operas to Désiré's – but Désiré, he had a copy of it. This was two days after Ulmerfeld, you understand. None of us had any idea how bad it was. But Raum had gotten its hands on a letter from a soldier, and Désiré read it to us, out loud, right there over coffee and pastries. Albert Magazine: And what did the letter say? Rowley: The usual things. Blood and, and heads blown clean off, things like that. Horrible things. I remember…[Laughs awkwardly.] I remember Baptist Vogel covered his ears. We all felt it quite badly. AM: I imagine. Why was this letter so important to Désiré? Rowley: Who can say why anything mattered to him? Guilt, most likely. AM: Guilt? Rowley: Yes. He hadn't volunteered for the army, and that was something of an anomaly in those days. Everyone was so patriotic, so nationalist, I suppose you'd say. But he had his reasons. I mean, I don't suppose Désiré could have passed the examinations for enlistment – the psychological examinations. AM: But it bothered him, that he hadn't volunteered? Rowley: Yes. Very much. [A pause.] When he read that soldier's letter…it was the oddest thing. Like he was reading a love letter, you understand. But, like I said, there was nothing romantic in it, nothing at all. It was…horrible. AM: What did Désiré say about it? Rowley: About the letter? Nothing. He just read it and…and went back to his rooms, I suppose. That was the last we saw of him. AM: The last you saw of him? Rowley: Yes. [A pause.] Before Alexander. A letter from Margaret von Banks to Beatrix Altberg: August 2892 Dearest Bea, The scene: Leonore's drawing room, around nine o'clock last night. The moment I stepped through the door, Désiré came running up to me like a child looking for candy. "Thank goodness you're here," he said. I should add that it was supposed to be a masquerade, but of course I knew him by his long hair and those dark red lips, and I suppose I'm the only woman in Südlichesburg to wear four rings in each ear. He certainly knew me immediately. "I have a bet running with Isidor," he continued, "and Anton and I need you for the violin." He explained, as he half-led, half-dragged me to the music room, that Anton had said something disparaging – typically – about Isidor's skills as a conductor of Désiré's music. Isidor swore to prove him wrong if Désiré would write them a new piece that very moment. Désiré did – a trio for violin, cello and pianoforte – and having passed the cello to Anton and claimed the piano for himself, he needed me to play violin in the impromptu concert. "You're mad," I said on seeing the sheet music. "Of course I am," he said, patting me on the shoulder. Isidor thundered into the room – they make such a delightful contrast, big blond Isidor and dark Désiré. Rumor is Désiré has native blood from the Lysterrestre colonies, which makes me wonder quite shallowly if they're all so handsome over there. Yes, Bea, I imagine you rolling your eyes, but the fact remains that Désiré is ridiculously beautiful. Even Richard admits it. Well, Isidor assembled the audience, and my hands were so sweaty that I had to borrow a pair of gloves from Leonore later in the evening. Désiré was smooth and calm as can be. He kissed me on the forehead – and Anton on the cheek, to everyone's amusement but Anton's – and then Isidor was rapping the music stand for our attention, and Désiré played the opening notes, and we were off, hurtling like a sled down a hill. I wish I had the slightest clue what we were playing, Bea, but I haven't. The audience loved it, at any rate. That's Désiré for you – mad as springtime, smooth as ice and clumsy as walking on it. We tease him, saying he's lucky he doesn't wear a dress, he trips over the ladies' skirts so often. But then he apologizes so wonderfully, I've half a mind to trip him on purpose. That clumsiness vanishes when he's playing, though; his fingers on a violin are quick and precise. Either that, or he fits his mistakes into the music so naturally that we don't notice them. You really ought to meet him, Bea. He has exactly your sense of humor. A few weeks ago, Richard and I were at the Symphony, and Désiré joined us in our box, quite unexpectedly. Richard, who was blushing and awkward as it was, tried to talk music with Désiré. "This seems to tell a story, doesn't it?" he said. "It most certainly does," Désiré said. "Like Margaret's uncle Kunibert. It starts with something fascinating, then derails itself talking about buttons and waistcoats. If we're lucky, it might work its way back to its original point. Most likely it will put us to sleep until someone rudely disturbs us by applauding." All this said with the most perfectly straight face, and a bit of an eyebrow raise at me, inviting me to disagree with him. I never do, but it's that invitation that disarms me, and keeps the teasing from becoming cruel. Désiré always waits to be proven wrong, though he never is. I should warn you not to fall in love with him, though. I'm sure you laugh, but half of Südlichesburg is ready to serve him its hearts on a platter, and I know he'd just smile and never take a taste. He's a man for whom Leonore's masquerades mean nothing; he's so wonderfully full of himself, he has no room to pretend to be anyone else. That's not to say he's cruel: merely heartless. He's like a ruby, clear and dark and beautiful to look at, but hard to the core. How such a man can write such music, I'll never know. Yours always, Maggie III. From a review of Désiré's Echidna in Der Sentinel: July 2894 For the life of me, I cannot say what this opera is about. Love, and courage. A tempestuous battle. I have the libretto somewhere, in a drawer with my gloves and opera glasses, but I will not spoil Désiré's scor...
