Escape Artists

PseudoPod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Bdoomed on October 21, 2017, 01:10:31 AM

Title: PseudoPod 564: Hello, Handsome
Post by: Bdoomed on October 21, 2017, 01:10:31 AM
PseudoPod 564: Hello, Handsome (http://pseudopod.org/2017/10/13/pseudopod-564-hello-handsome/)

by Garrett Cook (http://pseudopod.org/people/garrett-cook/)
Narrated by The Word Whore (http://pseudopod.org/people/the-word-whore/)

“Hello, Handsome” was originally published in Giallo Fantistique in 2015. This was a great anthology edited by Ross E. Lockhart and released by Word Horde, and worth checking out if you’re a fan of Giallo, or if you want some nice surreal stories by folks like Orrin Grey and John Langan.


MUSIC USED – This week’s music is from “Orgy of the Vampires” by TERRORTRON (https://terrortron.bandcamp.com/): a posthumous electronic orb that splatters the ears of the living with a flood of brain-washing sound waves. This is a side project of Anders Manga which involves scoring cult horror movies you’ve never seen. Pray that you only get to hear them.

Our sisters and us we whisper beneath the glass. There are so many of them, in and out, stopping to look at the case, shaking their heads and walking. Some of them hear. Some of them bend an ear or take a closer look. Some of them we reject. We are perfect and thus, we are vain. A gangly thing with a pockmarked face wants to touch us, wants to bring us home, but we hiss and I know he hears us hiss. So he keeps walking. The girl behind the counter, she looks sad, robbed of her commission. Callous bitch.

Then we see him, then we smell him, the right one. We coo to him inaudibly soft but we know that he can hear it. His face is weathered some but not displeasing, unblemished, not browned by the sun but age and a great deal of smiling. He looks smart in his grey hat and his raincoat, so very smart. The sort of man who would shop at a store like this one, where the finest is sold to the finest. The finest, that’s the sort. We cannot help but notice his hands. It is in our nature to notice someone’s hands of course.

The hands are strong, the fingers slim and exquisite. His wrists are slender, the bones of his knuckles hard. These are not the beaten hands of a man his age. These are not the hands of a working man but nonetheless hands with purpose. I barely need to let him know I’m here or to talk over our sisters. He is deep but is wonderfully legible. Wonderfully, wonderfully legible. He approaches the salesgirl and points into the case.

“I’d like to see that pair.”

Oh, yes, oh yes, you would. You would like to get to know us and let us know you. You would like to take us home. There are stories we read in the people that come and go about the things that happen when we’re taken home, the exquisite warm sensations, the adventure and delight. Some of his secrets are legible but there is so much more to know.



Listen to this week's PseudoPod. (http://traffic.libsyn.com/pseudopod/Pseudo564_HelloHandsome.mp3)
Title: Re: PseudoPod 564: Hello, Handsome
Post by: Scuba Man on October 26, 2017, 04:43:32 PM
Damn. I was trying to figure out...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Ah, the narrator. She’s unique. Her voice made me sit up straight, dare to peek through the blinds, and then run away (screaming in terror)... all in equal portions. Excellent work!
Title: Re: PseudoPod 564: Hello, Handsome
Post by: Fenrix on October 26, 2017, 06:30:23 PM
Quote from: Scuba Man on October 26, 2017, 04:43:32 PM

Ah, the narrator. She’s unique. Her voice made me sit up straight, dare to peek through the blinds, and then run away (screaming in terror)... all in equal portions. Excellent work!


Love her work. She's read a lot of stories for us. Seriously, go check them all out: http://escape-artists.wikia.com/wiki/The_Word_Whore
Title: Re: PseudoPod 564: Hello, Handsome
Post by: Bdoomed on October 27, 2017, 03:02:43 AM
Always love when TWW narrates. Buttons' cameo was a treat!
Title: Re: PseudoPod 564: Hello, Handsome
Post by: Katzentatzen on October 31, 2017, 01:44:14 AM
TWW is always such a treat! I hope she sticks around. She really pushed the sensuality of the story. I liked Alasdair’s interpretation of the story being the guilt displacement of the murderer, human depravity is more interesting than fantasy.
Title: Re: PseudoPod 564: Hello, Handsome
Post by: Scuba Man on November 09, 2017, 10:55:12 PM
Quote from: Fenrix on October 26, 2017, 06:30:23 PM
Quote from: Scuba Man on October 26, 2017, 04:43:32 PM

Ah, the narrator. She’s unique. Her voice made me sit up straight, dare to peek through the blinds, and then run away (screaming in terror)... all in equal portions. Excellent work!


Love her work. She's read a lot of stories for us. Seriously, go check them all out: http://escape-artists.wikia.com/wiki/The_Word_Whore

Got the link. Clicked on it. Oooohhhhhhhh no. TWW is going to have her aural way with me. Hoy. Thanks, eh.  :o 8) :o
Title: Re: PseudoPod 564: Hello, Handsome
Post by: Michael W. Cho on November 15, 2017, 03:13:09 AM
Loved the story, what an authorial voice. And I loved the Word Whore. She just nailed it!
Title: Re: PseudoPod 564: Hello, Handsome
Post by: Ichneumon on December 18, 2017, 02:00:48 AM
Good job Author and Narrator! Well done, quite disturbing.