PseudoPod 657: Waxworks

[Bdoomed]

PseudoPod 657: Waxworks

Author: W.L. George
Narrator: Simon Meddings
Host: Alex Hofelich

“Waxworks” originally appeared in The Strand Magazine in 1922 under the title “Waxworks: A Mystery”


Show Notes
Sound attribution:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Drip: https://freesound.org/people/tack00/sounds/399257/
Rain: https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/346642/
Door slam: https://freesound.org/people/DBproductions/sounds/60031/

Henry Badger rapidly paced the City churchyard; his air of anxiety seemed to overweigh his small, though not unpleasing, features. He was an insignificant little man, dressed in pepper-and-salt tweeds. His hair was cut very close, except where a love-lock, plastered down with jasmine-oil, trailed over his forehead from under his hard black hat. Whenever he completed the circuit of the churchyard he peered towards the gate through which must come disturbance and romance. Henry Badger was in love, and he could not escape the consequences of his share in our common delight and affliction.

Suddenly brightness overspread his sharp features. It was she! She, in a pink crêpe-de-Chine blouse, disconnected rather than connected with her white serge skirt by a patent-leather belt. Above the pink blouse was an equally pink neck, and a rather pretty face, all soft curves. She was bright blue of eye and tumbled in pleasant fairness about the hair, under a large straw hat from which drooped on one side a fragment of ivy that might with advantage have been placed elsewhere. But her name was Ivy, and she liked to live in harmony.

“I’m late,” she said, with pretty-briskness, as they shook hands. “So sorry, Henry. Only the boss got dictating, and he likes to hear himself talk, even if it is only to little me. Still, better late than never,” she added, with a smile indicating wit.



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[Scuba Man]

This was a nice episode (nice = nasty). It was alright. Not strong. Not weak. Solid Level 3 provincial standard!

[Scattercat]

I was charmed by Ivy and even with the preface assuring me that W.L. George was known to be progressive I was cringing and waiting for her to be brutally murdered, especially after she tries to get them out and her boyfriend insists on continuing.  It strikes me that horror as a genre really has to work on its conventions in re: female characters, that I was so strongly expecting her to be killed for being sassy and female.

The reveal was fun and pleasingly inexplicable.  I enjoy a bit of cosmic absurdity, especially in a horror piece this length.