Transcribe →Episode #72: "Raders" by Nelson Stanley
Jun 10, 201900:33:31Tap to summarizeRaders by Nelson Stanley They called themselves the Raders, and if you didn’t know, you’d swear that they were waiting for something: a bunch of boyed-up cookers, second-string hot hatches and shopping trollies adorned with bazzing body-kits parked down at the overcliff again, throttles blipping in time to the breakbeats. Throaty roar from aftermarket back-boxes you could shove your fist up, throb of the bass counter-pointed by an occasional crack as a cheap six-by-nine gave up the ghost. Occasionally a sub overheated, leaving nothing but ear-splitting midrange and treble howling into the gale blowing rain off the sea. Mya had pushed half a pill into Maggie’s hand when the red XR2 picked her up outside the all-night Turkish takeaway, and Maggie regretted dropping it already, though at first she’d thought the high percentage of whizz in it might lend her enough chemical bravery to finally say what she wanted. Now her eyes rolled in her head and the rush made it difficult to speak. Sparks came off the edges of the headlights splitting the mizzle outside. Her nervous system uncoiled and re-knitted itself, reducing her to a warm soup through which the uppers fizzed and popped. [Full story after the cut.] Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 72 for June 10, 2019. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to be sharing this story with you. Today we have a GlitterShip original, which starts off a new issue that you can pick up at GlitterShip.com/buy, on Gumroad at gum.co/gship08, or on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and other ebook retailers. If you’ve been waiting to pick up your copy of the Tiptree Award Honor Listed book, GlitterShip Year Two, there’s a great deal going on for Pride over at StoryBundle. GlitterShip Year Two is part of a Pride month LGBTQ fantasy fiction bundle. StoryBundle is a pay-what-you-want bundle site. For $5 or more, you can get four great books, and for $15 or more, you’ll get an additional five books, including GlitterShip Year Two, and a story game. That comes to as little as $1.50 per book or game. The StoryBundle also offers an option to give 10% of your purchase amount to charity. The charity for this bundle is Rainbow Railroad, a charity that helps queer folks get to a safe place if their country is no longer safe for them. http://www.storybundle.com/pride Our story today is “Raders” by Nelson Stanley. Before we get to that, though, here is our poem, “Vampiric Tendencies in the Year 4500” by Renee Christopher. Renee Christopher is an SFF writer and poet currently making it through her last Iowa winter. Noble / Gas has nominated her poetry for a Pushcart, and her first short story can be found in Fireside Fiction. Follow her on Twitter @reneesunok or on Mastodon @sunok@wandering.shop Vampiric Tendencies in the Year 4500 By Renee Christopher Moon-sewn mothgirls clot near light, their search for glow similar to mine. The door left ajar allowed us both alternate methods for creation creatures merged with cosmic teeth. Stars managed to adapt find those who, thick as molasses, gleamed upon the trellis of a new future. But what I look for flutters past a stand of deer —bright and wingless, with champagne fingers and summer tongues. At least, the searing reminds me of a time when the sun burned hot and fast. Now the blood I need drips neon from above, filters through decadent soil in a system unknown. In this quest for light source, I am not alone. Nelson Stanley works in an academic library in the UK. His stories have been published recently in places like The Dark Magazine, the Lethe Press anthology THCock, Black Dandy, The Gallery of Curiosities, The Sockdolager, and Tough Crime. One of his stories was included in the British Fantasy Award-winning anthology Extended Play. Raders by Nelson Stanley They called themselves the Raders, and if you didn’t know, you’d swear that they were waiting for something: a bunch of boyed-up cookers, second-string hot hatches and shopping trollies adorned with bazzing body-kits parked down at the overcliff again, throttles blipping in time to the breakbeats. Throaty roar from aftermarket back-boxes you could shove your fist up, throb of the bass counter-pointed by an occasional crack as a cheap six-by-nine gave up the ghost. Occasionally a sub overheated, leaving nothing but ear-splitting midrange and treble howling into the gale blowing rain off the sea. Mya had pushed half a pill into Maggie’s hand when the red XR2 picked her up outside the all-night Turkish takeaway, and Maggie regretted dropping it already, though at first she’d thought the high percentage of whizz in it might lend her enough chemical bravery to finally say what she wanted. Now her eyes rolled in her head and the rush made it difficult to speak. Sparks came off the edges of the headlights splitting the mizzle outside. Her nervous system uncoiled and re-knitted itself, reducing her to a warm soup through which the uppers fizzed and popped. Waves thrashed at the rocks below the edge of the cliff. An occasional dark shape—a seagull, perhaps, blown off-course and away from the bins—fluttered into the edges of the headlights’ glare and then reeled away into the greater darkness. Hydro and tobacco exhaust vented through half-opened drivers’ windows and flavored the edges of the sooty exhaust smoke from a dozen engines running too rich. One or other spun dustbin-lid size alloys on the wet, loose tarmac with an angry howl, holding it on the handbrake, then—just when you might think that a clutch was about to melt—drop it hard so that fat low-profiles tramped up into the suspension turrets as the tires found purchase, slewing away to nail it down the narrow cliff road, returning from its circuit a few minutes later to rejoin the loose congregation in the car park. “See. What I mean is, we could be like... See? We don’t