By Katherine Sparrow.
Read by Rachel Swirsky.
All stories by Katherine Sparrow
All stories read by Rachel Swirsky
“Junk DNA? I’ll junk your DNA!” Sofia glared at Zorg.
“Apologies. It is only, don’t you find it interesting? Most of it is unused–“
“Junk? You supercilious aliens come to Earth to rein snottiness on us lowly humans? How sublime. I suppose your DNA is full of Porsches?”
Rated PG.
By Anna Schwind
Read by Ann Leckie
When Chasca turned eleven, her father took her to a ship farm, to choose her vessel. She stood on the observation deck, evaluating the herd. Chasca selected the farthest ship. It faced away from the others and bumped the edges of the corral. She understood.
Rated G.
by Jared Axelrod (of The Voice of Free Planet X).
Read by Mike Swirsky.
I remember your touch, your taste, the way your mouth curled slightly when you said my name.
Rated PG.
By J. R. Blackwell.
Read by Rachel Swirsky (of PodCastle).
He smelled like new cars and cologne, he moved with a measured rhythm. His mouth tasted like mint toothpaste. She looked over his shoulder through the white light of the window. She was sweating into her sheets, her breath silent, and her lips thin and tight.
Rated R. Contains sex and melancholia.
By Gideon Fostick.
Read by Dave Leckie.
Bill had no heart for this Karakuri, left behind in the empty house when his love had gone. Small and exquisite, propped at an angle on the tatami floor mat, it was the toughest puzzle he’d known.
Rated PG. Contains puzzles.
by Rachel Swirsky
read by Ann Leckie
Summers, I sleep on rooftops. Under smokestacks, beside stairs, in the sudden green of precarious gardens.
Rated PG. Contains mythical figures.
by Gideon Fostick.
Read by Lyle Merithew.
Escape Pod sends its congratulations to Gideon Fostick for winning first place in the Escape Pod flash fiction contest for stories under 300 words.
Professor Seiferd materialized in full command of his faculties. He oriented immediately on the white cliffs of Dover, towering over the English Channel. He felt the weight of his mission: he must answer the question that was vital to the Fatherland.
Rated G. Contains Nazis.
Rated R
When Flight Control assigned us utility privileges, I don’t think they expected me to brew espresso in the centrifugal head. But the weight of the espresso machine was well within the parameters they’d set, as was my use of a couple of ounces of fresh water and a fraction of the ship’s power supply each day, so there was nothing, really, they could say or do about it.
Privileges are privileges, and if the purpose was to give both of us something to keep us happy, it worked for me. My morning espresso ritual kept me sane. I looked forward to it every day.
Richard, however, wasn’t quite as tolerant as Flight Control.
Rated PG. Kids, don’t do drugs. Also, some profanity in the outro.
“I must tell you, then, that I am an old man, a very old man.” He paused momentarily. “And it happens that I have money that I must presently be leaving, and never a child have I to leave it to.” I thought of the confidence trick, and resolved I would be on the alert for the vestiges of my five hundred pounds. He proceeded to enlarge on his loneliness, and the trouble he had to find a proper disposition of his money. “I have weighed this plan and that plan, charities, institutions, and scholarships, and libraries, and I have come to this conclusion at last,”–he fixed his eyes on my face,–“that I will find some young fellow, ambitious, pure-minded, and poor, healthy in body and healthy in mind, and, in short, make him my heir, give him all that I have.” He repeated, “Give him all that I have. So that he will suddenly be lifted out of all the trouble and struggle in which his sympathies have been educated, to freedom and influence.”
I tried to seem disinterested. With a transparent hypocrisy I said, “And you want my help, my professional services maybe, to find that person.”
He smiled, and looked at me over his cigarette, and I laughed at his quiet exposure of my modest pretence.