Pseudopod 403: FLASH ON THE BORDERLANDS XXI: The Tyranny Of Objects“Nothing that surrounds us is object, all is subject.” – André Breton
“Digit” by
Gabriel R. Miller.
This is the first publication of “Digit” – “I couldn’t be happier that my first publication is for the audio market, as audiobooks are what got me writing in the first place.”
GABRIEL R. MILLER lives in the Inland Northwestern United States with his alien ex-wife of 15 years and his three beautiful, half-alien children. He has a dog who loves him, a cat who needs him (her words, not his), and a guinea pig who hates him (though he says the feeling is mutual). He is the proud owner of a small collection of saws, all of which he knows how to use. He is currently working on a fantasy trilogy. He blogs and vlogs and does other things that sound like excretory functions whenever he can muster the will to do so, which isn’t often. He’s also on Facebook and Twitter, and you can find all the links to his various online personalities at
Luddite With A Laser.
Your reader –
Kyle Akers – has been heard on Escape Pod and previously on PP in: “
Passing Grade”.
“A saw wants to cut. What else is it going to do? It’s a saw. Nobody blames the saw when a kid cuts his finger off in shop class. The kid should have payed closer attention. After all, a saw wants to cut.”
“File Under” by
Lisamarie Lamb.
“File Under” has only appeared previously on Lisamarie’s blog.
LISAMARIE LAMB has short stories included in over thirty five anthologies, and has a collection of short stories published by
Dark Hall Press, entitled
OVER THE BRIDGE. She just had a children’s novel published with J. Ellington Ashton called
THE BOOK OF MANDRAGORE and a short story collection,
FAIRY LIGHTS. She lives on the Isle of Sheppey, UK, with her husband, daughter, and two cats. She blogs at
THE MOONLIT DOOR.
Your reader –
Mignon Fogarty – is more widely known as
Grammar Girl, and her knowledge can be accessed at
Quick And Dirty Tips.com.
“It started with nothing. That is, Helen Bentley looked into the yawning maw of the empty filing cabinet and felt no emotion, no pull to it. Nothing. It was a thing, a functional, ugly, grey thing that just stared, squatly squinting at her all day long.
The pointless piece of office funiture was standing with its back to the wall behind her desk, one desk in a sea of desks, its innards spilled out across the floor, a slippery cascade of buff coloured hanging folders and nearly neat inserts. She felt like running through them, kicking them high in the air like a child in Autumn when the leaves had fallen. But she didn’t. It would be a ridiculous thing to do and besides, she would only have to pick all the paper up again, put it away tidily, file it. She would only have to be grown up about it. So instead of running, laughing, remembering the youth she had never had, she filed and filled and did her job. And when the paper and forms and memos were put back together, properly alphabetised and labelled as they should be, she patted the cabinet on its cold top right corner and heard the satisfied clanging of a job well done.
She started to feel something then.”
“Good Boy” by
David Stevens“Good Boy” was David’s first published story, and he is very happy it is finding a new audience. A slightly longer version was published in
“Regime 03 Magazine of New Writing” in 2014.
DAVID STEVENS (usually) lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife and children. Some of his other stories have appeared in
Crossed Genres and
Aurealis magazines.
Your reader –
Graeme Dunlop – deserves boundless praise for his endless work on behalf of PSEUDOPOD!
“A red ‘7’ glowed on the telephone on his bedside table. He could not imagine seven people who would leave messages for him. Perhaps one person had left seven messages. Maybe some other combination in between. One way to find out.
Six hang ups. Then the last call. Gentle static. The noise wavered, as though it had come a long distance over thrumming lines. Wind blowing over an open microphone. The man shuddered, despite his moth eaten jumper, despite the heater kicking in. He sat in the dark with his eyes closed, the wordless message resonating with something sympathetic within him, the effect continuing after the machine had clicked off. Hands over his eyes, he heard the window rattle with a fresh splash of rain. The building stretched on forever on either side. All of the units were empty. There was only him. The TV noise was the murmuring of a distant nebula caught by a radio telescope. If he looked out of the window now, into the night, he knew that there would be no street, no sky. Just a dim hallway, thin walls rattling with the wind tunnelling though it, rain dripping from a soggy ceiling. This is all that there is.”
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