have to like... What I mean...” Maggie trailed off, frustrated not so much, perhaps, by her inability to articulate her emotions than by the inefficiency of talking as a medium for expression itself. Why couldn’t she just touch Mya, and have her know exactly what she meant? How she felt? She chewed savagely upon the inside of her bottom lip and fervently wished she’d brought some chewing gum, breath fast through her nose. She started to roll a ciggie, but her hands were shaking and tobacco and papers seemed alive in her hands. In the driver’s seat, Mya was doing her lippy in the rear-view, an action made more difficult by the way she was surfing the breakbeats pulsing from the stereo, pausing occasionally to puff on the spliff hanging out of the other side of her mouth. With a sigh that seemed practiced she twisted her lippy shut and dropped it amongst the scree of empty Embassy No.1 packets, roached Rizla cartons, baggies and half-crushed tins of cheap cider littering the dashboard. “Look,” she said, placing both hands on the steering wheel, as if what she had to say required anchoring herself more firmly to the car, “With you now it’s all ‘What I want’ and ‘What I think is’ and it just... I knew it’d get like this. Knew it. What you don’ get is, I don’t care. It’s over, girl. Let go.” Chemicals rushed into Maggie’s head like someone filling up a bath. She was frantically rubbing a rolling paper flat between her thumbs, gaze pinned to the wrinkled rectangle as if somewhere upon it was written a way out of this, a way to get Mya back. “I suppose I do need you,” Mya went on, leaning back in the Recaro and idly picking at a blim-hole in the upholstery while puffing luxuriantly on her smoke. “But not the way you need me. I can’t be the thing you want, y’know? It was fun, while it lasted, but is what it is, girl.” She glanced over at Maggie. “But you can still help, if you like.” Maggie—lorn and reeling from the chemicals thudding through her central cortex—tried to answer, but all that came out was a small hiccuping yelp. She nodded frantically. “Jesus fuck,” Mya said, and shoved the j toward her passenger. “D’you wan’ some of that?” she said, and it seemed to Maggie that there was love in the gesture, in Mya’s voice, real love, an outpouring of care and concern, and even if it wasn’t what Maggie wanted—that surging roil in her groin, the brimming of her heart that accompanied her memories of the two of them twined together in Mya’s bed, under the Congo Natty poster, the way Mya held her hand in public once or twice, walking back through the rain and the ghost-haunted dawn, hoodies pulled up against the wind—then, still, it unlocked such a river of sweet-flowing sadness inside Maggie that she thought she might melt, right there in the XR2, melt outward in a great silent wave of warmth that blossomed from s...
Transcribe →Episode #71: "Barbara in the Frame" by Emmalia Harrington
Apr 18, 201900:34:27Tap to summarizeBarbara in the Frame by Emmalia Harrington Bab’s stomach growled for the third time in five minutes. “You were right,” she said, pushing away from her desk, “It’s time for a break.” Summer classes meant papers and tests smashed close together. There was hardly time to get enough sleep, let alone shop on a regular basis. The only food in her dorm room was an orange. Bab picked it up and walked to her dresser, where the portrait of Barbara, her grandfather’s great-aunt, sat. Full story after the cut. Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip Episode 71 for April 15, 2019! This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you. Our story for today is "Barbara in the Frame" by Emmalia Harrington read by Before we get started, a reminder that there's still a Tiptree Honor Book sale going on for the GlitterShip Year One and Year Two anthologies on gumroad! Just go to gumroad.com/keffy and use the coupon code “tiptree,” that’s t-i-p-t-r-e-e to get the ebooks for $5 each. Emmalia Harrington is a nonfiction writer, librarian and student with a deep love of speculative fiction. She hopes to have many more publications under her belt. In the meantime she continues to plug away at her novel and short stories. Her work has previously appeared in Cast of Wonders, FIYAH and is upcoming in other venues. She is a member of Broad Universe and volunteers with the Speculative Literature Foundation. Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali is a writer, editor and narrator. Her publications include Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Fiyah Magazine and others. Her fiction has been featured in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 12 edited by Jonathan Strahan and The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Three edited by Neil Clarke. You can hear her narrations at any of the four Escape Artists podcasts, Far Fetched Fables, and Strange Horizons. She can be found online at http://khaalidah.com. Barbara in the Frame by Emmalia Harrington Bab’s stomach growled for the third time in five minutes. “You were right,” she said, pushing away from her desk, “It’s time for a break.” Summer classes meant papers and tests smashed close together. There was hardly time to get enough sleep, let alone shop on a regular basis. The only food in her dorm room was an orange. Bab picked it up and walked to her dresser, where the portrait of Barbara, her grandfather’s great-aunt, sat. She put a segment in her mouth and gagged. “Sorry,” she said, spitting the fruit into her hand. Bab forced it down on the fifth attempt. Aunt Barbara’s portrait frowned and glanced at the bookcase. The clothbound spine of Auntie’s handwritten cookbook stood out among the glossy college texts. “You know it’s too early for the kitchen,” Bab kept her eyes on the shelves and away from her aunt. “Those girls will be there.” Even looking away, Auntie’s disappointment made her wilt. Bab retreated to her desk to choke down the rest of her fruit. “I’m