Photo by Dan LeFebvre
“Of Flowing Stone, of Liquid Gold, of Justice, Ash, and Battle”
Written by Malda Marlys | Narrated by Emmie Christie
You are a young god. You are sweet volcanic soil and the rumbling voice of the stone and banners that snap in the wind. You are the best and deepest desires of your people. You are, in the body that is only somewise yourself, pleasing to mortal eyes, easier to petition than the mountain, and as they forget the form that they speak to is not precisely yourself, you forget a little, too.
“Time Is An Ocean”
Written by Angela Liu | Narrated by Emmie Christie
The time traveler arrives at the door with a broken time machine and a promise:
“If you let me stay, I’ll take you wherever you want.”
So you let him stay. You feed him a breakfast of toast, butter, and black coffee every morning. He likes to read the books on your shelf, the self-help and get-rich-quick ones you keep buying but never finish reading. He totes around a small bag, perpetually collecting samples: rocks, dead leaves, broken crayons, and bottle caps. Anything can be a treasure if you believe it is.
Strange Horizons Narrations
“Half Sick of Shadows”
Written by Elle Engel | Narrated by Emmie Christie
The last person in the world lay asleep at the top of the tower. She waited not in a bed of silk and roses for the kiss of a destined lover, but huddled at the foot of a steel door in the hope that she wouldn’t have to be the last person for more than a few hours, that if she stayed right where she was, her family would come to their senses and return to her. Her name was Lena. She was nine years old.
“BRIDE / BUTCHER / DOE”
Written by Lowry Poletti | Narrated by Emmie Christie
A woman drags a white doe out of the ice room; it hangs from the ceiling rails by two brass hooks, one caught beneath its pelvis and the other behind the scapulae. As she pulls, the metal wheels whine.
When she works in her lab, she is a butcher. She lays the doe on her bench and makes an incision from sternum to pelvis.
“Reprise”
Written by Samantha Lane Murphy | Narrated by Emmie Christie
The car came to a stop after a drive spent in excruciating quiet. Rain pattered off the windscreen while Mark turned off a radio that had been feeding them static in spurts. When he turned off the engine next, he realised his mistake: it created a new and more profound silence.
“Tomorrow is Waiting”
Written by Holli Mintzer | Narrated by Emmie Christie
If you want the truth, it happened because Anji was feeling lazy. Her AI class wasn't all that interesting, nor was it a field she wanted a career in, so there wasn't any reason she could see for trying especially hard. So she came up with a project that didn't look like too much work, and she picked what looked like the easiest way of doing it. Things just got a little out of hand, after that.
“Bee Season”
Written by Michelle Kulwicki | Narrated by Emmie Christie
The girls of our town float down the middle of the street, cheap fabric wings pinned to their clothes. I watch them walk, hobbled by coat hanger curves that refuse to bend with the bow of their backs. I see Min towards the back. She’s been doing this for a decade now, and even though the orange and black of her wings have dulled with age, she still looks more beautiful than anyone else.
“A Recipe for Life, a Tonic for Grief”
Written by Christopher Blake | Narrated by Emmie Christie
This variation on the elixir of life pairs the flavour of roasted roc with the medicinal potency of the philosopher’s stone. But buyer beware: this dish isn’t for everyone.
Apex Magazine Narration
“In the Monster’s Mouth”
Written by Tim Waggoner | Narrated by Emmie Christie
“Sister, Silkie, Siren, Shark”
Written by Ariel Marken Jack | Narrated by Emmie Christie
They taught us to fear the ocean. “The place where the mothers grew,” they warned us, “is not for daughters to know.” The beaches were out of bounds to all but the wisest—those who understood the tides—and the old ones whose time had come to go down to the shore and never return. The rest of us—the young, the foolish, the girls too adventurous to understand that the rules were for everyone’s good—stayed safely atop the towering cliffs. It was all we knew.