PseudoPod 697: Five Fridays During Lent

[Bdoomed]

PseudoPod 697: Five Fridays During Lent

Author: Christine Lucas
Narrator: Danielle Imara
Host: Alasdair Stuart
Audio Producer: Marty Perrett

PseudoPod 697: Five Fridays During Lent is a PseudoPod original.


Show Notes
“The Greek countryside crawls with legends of undead. They are a blend of what we today call vampires, ghouls and zombies, and they almost always meddle with the living. I have a book with such folktales by my desk for reference. So when during a writing challenge I was required to reach for the three nearest books to find inspiration for a story, my hand went for that particular book on its own. (The other two were a recipe book for traditional Greek dishes and a psychology manual on the five stages of grief. I guess they mixed well).”


You beg your son to try just one spoonful. He doesn’t. He sits rigid, his palms on his thighs, his almost-glassy, bloodshot eyes fixed ahead. There’s nothing there, only the old armoire filled with mothball-smelling clothes from three generations back. You try passing the spoonful beneath his nose. He loved your magiritsa, your son.

Perhaps a story will do the trick, just like when he was a child? The war robbed you of husband, brothers, savings, dignity, even fairytales. So instead you tell him about your day: how the butcher gave you the stink-eye when you asked for lamb’s offal. Lent has just started, and you’re making Easter Sunday soup already? When you mention it’s for your son, the war hero, he nods and brings what you asked. His own son returned from the war damaged as well—more than yours, and this simple knowledge fills your heart with guilt and relief in equal parts.

Your boy didn’t return wearing his shroud. When he slurps a spoonful of barely-cooked lamb’s innards, you tell yourself that all will be fine.


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[JDuckworth]

I liked this one. Not enough stories set in Greece--weird how a country with so much history gets overlooked in a genre like horror that's so steeped in Greek myth.

[Fenrix]

I liked this one. Not enough stories set in Greece--weird how a country with so much history gets overlooked in a genre like horror that's so steeped in Greek myth.

May we suggest "The Gorgon" by Tanith Lee? http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=11668