safer here,” she said as she wiped her hands. “It’s just you, me and a locked door.” She closed her eyes, imagining what diet could sustain her until the cafeteria opened for the autumn. Carrots lasted days without refrigeration, and if she soaked oatmeal overnight, it would be soft enough for breakfast. Auntie’s book said food was more potent when shared. It had nothing like the recipes the other girls loved to make for their Soul Food Sundays. Placing succotash next to their cheese grits and fried okra was little better than exposing her whole self. “Remember when I came home from the hospital?” Bab asked, turning back to her aunt. “I was so skinny Dad and Papa wouldn’t let me see you.” She gave a thin smile. “They thought seeing me would crack your frame.” Her throat shrank at the memories. The bureaucracy at her old college insisted on using the name and gender on her birth certificate and stuck her in the boys’ dorms. Her roommates alternated between hitting on her and punching inches from her head when she rebuffed them. One loved spiking her food with hot sauce and worse. After a few weeks she couldn’t sip water without panicking; a full meal was impossible. “None of that will happen here.” Bab cracked her knuckles and tried to type as memories of the last year washed over her. This women’s college’s administration accepted Bab for who she was, name and all. She still felt safer keeping to herself. That midnight, she entered the kitchen with cookies on her mind. She pulled out her baking sheet and spices before she came to her senses. Food never worked right in an unconsecrated space. After several deep breaths, she was scrubbing the counter and attempting to meditate. Incense was not allowed on campus, but would have done wonders to erase the pork and garlic scent left over from the soul food dinner. Even when her dormmates weren’t there, they were reminding her how she wasn’t. Curvy figures to her still-underweight frame. Cornrows and other cute hairstyles while hers couldn’t grow longer than peach fuzz without breaking combs. Bab bit her tongue. A clear mind was the best way to perform a ritual. A pristine table and stovetop later, she was assembling Auntie’s happiness cookies. Rice flour provided security and cloves purified the mind and heart. Cinnamon brought comfort and strengthened the power of the other ingredients. Mix with water to create a dough, pop them in the oven for fifteen minutes and suffer from anticipation. Tidying right away added power to the food and gave them time to cool, even if the aroma of fresh cookies filled her mouth with drool. Back in her room, there were things she needed to do before eating. She paid homage to Aunt Barbara, placing the nicest smelling piece by her picture frame. Next was covering her desk in a clean towel in lieu of a tablecloth and folding a pretty bandanna into a napkin. A duct tape flower decorated the space. After a prayer of thanks, she took her first bite. At first, it tasted like a cracker in need of dip. As she chewed, spices spread through her mouth and into her nose. Tension fell from her shoulders and neck. The more she ate, the more her cookie took on an extra flavor she couldn’t describe. The closest she could get was “a hug from the whole family.” When she checked on her aunt, Barbara’s cookie was gone, crumbs and all. College was a never-ending battle between sleeping in and being on time for class. Bab had just enough time to pull on jeans and run to the Humanities Building, cursing herself with every step. Life was hard enough as is, she shouldn’t make it worse by writing papers after 2am. By pinching the back of her hand, she stayed awake all through the lesson. The effect faded as she headed to the bathroom, where she fought not to drift off on the toilet. She was washing up when a familiar voice went “I said ‘Hey!’” It was Jen, dormmate and Political Science/Africana Studies major, standing between her and the exit. Bab stretched her lips into a smile. “Not working today?” Jen laughed and shook her head. The beads tipping her braids tinkled as she moved. Bab wished she had a scarf to hide her own hair. “My internship with the Congresswoman is this afternoon. I’m between classes now.” “I wouldn’t want to keep you,” Bab hoped the other girl didn’t notice the wobble in her voice. “There’s time yet.” Jen headed for the water closets and paused. “You’re the reason the kitchen smelled so good this morning?” Bab forgot how to breathe. Nodding had to do. “Will you come next Sunday? The three of us can’t make dessert to save ourselves.” Without waiting for an answer, Jen entered a stall. The sliding lock sounded like a guillotine blade. It was all Bab could do to run to her next seminar. Terror percolated inside her, tightening her throat until she couldn’t get a lungful. The Number Systems for School Teachers lecture passed in a haze of greying vision. At her next course, the professor took one look at her and ordered her to rest. Back in her room, Bab spent an endless time curled on her bed, fighting for air. Clattering from the dresser pulled Bab out of herself enough to check the noise’s source. Auntie’s picture had fallen. “Thanks,” she returned to the bed, hugging the portrait like a teddy bear. Her heart bumping against the frame’s glass made a double beat, Auntie’s pulse moving in time with hers. Bab’s airway relaxed, and her head cleared enough to grab last night’s cookies. “What should I do?” she said after filling Auntie in on the bathroom encounter. “Dad and Papa couldn’t teach me black girl stuff. Jen and her friends have way more practice than me.” She took a bite. “If I change my mind, they’ll know something’s up, but if they get to know me, they’ll be just like my boy roommates and…” Aunt Barbara was pursing her lips. “You haven’t heard Jen, Maria and Tanya speak. Their majors are going to help them ‘change the world.’” Bab stuck her chest out, superhero style. Auntie raised he...
