Unofficial Drabblecast Archive

The Drabblecast is a free audio fiction magazine, featuring strange stories, by strange authors, for strange listeners.

[thetalkingcow]

Medieval Scooby

[thedreadvampy]

An Ich wōld goÞ awai with-al, wer't non for hērte meddelende youÞen!

[tonysopranobignaturals-deactiva]

this is from a "manipulation advice" video and it's just so fucking funny to me. why didn't I think of responding to insults like this

[she-who-the-river-could-not-hold]

okay the onslaught of empty porn bots was a funny meme at first but now I just sit with my morning coffee going through and blocking all of them feeling very much like an animated dad exhausted at the computer

[she-who-the-river-could-not-hold]

When you had a few months reprieve of fighting the influx of spam bots but now they’re back again and you feel like you’re playing whack-a-mole

[tagfer]

cell phone doesn't like water because it is a combination of the other three elements. it is a rock (earth) that we fill with lightning (fire) that can control radio waves (air). if it contained water too, it would be too perfect; it would be like a god. to prevent this, the universe kills the would be uniter-of-the-elements. it's basic science.

[heronbrew]

Hey op google what LCD stands for

[tagfer]

i took an oath in third grade to never do drugs

[thewanderingace]

I feel compelled to share one of my favorite bits from the Martian

[drabblecast]

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Upon the coming of the rain and the and the reawakening of the Krr’at race, the Elder Thing returned to us and squealed Its sky-splitting squeal and waded in among us. It came with the green feet that had eyes and mouths, and with the yellow, rubbery outerskin, and with the lace and the glitter — oh, the horrible, horrible glitter…

This episode of the Drabblecast continues H.P. Lovecraft Tribute Month, specifically focusing on the frequent appearance of cults in Lovecraft’s work. In the drabble, cult meetings aren’t always all about sacrifices and secret rites. In the feature, what starts out as an innocent encounter between a little girl and her imaginary friends takes an ominous turn when the “puddle people” turn out to be real creatures who worship her as their capricious god. When a rebel revolts against the the cult to save her daughter from being sacrificed, how will their deity react?

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My room was on the fifth story; the only inhabited room there, since the house was almost empty. On the night I arrived I heard strange music from the peaked garret overhead, and the next day asked old Blandot about it. He told me it was an old German viol-player, a strange dumb man who signed his name as Erich Zann, and who played evenings in a cheap theater orchestra; adding that Zann’s desire to play in the night after his return from the theater was the reason he had chosen this lofty and isolated garret room, whose single gable window was the only point on the street from which one could look over the terminating wall at the declivity and panorama beyond…

This episode of the Drabblecast kicks of H.P. Lovecraft Tribute Month. It begins with a reading from Lovecraft’s Fungi from Yuggoth. In the feature, an impoverished student is forced to take an apartment in an almost empty building on the mysterious Rue d’Auseil. One of the other tenants, a viol player named Erich Zann, lives alone on the top floor and plays strange, otherworldly music at night. The student, drawn to his music, eventually gains Zann’s trust and learns catastrophic secrets.

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Selfless by Kenneth Kao

Prophecy Negotiations by Rich Matrunick

The Faithful Servant by Joel Shulkin

My name is… John.

I am…

I have a wife and a daughter. They are visiting me today. Their names– Alice. And Anna.

I can see, sort of. Everything is blurry. I am submerged in a coffin, a clear coffin with green water. There’s a tube in my mouth so that I can breathe, machine-like.

My legs are transparent. I see veins and arteries, thin muscles that look like spiderwebs bundled together. The doctors say my memory will be fuzzy. It’s supposed to come back quickly.

I am…

The theme of this Drabblecast Trifecta is “if you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.” In Faithful Servant, a long-suffering butler’s poorly timed fit of temper is nearly the end of him. In Selfless, a man with an incurable illness goes to great lengths to ensure his wife and daughter enjoy a normal, happy life. In Prophecy Negotiations, a fateful farm boy learns that if you want to rise to a new station, it pays not to accept the first offer.

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After the world ended, Jimmy set up a roadside cafe in the median of I-95, just north of the Fallston exit, in the grassy depression between the guardrails. His first cafe, nothing more than a plywood shanty, fell to the first thunderstorm that blew through. The second was better: he dug a sort of foundation and built the walls out of heavy plywood he’d harvested from an overturned Home Depot truck, reinforced the corners with steel joints, laid down a sheet of tin for the roof. He used a Hummer’s windshield for the front window, a thick yellow shower curtain for the door. And then he nailed an Open/Closed sign beside the doorway, flipped it to Open, settled down in his lawn chair, and waited…

This episode of the Drabblecast is post-apocalyptic. In the drabble, Santa’s list is put to unusually ominous use one Christmas. In the feature, after the world ends, Jimmy cobbles together a makeshift roadside café where he assists passersbys. Whether they need scavenged supplies, hard truths, or a place to rest and say goodbye, his simple kindness is an oddly uplifting oasis in a ravaged world.

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“What I don’t like about it,” said Cliffe, “is that is it’s just a metaphor instead of something real.”

“What if it was real?” I (Sam) asked. “What if it was me and I actually turned into a cockroach someday?”

