Author Topic: PseudoPod 555: Four Hours of a Revolution  (Read 6786 times)

Bdoomed

  • Pseudopod Tiger
  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 5891
  • Mmm. Tiger.
on: August 12, 2017, 04:38:05 PM
PseudoPod 555: Four Hours of a Revolution

by Premee Mohamed.

“Four Hours of a Revolution” is a Pseudopod Original.

PREMEE MOHAMED is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and spec fic writer based in Canada. Her work has been published by Nightmare Magazine, Martian Migraine Press, Third Flatiron Press, and others.

She tries to post thoughts and discussions on her website, www.premeemohamed.com , so she will be writing a bit about this story as well as upcoming stories and any novel news there. And she would like to assure you that she survived the encounter with the creature in the grey shirt in the author photo.

Says Premee: “I’ll probably talk about this a bit on my website, but the entire story was inspired by the poster in the room where Death first begins his vigil of Whittaker, the teenage rebel. The poster was in turn inspired by a Tumblr thread I once saw about sleepy punks. I kept thinking about a city abandoned and overrun, and the only people left are, basically, punks too: exhausted but still fighting, people who trust each other and whose trust forms the basis of this story.”

This week’s reader – Ian Stuart – is a writer/performer living in York. He has done work for the BBC and Manx Radio, as well as audiobooks, historical guides and promotional videos. He is also a storyteller/guide for The Ghost Trail of York, taking tourists round the city and telling them some of its darker secrets. You can read more about his poetry and his dog, Digby, on his blog, The Top Banana. If you wish to contact Ian about v/o work of any kind, you can get in touch with him on Twitter at @yorkwriter99. His greatest boast is that he is the father of a famous son.



Info on Anders Manga’s album (they do our theme music!) can be found here.



Rebels, like vampires, prowl by night, sleep by day; they are short on everything in the besieged city – bullets, socks, soap, bread – but mainly they are short of sleep, for they fight under starlight, hide under sun in secret places. And yet their enemies are most vulnerable at night when, like all good civil servants, they retire to their houses and lock their doors. Until they swap schedules neither side will eliminate the other.

So the revolution is easy enough to find as I whisper up the wall of the apartment complex, slide under the half-inch of space left by the open window. They will not open it further, even though the little boarded-up living room is intolerably hot. As it is, they sweat profusely in their sleep, even the lucky few shaded by the walls.

One has, deliberately I assume, curled up in an armchair under a poster reading ‘PUNK ISN’T DEAD BUT IT WOZ UP AWFUL LATE LAST NITE.’ On the poster, two men sleep in a train seat, cartoonishly rendered in hot primaries on a black ground. The rebel in the armchair echoes their pose, but instead of a tired friend she cradles a stolen police rifle, its distinctive silver finish oversprayed with matte black paint, the camera blocked with a glued-in coin. The police carry them proudly, counting on the reflected glare to carry their message far ahead of them; the rebels carry them only at night, counting on stealth.

It is this girl, Whittaker, in the armchair, in this war, that I am here to claim. In due time, as is her right and my duty. For I am Death.




Listen to this week's Pseudopod.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2017, 06:26:55 PM by Bdoomed »

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Katzentatzen

  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 212
Reply #1 on: August 30, 2017, 05:01:10 PM
I found this hard to follow, but amazing narration by Mr. Stuart Sr.!

"To understand a cat you must realize that he has his own gifts, his own viewpoint, even his own morality."
--LILIAN JACKSON BRAUN


Ichneumon

  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 219
Reply #2 on: December 04, 2017, 05:34:54 PM
The war was scarier than the death angels. I think because we are told Whittaker is going to die right from the beginning, I didn't get attached to her and I couldn't worry about her. That made her salvation by the angel more of a surprise, but also less moving, in my opinion.