Transcribe →Episode #70: "The Girl With All The Ghosts" by Alex Yuschik
Apr 12, 201900:36:08Tap to summarizeThe Girl With All the Ghosts by Alex Yuschik It’s her second-to-last Friday night at Six Resplendent Suns Funeral Palace and House of the Dead, and Go-Eun is getting terrible reception on her cell. Part of it’s because everyone’s on the network, but mostly it’s the ghosts, garden variety specters who unfold themselves into nine-story menaces, shadow-thin and barbed with carcinogens. Go-Eun would not have thought they could bring this many cell phone towers down running from fox mechs, but then again, she never thought she’d end up working the night shift at an inner-city funeral palace either. Episode 70 is a GLITTERSHIP ORIGINAL and part of the Summer 2018 issue! Support GlitterShip by picking up your copy here: http://www.glittership.com/buy/ Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 70 for April 11, 2019. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to share this story and poem with you. Today we have a GlitterShip original by Alex Yuschik, "The Girl With All the Ghosts" and a poem, "Chrysalis" by Kendall Evans. Before we get started, a reminder that there's still a Tiptree Honor Book sale going on for the GlitterShip Year One and Year Two anthologies on gumroad! Just go to gumroad.com/keffy and use the coupon code “tiptree,” that’s t-i-p-t-r-e-e to get the ebooks for $5 each. Just as an aside, I apologize for all—[Finn barking loudly] Finn. I apologize for the dog noises—[More loud barking]—dog noises—[barking]—in this episode. If I put them outside of my room, they cry. If I put them in the backyard, they bark at the neighbor. And if I let them in my room [dog rustling and grumble barks] they don't understand why I'm not paying attention to them. Stories and poems by Kendall Evans have appeared in most of the major SF and fantasy magazines, including Asimov’s, Analog, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium Amazing Stories, Dreams & Nightmares, Weird Tales, Alien Worlds, Nebula Award Showcase, and numerous other magazines and anthologies. His novel in verse, The Rings of Ganymede, and his novella Bring me the Head of Philip K. Dick’s Simulacrum are both available from Alban Lake Books. Chrysalis by Kendall Evans I. The newborn starship Bathed in sunlight & starlight Dries its gossamer wings Preparing for the far reach To the stars II. Festive-colored ribbons Spiral. You and I Dance around the Maypole At dusk Circling Eying one another While we discuss Darwinian logic III. Recombinant forms emerge From interstellar dust Mutate & shift & merge Ruled by the coldest equations And analogs of lust IV. I have watched Exotic robots hatch From ovoid metal shells & Peck at nuts & bolts Upon my parquet floors And our story is "The Girl With All the Ghosts" by Alex Yuschik, read by Faylita Hicks. Alex Yuschik is a PhD candidate in Mathematics at the University of Pittsburgh. Besides math and writing, Alex enjoys traveling, hanging out in as many cat cafes as humanly possible, and waking up before dawn to lift heavy things and then put them back down. Their short fiction has also appeared in Escape Pod and Luna Station Quarterly. Faylita Hicks (pronouns: she/her/they) is a black queer writer. She was a finalist in the 2018 PEN American Writing for Justice Fellowship and the 2018 Cosmonauts Avenue Annual Poetry Prize. Her debut book, HoodWitch, is forthcoming October 2019 with Acre Books. Her poetry and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming in Slate, Huffington Post, POETRY magazine, Kweli Journal, The Rumpus, The Cincinnati Review, Tahoma Literary Review, Prairie Schooner, Lunch Ticket, Matador Review, Glass Poetry, Pidgeonholes, Yes Poetry, American Poetry Journal, Ink and Nebula and others. She received her MFA in creative writing from Sierra Nevada College’s low-residency program and lives in San Marcos, Texas. She is at work on a memoir. The Girl With All the Ghosts by Alex Yuschik It’s her second-to-last Friday night at Six Resplendent Suns Funeral Palace and House of the Dead, and Go-Eun is getting terrible reception on her cell. Part of it’s because everyone’s on the network, but mostly it’s the ghosts, garden variety specters who unfold themselves into nine-story menaces, shadow-thin and barbed with carcinogens. Go-Eun would not have thought they could bring this many cell phone towers down running from fox mechs, but then again, she never thought she’d end up working the night shift at an inner-city funeral palace either. “Load.” Go-Eun taps her phone screen again. Honestly, most of it’s not so bad, the shelves of urns and silent hallways, the familiar and calculated snake of her path through the dim ossuary. The thirtieth through fiftieth floors make up her soon-to-be-former territory, and the clamor of light pollution keeps anywhere from getting too dark. Neapolitan swipes of pink-gold-cyan bleed through from neon nightclub signs and adorn the shelves in glimmer and flash, and aisle lights frame every niche in respectful and seemingly infinite ellipses, dot-dot-dots sealing in the city’s sleeping dead. Before one gets into the mechanics of proof, it is necessary to state a few definitions that will be useful later. The building is a magpie. Listen, and it carries noises up its sides, slipping them into windows like jewels: revelers from a nearby bar stumble loudly through the ladder of numbers in Baskin Robbins 31, a TGX-Mauve/F stretches its tiger mech joints in a hiss of pneumatics, and a couple breaks up or makes love or both too near an open window somewhere in the apartment complex next door. The building is covetous. Go-Eun never needed the Six Resplendent Suns employee pamphlet to know this, but it’s listed there as well. She taps her phone again. There’s an email from her boss, asking her to reconsider quitting. Go-Eun deletes it. That’s what breaking up is, another number that won’t reply, one more open question that their system of deduction isn’t complete enough to answer. It’s exactly why Jae-Yeon won’t text her back either. Finally, the page she’s been trying to refresh comes up. YES SO AWESOME I can’t believe they kissed!!! YOU ARE A LITERAL GODDESS UPDATE SOON “There was no edge without an end, and if this was their end, he thought, then so be it.” holy shit be still my brigadier-loving heart THIS FIC I AM RUINED best Brigie/SJ ever One thousand reviews. She high-fives an urn. For an eighty thousand word slash masterpiece she’s written in the small pauses of her life, not too shabby. And it’s almost enough to make her forget about the ghosts, the hallways that stretch on and on and on, the now-empty shelves where relatives used to leave flowers and other small offerings, until Six Resplendent Suns and every other Numerical Family in charge of an ossuary mandated mourning training. Most of the time it’s beautiful and silent, a second, stiller universe to mirror the riot outside. Sometimes it’s not. Go-Eun bows and enters, bows and leaves, thumb-typing a drabble about Seo-Joon waking up as she heads to FF, the twice-cursed floor, those two unspoken hungers grating against each other like teeth in gears that don’t line up. It’s a pity her new job at the construction company probably won’t let her be on her phone as much. She’s almost finished with the scene when she pauses. In the middle of the rows, a pale shape, unsteady, picks itself up from the wreckage of an urn. Most ghosts understand they’re dead. The body gives its two weeks’ notice to the soul and the connection is gradually severed, a proof ending in a neat white box, QED, or even that infuriating the rest is left as an exercise for the reader. Only the violent ends do this: the wide gaze of the war dead, the slow unraveling of conditional and consequent, and then a soft and tremulous oh. It’s a young man, maybe Go-Eun’s age, maybe a little more. He’s wearing pilot’s fatigues, but before her mind can race to pin a mech animal to him, he spots her. The first time she saw a ghost that was not in a training video, pamphlet, or out of control and tall as a building being subdued by a mech, it was in the F2nd bathroom and something kept playing with her hair. A girl dressed in white rose behind her in the mirror like a dark star, cracked lips daring Go-Eun to look at me. The boy’...
