Caitlín R. Kiernan | The Steam Dancer (1896)

On the nights Mrs. Wainwright let me work in the barn instead of the tavern, I used to sing to the horses. They would greet me with their own murmurs, and swivel their ears to follow my voice as I readied their suppers. That was where Captain Smythe found me: in the barn, singing a song of my own making. | Copyright 2014 by Sarah Pinsker. Narrated by Alex Hyde-White. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2 Sep 201444min

Quentin told lies to people for money. Or drugs. Or kittens. Or anything, really. The particular currency didn’t matter, so long as what was being offered had value to the person who needed the lie. | Copyright 2014 by Kat Howard. Narrated by Gabrielle de Cuir. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

26 Aug 201420min

The spaceman shows up on a hot summer afternoon, not in the dead of night when you’re crouched in the garden peering through a telescope that shows you the endless glories and wonders of the night sky. There’s no spaceship making a bright arc against a star-spangled sky. Just a man in a spacesuit, standing at the edge of your hammock. | Copyright 2014 by E. Catherine Tobler. Narrated by Judy Young. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

19 Aug 201431min

They travelled all day, and at night came to rest by one of the large rocks that jut from the desert. The last caveat to voyagers before the plains of windswept sand. Here is what the boy heard: “Long ago, almost fifty years by official counting, there was a boy named Alladin." | Copyright 2014 by Tahmeed Shafiq. Narrated by Nicholas Guy Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

12 Aug 20141h 23min

A drink arrived that Culin hadn’t ordered. No one sent drinks to the crowded annex where Culin sat, crammed in with seven other people, all with contagion bands on their sleeves and matching tattoos on their arms. Sending drinks was an affectation Culin didn’t see much in the Dead Engine at all. | Copyright 2014 by An Owomoyela. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

5 Aug 201444min

The piano player drums away with her left hand, dropping all five fingers onto the keys as if they weigh too much to hold up. The rhythms bounce off the rhythms of what her right hand does, what she sings. It’s like there’s three different people in that little skinny body, one running each hand, the third one singing. But they all know what they’re doing. | Copyright 2004 by Emma Bull. Originally published in THE FAERY REEL: TALES FROM THE TWILIGHT REALM. Reprinted by permission of the author. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Juli 201445min

It’s all over for humanity, and I’m heading east. On the seat beside me are an M1 carbine and a Thompson submachine gun. There’s a special reason for the Thompson. I traded an M16 and 200 rounds of ammo for it to a guy in Barstow. | Copyright 1980 by Howard Waldrop. Originally published in SHAYOL. Reprinted by permission of the author. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Juli 201423min

Remembering Cimmeria: I walk through the bazaar, between the stalls of the spice sellers, smelling turmeric and cloves, hearing the clash of bronze from the sellers of cooking pots, the bleat of goats from the butcher’s alley. Rugs hang from wooden racks, scarlet and indigo. In the corners of the alleys, men without legs perch on wooden carts, telling their stories to a crowd of ragged children, making coins disappear into the air. | Copyright 2014 by Theodora Goss. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

8 Juli 201448min