Author Topic: PC Miniature 88: Communion  (Read 3682 times)

Ocicat

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on: May 13, 2016, 05:34:09 PM
PodCastle Miniature 88: Communion

by Jei D. Marcade

read by Jen R. Albert and Graeme Dunlop


A PodCastle original!

Leaving broken trails of damp across her skin, the mice climb the dark matted ropes of her hair, their fur the same magnolia white as the spell-struck thread that stitches shut her lips. They gnaw at the creepers binding her wrists and ankles and throat, nuzzle into the hollow of her collarbone, and chirp to her in the gloaming:

they will come again
when the brightsky breaks
to hew your limbs
to mine your bones for silver


Rated R.

Jei D. Marcade is a Korean-American speculative fiction writer, SFWA member, and graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. Ey is currently installed in the American Rust Belt with a hydrobot and a hedgehog, making monsters and poking ghosts.

Listen to this week’s PodCastle!



Unblinking

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Reply #1 on: May 18, 2016, 02:13:07 PM
Hmmm... I was hoping someone else would've posted and explained the story to me.  I don't think I understood it, though I love religious themes.  My brain is kind of wandery today so I think I may just need to listen again, maybe it wasn't hard to understand at all.



Devoted135

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Reply #2 on: May 24, 2016, 02:17:57 AM
It was short enough that I listened twice to figure it out. Here's what I got: A goddess of unknown provenance has been captured and tortured by a group of people for a long time (cutting out organs and they regrow). She somehow (??) manages to escape into a swampy, river-y place where a young man is fishing. She enthralls him, turns him into her priest, and then sets out to, um, see the world. Okay, it was about a week ago so some of the details have faded. :P


I had a hard time swallowing the sudden transition from being a tortured captive missing several organs to having somehow escaped. I also felt intensely sorry for the guy. He was just being polite and offering her some of his food, not offering supplication or prayers or whatever she interpreted it as.



bounceswoosh

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Reply #3 on: May 26, 2016, 02:20:48 PM
I had a hard time swallowing the sudden transition from being a tortured captive missing several organs to having somehow escaped. I also felt intensely sorry for the guy. He was just being polite and offering her some of his food, not offering supplication or prayers or whatever she interpreted it as.

Agreed on both counts. For the latter reason, I could have seen it classified as horror.



Fenrix

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Reply #4 on: June 10, 2016, 07:54:42 PM
Loved the imagery with the mouth sewn shut, including the burning kiss and the voice that would rupture ears. With as vague and dreamy as this was, I could have done with a little less explicit explanation of powers and the exchange that was "what did you do to me?" "let me tell you..." show me the strings being jerked on the puppet - we are all meat puppets shambling into the darkness.

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”