Escape Pod 805: Open 27 Hours
Open 27 Hours
By L.P. Kindred
“It had pops of habanero-like spice immediately calmed by the subdued dulce of roast sweet potato. You got lemony shots of citric acid alongside amandine crunches. The dish was studded with cubes of meat I was too young to name then and I’m now too old to recall. Nobavgo casserole is the single most amazing thing I’ve ever tasted in my entire life.”
D’Sheadra laughs a laugh that starts in her pinky toe. Her hands flail around the leather-clad booth before slapping the dark-grained table. “What the fuck is a nagabovgoat?” she wheezes.
[The full text for this story has been temporarily removed at the request of the author and the original publisher. It will become available again in mid-December. If you would like to read it, please visit Speculative City.]
Host Commentary
L.P. Kindred has this to say about the story: “The prompt for it was writing about A Memorable Meal. Johnie’s, a Los Angeles diner that only exists to be filmed, is an anachronism. Gladys’ was a real dinette in Chicago with photos of its famous patrons like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lou Rawls, Redd Foxx, Governor Jim Thompson, Della Reese, Reverend Jesse Jackson and Gladys Knight. Until 1997, Miss Gladys paraded through the dining room, watching kids become adults. My Mom took me there as a teenager and I could taste the history. My Mom died when I was 17.”
What an incredible story about the power of memory and how time is ultimately an illusion when it comes to matters of the heart.
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Our opening and closing music is by daikaiju at daikaiju.org.
And our closing quotation this week is from Octavia Butler, who said “Writers use everything. We can’t help it. Whatever touches us touches our writing.”
Thanks for joining us, and please continue to actively seek out and support Black Science Fiction!
About the Author
LP Kindred
LP Kindred is a Chicagoan-Angeleno who writes SpecFic from the intersections of Black and Gay. When not avoiding novel drafting or short story revision or reading fiction or planning a series, he’s trying to sleep or asking “at what temperature would you like your steak?” His fiction is featured or forthcoming in Fiyah Literary Magzine and Speculative City; is/will be an alum of Hurston-Wright, VONA, and Clarion. #GhostClass
About the Narrator
Eden Royce
Eden Royce is a Geechee writer from South Carolina. Her short fiction can be found in various print and online publications including: FIYAH Literary Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and PodCastle. Her debut middle grade Southern Gothic novel Root Magic is out now from Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins. More at https://linktr.ee/edenroyce