Transcribe →Episode #69: "Ratcatcher" by Amy Griswold
Apr 4, 201900:36:32Tap to summarizeRatcatcher by Amy Griswold 1918, over Portsmouth The souls in the trap writhed and keened their displeasure as Xavier picked up the shattergun. “Don’t fuss,” he scolded them as he turned on the weapon and adjusted his goggles, shifting the earpieces so that the souls’ racket penetrated less piercingly through the bones behind his ears. “It’s nothing to do with you.” The two airships were docked already, a woman airman unfastening safety ropes from the gangplank propped between them to allow Xavier to cross. The trap rocked with a vibration that owed nothing to the swaying airships, and Xavier lifted it and tucked it firmly under his arm. He felt the soul imprisoned in his own chest stir, a straining reaction that made him stop for a moment to catch his breath. Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 69 for April 4th, 2019. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to share this story with you. Our story today is "Ratcatcher" by Amy Griswold. Before we get to the story, GlitterShip has recently had some exciting news. Our second anthology, GlitterShip Year Two was listed as a Tiptree Award Honor Book for 2018. We're very happy that the Tiptree jury enjoyed the book, and owe a great debt to all the authors who have allowed us to publish their work. You can find out more about the Tiptree Award and check out the winner Gabriela Damian Miravete's story, "They Will Dream in the Garden" at tiptree.org. You can also pick up copies of the GlitterShip Year One and Year Two anthologies on gumroad at gumroad.com/keffy for $5 each. Just use the coupon code "tiptree," that's t-i-p-t-r-e-e. Amy Griswold is the author of the interactive novels The Eagle’s Heir and Stronghold (with Jo Graham), published by Choice of Games, as well as the gay fantasy/mystery novels Death by Silver and A Death at the Dionysus Club (with Melissa Scott). Her short fiction has been published in markets including F&SF and Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. Robin G has been an entertainment manager, entertainer/vocalist, theatrical producer and writer of several pantomimes including a UV version of Pinocchio that toured 20 theaters in the UK. He was first alerted to the supernatural in a strange dream sequence while in the Royal Air Force that placed him at a future event. The knowledge that a part of our brain exists in another reality has shown him many unusual incidents of the sixth sense. He writes both fiction and non-fiction which includes Jim Long — space agent, a series of stand-alone stories in 7 books, including one as a radio episodic creation, and the non-fiction book Magical theory of life—discusses our life, history, and its aftermath in non-religious spiritual terms. Ratcatcher by Amy Griswold 1918, over Portsmouth The souls in the trap writhed and keened their displeasure as Xavier picked up the shattergun. “Don’t fuss,” he scolded them as he turned on the weapon and adjusted his goggles, shifting the earpieces so that the souls’ racket penetrated less piercingly through the bones behind his ears. “It’s nothing to do with you.” The two airships were docked already, a woman airman unfastening safety ropes from the gangplank propped between them to allow Xavier to cross. The trap rocked with a vibration that owed nothing to the swaying airships, and Xavier lifted it and tucked it firmly under his arm. He felt the soul imprisoned in his own chest stir, a straining reaction that made him stop for a moment to catch his breath. “If you’re ready, sir,” the airman said, and Xavier forced himself into motion. He nodded crisply and strode out onto the gangplank with the ease of long years spent aboard ships, his gloved hand just brushing the rail. He scrambled down from the other end and got out of the way of airmen rushing to disengage the gangplank and close the hatch before the two ships could batter at each other too dangerously in the rising wind. The Coriolanus’s captain strode toward him, and Xavier winced as he recognized a familiar face. He set the trap down, both to get it farther away from the casing that housed the soul in his chest, and to give himself a moment to banish all envy from his expression. He straightened with a smile. “Hedrick. I see you landed on your feet after that muddle over Calais.” “I’ve got a knee that tells me the weather now,” Hedrick said, scrubbing at his not-entirely-regulation stubble of ginger beard. “They told me you’d been