Pseudopod 220: Flash On The Borderlands VI

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 220: Flash On The Borderlands VI

Pseudopod returns to life to bring you the winners of our forum’s “Flash Fiction” contest.


FIRST PLACE:
Escape

By M.E. Smith
Narrated by Leann Mabry

“The person who had been Jane did not remember a time before she had been living in the cell.”


SECOND PLACE (TIE):
Mother’s Milk

By Strahinja Acimovic
Narrated by Jacquie Duckworth

“The sewing was hard. My blood had coated the table, the floor, the coat I was lying on. It was hard to tell where things ended and began in the red.”


SECOND PLACE (TIE):
Little Monster

By LynnCee Faulk, who has more stories available at Points In Time And Space
Narrated by Dani Cutler

“‘That doll gives me the creeps,’ Miranda said. Bonnie stopped brushing the doll’s hair and slowly turned her head to meet Miranda’s gaze.”



Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[Hafwit]

Great to have you back.

[Unblinking]

The Return of Pseudopod!  Haven't listened yet, but will soon. 

[ElectricPaladin]

Doom doom... doom doom... doom doom... doom doom (boom boom doom doom).

Anyway, these were three great, creepy, cringe-inducing stories. Welcome back. I particularly liked the last one, with the sad doll and her human torturer. I hope the doll finds some way to escape, but I sincerely doubt it.

[DKT]

*Applause*

 

[Kaa]

Welcome back! We missed you!

<listens>

[Henry]

Ahhh, that's the stuff...

Some great stories you got there.  Congratulations to the winners!

[dandylion]

<sup>I just about woke up everyone in the house yesterday night (morning?) when, around 4:30 a.m., I checked Pseudopod, found the new episode, and promptly began a horizontal, energetic victory dance. It's great to have you guys back, I missed you~! Hopefully all podcasters involved have managed to get their life and health back to an acceptable state. ;u;

As far as the stories this week are concerned, Escape was my personal favorite. Leann did an amazing job narrating; she was so convincing! Of all the delightful nasties in all Pseudopod's stories, the fork segment in Escape was the first where pausing to recover was a necessity for me. The other two stories were wonderful too, of course, true to form. C:</sup>

[Scattercat]

Yeah, "Escape" was definitely one of my favorites from the contest.

Big yaaaaaay to have PP back!

[Kaa]

All three are delightfully gruesome and the first two were distinctly uncomfortable to listen to. I rather liked the last one best, myself.

But yay! PseudoPod is back!

[kibitzer]

Of all the delightful nasties in all Pseudopod's stories, the fork segment in Escape was the first where pausing to recover was a necessity for me.

That bit still makes me physically cringe. (shivers) I remember reading it in the contest and when I got to that part I had to turn away from the screen -- which was weird because the image was in my head.

Although, Mother's Milk has some pretty cringe-inducing bits as well.

[evelet]

Kids are evil, so the last story was far too close to the truth.

 Great flash trio.

[Unblinking]

Yay for Pseudopod's triumphant return!  Alasdair has triumphed over the dreaded doomflu.  Like Michael Myers, you should never turn your back on Pseudopod when you think it might be dead.

"Little Monster" was one of my favorites in the PP flash contest.  I love how it took a familiar horror trope, the creepy doll, and turned it on its head.

"Escape" was also among my favorites.  Even more so because a month or two after the story was entered in the contest there's a hauntingly similar scene in Toy Story 3--uncanny, really.

"Mother's Milk" wasn't really my thing.  To me the gore was a bit over-the-top and I was skeptical that she'd be able to do the whole procedure at all, let alone without an employee catching her.  

[stePH]

Wow... two stories about batshit-crazy women mutilating themselves, and one about a sadistic child. PP is bringing the disturb again.

[iamafish]

having listened to Mother's Milk, I'm listening to Wires by Althete. It remains one of the most emotional songs I know. The idea of losing a child before it has even drawn breath is terrify. Exploring the lengths to which people might go to avoid that made Mother's Milk an incredibly emotional story for me.

I liked the play on a traditional horror trope in Little Monster, however, I cannot possibly get behind the idea that children are evil. I felt Little Monster was more 'funny in a creepy way' than scary per se.

Escape was an excellent story, but didn't quite hit me in the same way as Mother's Milk did

(8)You've got wires, going in,
You've got wire, coming out
of your skin.

You've got tears, making tracks,
I've got tears, that are scared
Of the facts(

Excuse me while I go rock myself to sleep in the corner

[stePH]

I liked the play on a traditional horror trope in Little Monster, however, I cannot possibly get behind the idea that children are evil.

I can only conclude that you haven't had much contact with children. That or you're in denial. Adults have nothing on children when it comes to deliberate cruelty.

[iamafish]

obviously the quite considerable number of children I've had dealings with are a hell of a lot nicer than the ones you've dealt with, that, or I'm in denial.

TBF children can be pretty cruel sometimes, but not evil. I'm talking about little children here, not teenagers, they can be pretty despicable

[Unblinking]

obviously the quite considerable number of children I've had dealings with are a hell of a lot nicer than the ones you've dealt with, that, or I'm in denial.

TBF children can be pretty cruel sometimes, but not evil. I'm talking about little children here, not teenagers, they can be pretty despicable

I've known some mean little children, for a while some of them were my neighbors.  The year we moved into our current house, a goose made a nest on a small sandbar out on the community pond out back.  Several neighborhood kids, led by the kids next door, went out several times and advanced on the nest, swinging sticks at the mother goose.  If she hadn't had a nest I'm sure she would've run away, but she stood her ground against them to defend her babies-to-be.  I had to shout them away several times to leave her the hell alone.  The leader of the pack was probably about 8.

I don't have trouble believing that a child such as in the story could behave the way she did.

[blueeyeddevil]

Just to put a discussion point out there:

When I discussed these stories with my GF, I said that 'Mother's Milk' didn't have enough windup to sell that level of crazy action. I felt like there needed to be more to make it believable that a woman could do something that insane.

She shook her head and said, 'oh, no, I could totally buy that.'

So, reactions from womb-bearers vs. non womb-bearers, did that work for you? Is this a sexual divide, or something personal to me?