This episode of the Drabblecast is all about crazy relationships. In the drabble, it’s apparent that finding Mr. Right is difficult no matter who (or what) you are. In the feature, Sam wakes up one day to discover he has been transformed into a giant cockroach. He spends the rest of his day on a surreal quest, not only to return to his normal self, but also to save his girlfriend from threats both mundane and extraordinary, with the hope a new start together.

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“You are accused of stealing the intellectual property of Einstein, Dirac and Heisenberg.” The middle-aged speaker waved his finger at Professor Hillabin, more in the manner of a prosecutor than a judge.

This episode of the Drabblecast illustrates the folly of bureaucracy. In the drabble, one by one an entire classroom of students are promoted to be their own teachers. In the feature, a lost, dimension-hopping scientist is trapped in a world where scientific theories are considered intellectual property. Unable to perform his calculations without them, he finds himself on trial for failure to pay royalties. When he cannot convince the court to take mercy on him, he pulls looses a devastating strategy.

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The shop bell rang at the front of the St. George Tim Hortons. I didn’t see who came in, but when Shel looked up, his eyes widened.

“Crap.” He whispered. “It’s my kidney.”

“Your kidney?” I asked. I turned in my seat, but Shel jerked me back by the shoulder. He held up his free hand to shield his face.

“Shhh,” he murmured. “Don’t look at it…”

The theme of this episode of the Drabblecast is awkward run-ins. In the Drabble (pulled from the Dribblecast) a man returns home from work and is unable to relate to his wife. In the feature, a stalker ex-kidney illuminates how ending relationships is akin to losing a part of yourself.

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“Mrs. Levine, it is hard enough for someone to find the right person to love in the world, even with all the people in it. For Yeshua, it is almost impossible. Would you have him fall in love with a human girl and pine for her until his heart broke and we would have to erase the letter that gives him life? Reduce him back to a lifeless thing?”

This episode of the Drabblecast is about adoption. In the drabble, a grieving father performs terrible experiments with the comfort food brought by well-intentioned neighbors. In the feature, a fawning mother grapples with conflicting fears for her son, a golem, when he falls in love with a non-Jewish construct. Despite her distress, she must ask: In a world where options for love are severely limited, what role does faith play?

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It had rolled and tumbled, whatever it was, gelatinous and tentacled, from lake to canal to stream.

People watched from the shore, following it with opera glasses and sea telescopes. Some thought it was a squid, others an octopus, others still just a glob of fatty flesh from some aquatic animal long torn apart and rotten. It was milky and translucent with tiny red hooks lining the each of its sixteen flacid arms. Deep blue bruises speckled the skin, wrinkling in like spots on a tomato. It had no visible eyes…

This double header features two “postcard stories” by Will Ludwigsen. In Nora’s Thing, sickly Nora’s sister and friends bring her to a mysterious creature they hope has healing powers. In Endless Encore, a sinister puppet show occurs nightly for its audience of one.

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I step out of a porter booth in the overheated Los Angeles station and reach up to peel off my winter coat. That’s when I realize something’s wrong with my hand — it feels numb and prickly, and the fingers aren’t quite responding the way they’re supposed to. Weird. I don’t recall circulatory problems being listed among the possible side effects…

This episode of The Drabblecast explores the meaning of identity. In the drabble, two friends swap bodies after being struck by lightning, but is anyone paying attention? In the feature, having an extra finger after a teleporter accident turns out to be the least of Lila’s worries; she now must contend with an entirely additional Lila.

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My new occupant is larger than Carson was. I was made for her, within a certain tolerance for the inevitable changes in human specifications that come with age, changes in health, and abundance or scarcity…

This episode of the Drabblecast is all about Mechs, aside from the beat poetry that it begins and ends with. The drabble is a snapshot of a new Mexican-American war. In the feature, after being commandeered by its partner’s murderer, a mech suit ponders the meaning of ownership and freedom, while applying creative problem solving to defy its unwanted occupant.

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Three boy zombies in matching red jackets bussed our table, bringing water, lighting candles, brushing away the crumbs between courses.   Their eyes were dark, attentive, lifeless… This episode of The Drabblecast is all about zombies. In the drabble, a post-outbreak actor is almost too talented for his own good. In the feature, a job interview leads Donald to contemplate the horrors of an economic zombie apocalypse: What happens to the living when the dead become a more valuable, more efficient substitute for both industrial and private uses?

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Divorce in the House of Flies by Dustin Reade

Wendigo Bake Sale by Leslianne Wilder

Knit by Brenda Stokes Barron

We bought our first yarn baby at a garage sale. The ends of its arms were frayed and its eye buttons dangled loose on bare threads.

This theme of this episode of the Drabblecast is family unties: Nontraditional homes and family situations. In the drabble, the enterprising resident of a haunted house fools its ghosts into performing everyday domestic tasks. In Divorce in the House of Flies, a young boy has to deal with his parents’ divorce at the same time he has to deal with their transformation into human-shaped masses of tiny insects. In Wendigo Bake Sale, residents of a small town overcome their initial terror of a pair of wendigo participating in the school bake sale, only to be frightened anew when the wendigo reveal they are supporting the school because their child attends. In Knit, after losing their first yarn baby during her rebellious teen years in a tragic unraveling accident, a couple tries vainly to reconstruct her from the scraps of yarn, stuffing, and buttons left behind.

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