grounded.” “I’m still attached to the extraction service,” Xavier said. “As a civilian now.” Hedrick’s eyes flickered to the odd lines of Xavier’s coat front, and then back up to his face without a change of expression. He’d always been good at keeping a straight face at cards. “We could use the help. We had a knock-down drag-out with the Huns a few weeks back—just shy of six weeks, I make it. Heavy casualties on both sides, and some of them damned reluctant to move on.” “Only six weeks? You hardly need me. Chances are they’ll still depart on their own.” “You haven’t seen the latest orders that came down, then. We’re supposed to call in the ratcatchers at the first sight of ghosts. Not acceptable on a well-run ship, don’t you know.” “You’re also meant to shave,” Xavier said. “It’s not like you to comply with every absurd directive that comes down the pike.” He couldn’t help reveling in the freedom to talk that way, one of the few rewards of his enforced change in career. “These are Colonel Morrow’s orders.” “Mmm.” That put a different face on it, or might. Morrow supervised the ratcatchers, civilian and military, and his technical brilliance had saved Xavier’s life when he lost his soul. That said, it was entirely in character for Morrow to go on a tear about efficiency without regard for how much work it made for anyone else. “Besides, there’s more to it,” Hedrick said as the Coriolanus drifted free of the Exeter. “We’ve been having damned bad luck of late. Pins slipping out of a gangplank just as one of the lads stepped on it—he just missed ending up a smear on the landscape. More engine malfunctions than you can name, and some of them dangerous. If the Coriolanus weren’t in such good repair to start with, she’d have burned twice over in the last month.” “You suspect sabotage.” “Some of the Jerries had their boots on our deck when they bit it. We tossed the bodies over the side, but still I’m not entirely easy in my mind.” “Next time, don’t,” Xavier said. “The soul’s more likely to stay in the corpse if it’s well treated. Ill handling breaks the ties faster.” He directed his gaze out the porthole window of the gondola rather than at Hedrick’s face. “You weren’t using shatterguns?” “We haven’t got them mounted. No budget for them in our grade, I hear. And just as well if you ask me. They give me the cold chills.” Hedrick glanced at the shattergun under Xavier’s arm. “A necessity in my profession,” he said. “Better you than me.” It was a backhanded enough kind of sympathy that Xavier didn’t cringe away from it. “Any particular area of the ship most affected?” “The crew quarters, I think—I’ve had men stirring up their whole deck with screaming nightmares, and not the usual nervous cases.” “At least it’s a place to start.” He followed Hedrick through the narrow corridors of the airship’s gondola to the cramped berthing area that housed the enlisted men. Only the night watch was there and sleeping, young men squeezed into claustrophobically low bunks, some with their knees tucked up to keep their feet from dangling off the end. A panel of canvas made a half-hearted divider screening the row of women’s bunks from the men’s view. Xavier set down his gear and stretched out on the nearest unoccupied bunk. “Leave me alone, now, and let me work.” “Funny kind of work,” Hedrick said, raising an eyebrow at his recumbent form. “‘They also serve who only stand and wait,’” Xavier said, and tried not to sound bitter. “Now get out.” He closed his eyes at the sound of Hedrick’s retreating footsteps and schooled his breathing into the steady rhythm that would send him swiftly into a doze. The soul in his chest shifted once, making him break his rhythmic breathing with a gasping cough, but he spread an entreating hand across its cage and it quieted. He knew he was dreaming when he saw Thomas walk into the room and sit down on the foot of the bed. For a moment the more rational part of his mind protested that it was impossible to sit down on the foot of an airship bunk, but his dreaming mind obligingly replaced the scene with a four-poster bed lit by streaming sunshine. Thomas’s hair was limned with gold, his eyes bright and laughing. “Haven’t you got work to do?” He was dressed in the uniform he died in, but as Xavier took his hand, it faded like smoke to reveal freckled skin. “I do,” Xavier said. “I’m most remiss.” He raised his chin unrepentantly, and Thomas grappled for him like a wrestler. He was aware of reality as soon as they touched, the sensation of Thomas’s soul writhing throu...
