Ai Jiang | Ashes like the Leaves of Tea, Lava like Honey

Missouri Banks lives in the great smoky city at the edge of the mountains, here where the endless yellow prairie laps gently with grassy waves and locust tides at the exposed bones of the world jutting suddenly up towards the western sky. She was not born here, but came to the city long ago, when she was still only a small child and her father traveled from town to town in one of Edison’s electric wagons selling his herbs and medicinals, his stinking poultices and elixirs. Narrated by Susan Hanfield. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

10 Apr 201237min

Sitting on the sun-warmed step at the end of her workday, Birha laid her hand on the dog’s neck and let her mind drift. Like a gyre-moth finding the center of its desire, her mind inevitably spiraled inward to the defining moment of her life. It must be something to do with growing old, she thought irritably, that all she did was revisit what had happened all those years ago. Yet her irritation subsided before the memory. She could still see it with the shocking clarity of yesterday: the great, closed eyelid set in the enormous alien stronghold, opening in response to her trick. Narrated by Vikas Adam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Apr 201252min

Something is eating the starship Stephen W. Hawking, chewing it slowly and efficiently to pieces. Hurtling through hyperspace, or merely hanging suspended therein (who can really tell about hyperspace?), the vessel has become entangled with an unknown entity that exhibits at least one recognizable attribute: curiosity.stev Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

27 Mars 201228min

Nicole Sanders was beautiful. One night after work, she stopped off at a bar downtown, which is where she met the beast. “Hi,” the beast said, in a gentle voice. “Can I buy you a drink?” Narrated by Janis Ian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Mars 201218min

Ella sat by Nana’s body for two days before she pushed it out the window. She had spent the first half-day realizing what death was, the next half-day grieving, the following morning waking and feeling reverent if somewhat nauseated, and trying to decide what to do. It was three in the morning when she finally did it, and it was almost the season of electric rains. Narrated by Christie Yant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Mars 201245min

I wait outside the speaking chamber, where the young Speakers learn to Hear and Speak. The walls and carpeted floor are purest white, the color of this God place and the Speakers who live here walk by, all dressed in white like the walls and the floor, their palms on the shoulders of their guides. Narrated by Kathe Mazur. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

13 Mars 201246min

My curse is that I set off alarms. Smoke alarms. Car alarms. House alarms. It doesn’t matter what kind; I set them all off as soon as I get close to them. Close is usually about thirty feet. I don’t know why I set them off. I haven’t always been like this. I used to be fairly normal. Narrated by Cassandra Campbell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Mars 201246min

Carefully, with gloved hands, she removed the object from its stone niche, where it had rested for centuries deep underground, inside the dormant volcano where the mysterious Icelandic cult that guarded it made its home. It hardly weighed anything. Narrated by Roxanne Hernandez. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

28 Feb 201250min