Transcribe →Episode #68: "These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God" by Rose Lemberg
Mar 18, 201900:19:37Tap to summarizeThese Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God by Rose Lemberg Father is trying to help me get into NASH. He thinks that seeing a real architect at work will help me with entrance exams. So father paid money, to design a house he does not want, just to get me close to Zepechiar. He is a professor at NASH and a human-Ruvan contact. Reason and matter—these are the cornerstones of Spinoza’s philosophy that the Ruvans admire so much. Reason and matter: an architect’s mind and building materials. These are the attributes through which we can know God. And then, of course, there’s particle technology. Full story after the cut: Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 68 for March 18, 2019. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to share this story with you. Today we have a GlitterShip original, "These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God" by Rose Lemberg, and "Female Figure of the Early Spedos Type, 1884-" by Sonya Taaffe. This episode is part of the newest GlitterShip issue, which was just released and is available for purchase at glittership.com/buy and on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and now Gumroad! If you’re one of our Patreon supporters, you should have access to the new issue waiting for you when you log in. For everyone else, it’s $2.99. GlitterShip is also a part of the Audible Trial Program. This means that just by listening to GlitterShip, you are eligible for a free 30 day membership on Audible and a free audiobook to keep. Today's book recommendation is The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison. In a world ripped apart by a plague that prevents babies from being carried to term and kills the mothers, an unnamed woman keeps a record of her survival. To download The Book of the Unnamed Midwife for free today, go to www.audibletrial.com/glittership — or choose another book if you’re in the mood for something else. Sonya Taaffe reads dead languages and tells living stories. Her short fiction and poetry have been collected most recently in Forget the Sleepless Shores (Lethe Press) and previously in Singing Innocence and Experience, Postcards from the Province of Hyphens, A Mayse-Bikhl, and Ghost Signs. She lives with her husband and two cats in Somerville, Massachusetts, where she writes about film for Patreon and remains proud of naming a Kuiper belt object. Female Figure of the Early Spedos Type, 1884- by Sonya Taaffe When I said she had a Modigliani face, I meant she was white as a cracked cliff and bare as the brush of a thumb the day we met on the thyme-hot hills above Naxos and by the time we parted in Paris, she was drawing half-divorced Russian poets from memory, drinking absinthe like black coffee with the ghosts of the painted Aegean still ringing her eyes. Sometimes she posts self-portraits scratched red as ritual, a badge of black crayon in the plane of her groin. In another five thousand years, she may tell someone— not me— another one of her names. Our story today is "These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God" by Rose Lemberg, read by Bogi Takács. Bogi Takács (prezzey.net) is a Hungarian Jewish agender trans person currently living in the US as a resident alien. Eir speculative fiction, poetry and nonfiction have been published in a variety of venues like Clarkesworld, Apex, Strange Horizons and podcast on Glittership, among others. You can follow Bogi on Twitter, Instagram and Patreon, or visit eir website at www.prezzey.net. Bogi also recently edited the Lambda Award-winning Transcendent 2: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction 2016, for Lethe Press. Rose Lemberg is a queer, bigender immigrant from Eastern Europe and Israel. Their fiction and poetry have appeared in Strange Horizons, Lightspeed‘s Queer Destroy Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Uncanny Magazine, and many other venues. Rose’s work has been a finalist for the Nebula, Crawford, and other awards. Their Birdverse novella The Four Profound Weaves is forthcoming from Tachyon Press. You can find more of their work on their Patreon: patreon.com/roselemberg These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God by Rose Lemberg Father is trying to help me get into NASH. He thinks that seeing a real architect at work will help me with entrance exams. So father paid money, to design a house he does not want, just to get me close to Zepechiar. He is a professor at NASH and a human-Ruvan contact. Reason and matter—these are the cornerstones of Spinoza’s philosophy that the Ruvans admire so much. Reason and matter: an architect’s mind and building materials. These are the attributes through which we can know God. And then, of course, there’s particle technology. The house-model Zepechiar has made for my family is all sleek glass. It is a space house with transparent outer walls; the endlessness of stars will be just an invisible layer away. “I do not want to live in space,” dad hisses. Father hushes them. Zepechiar’s model for our new house is cubical, angular, with a retro-modern flair. The kitchen is the only part of it that does not rotate, a small nod to dad’s desire for domesticity. Outside of the kitchen capsule, the living spaces are all zero-g with floating furniture that assembles itself out of thin air and adapts to the body’s curves. There is no privacy in the house, but nobody will be looking—out there, in space, between the expanses of the void. “Bringing the vacuum in is all the rage these days,” the architect says. I pretend indifference. Doodling in my notebook. It looks like nothing much. Swirls, like the swirls our ancients made to mark the landing sites for Ruva vessels. For thousands of years nobody had remembered the Ruva, and when they returned, they did not want to land anymore on the curls and swirls of patterns made in the fields. They had evolved. Using reason. They razed our cities to pour perfectly level landing sites. They sucked excess water out of the atmosphere and emptied the oceans, then refilled them again. But then they read Spinoza and decided to spare and/or save us. Because we, too, can know God. If we continued studying Spinoza, Ruvans said, we’d be enlightened and would not need sparing or saving. I want to build something that curls and twists between hills, but hills have been razed after the Ruva arrived. Hills are frivolous, an affront of imagination against reason, and it is reason that brought us terraforming particle technology that allowed us to suck all usable minerals from the imperfections of the earth: the hills, the mountains, the ravines, the trees, leaving only a flatness of the landing sites between the flatness covered by angular geodomes. I learned about hills from the rebel file. Every kid at school downloads the rebel file. All around the world too, I guess. I don’t know anybody else who actually read it. I do not notice anything until my father and dad wave a cheerful goodbye and leave me, alone with Zepechiar. He’ll help me with entrance exams. Or something. He pulls up a chair from the air, shapes it into a Ruvan geometry that is perhaps just a shade more frivolous than reason dictates. He says, “Your father lied about the purpose of your visit. What is the reason behind it?” I mumble, “I want to get into NASH.” “Show me your architectural drawings,” Zepechiar orders. His voice is level. Reason is the architect’s best tool. I hesitate. Can I show him— No. I need something safer, so I swipe the notebook, show him a thing I made while he was fussing over dad’s kitchen: a cubical model of black metal and spaceglass, not unlike Zepechiar’s house model for my family. The distinction is in the color contrast, a white stripe of a pipe running like a festive tie over the steel bundle. Zepechiar nods. “Show me what you do not want to show me.” There is something in his voice. I raise my hand to make the swiping motion, then stop mid-gesture. “You could have convinced dad to say yes to that kitchen,” I say. “They would have cooked breakfasts for eternity, looking out into an infinite space until their heart gave out.” “I’m selling my architecture, not my voice,” he says, but something in his voice is bitter. Bitterness. Emotion, not reason. He is being unprofessional on purpose, perhaps to lull me into trusting him. “Why did you decide to become an architect?” I ask, to distract. A tame enough question. My father’s money bought me an informational in...
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