Escape Pod 648 A Handful of Dal - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2RsuBpR
Start with the dal. Wash it like one washes the feet of ascetics entering a temple: with love, with care. Shake loose the dirt and twigs that inevitably stow away alongside it. Perhaps this note will stow away with you onto the Yatra, a tiny mote of…
Escape Pod 645 The Revolution, Brought to You by Nike (Part 2) - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2NzYXI7
Launch day came on a bright Tuesday, amid a flurry of reports that the executive office had pushed through a series of contracts requiring the president's own hotel properties be the preferred vendor for all federal travel going forward. via Pocket
Escape Pod 640 Paradise Regained - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2OUfNiJ
My head hurts. I expect it: this is winter. I want it to be spring. Paradise does not ask what I want. via Pocket
They come to study. Not me. Not really. No, they come for Aerik-what he's become. What I suppose we both will become when the slow swell of time and gravity finally draw us together wholly. via Pocket
Escape Pod 627 Humans Die, Stars Fade - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2L4nBv9
Blender whirred with sympathy. "I did," said Toaster, "and everything seems to be working. It was like my settings had been changed. I guess they had. It's not my fault if Owner gives me the wrong settings." via Pocket
Escape Pod 641 Flash Fiction Contest Winners - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2Mnfmjh
Mother Tongues By S. Qiouyi Lu "Thank you very much," you say, concluding the oral portion of the exam. You gather your things and exit back into the brightly lit hallway. Photos line the walls: the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, Machu Picch…
Escape Pod 636 Mother Tongues - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2MpMhDX
Escape Pod 655 And Then There Were (N-One) (Part 4) - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2S6ToQ0
Back in my room, I stripped my wet clothes off and replaced them with another T-shirt and boxer shorts. The whiskey didn't do the job I'd hoped it would, so I spent the night in imaginary conversation with Mabel. The rain battering the window filled…
Escape Pod 653 And Then There Were (N-One) (Part 2) - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2qCTZxa
Not me, my logic brain understood, even though some tiny part of me screamed something was wrong. I'd made it through the entire afternoon talking with people who were more like me than an identical twin would be, but the body was somehow more real.…
Escape Pod 652 And Then There Were (N-One), (Part 1) - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2JBxRfi
I considered declining the invitation. It was too weird, too expensive, too far, too dangerous, too weird. Way too weird. An invitation like that would never come again. I'd regret it if I didn't go. It lay on our kitchen table for three weeks while…
I'm off my bunk and into my jodhpurs, knee-high leather boots and flight jacket the moment the long range air attack klaxons seep into my nightly dream about Caracara. via Pocket
Escape Pod 656 Into the Breach (Flashback Friday) - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2P6CTBu
Computron feels no emotion towards the animated television show titled Hyperdimension Warp Record (超次元 ワープ レコード). via Pocket
Escape Pod 624 Fandom for Robots - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2HAfqcg
via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io
In the end, the discovery of evidence of extraterrestrial life, and not just life, but intelligence, got hopelessly mucked up because no one wanted to take responsibility for confirming the findings, and no one could decide who ultimately had the au…
Escape Pod 667 The Best We Can - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2tWNOp1
Brochures fanned across the lace tablecloth in Grandma's dining room. Up close, I saw the recruiter's immaculate makeup starting to crack, the silver showing against auburn at the part in her hair. She slanted forward with briefcase on knees and wei…
Escape Pod 620 Promise (Artemis Rising) - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2FVKRgT
Escape Pod 654 And Then There Were (N-One) (Part 3) - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2K840eC
Back in the hallway, I dug in my bag for a pen. I'd normally have taken notes while she talked, but I'd had a feeling it would have shut her up. Instead of a pen, I came up with the dinner roll I'd taken earlier. I ate it in two bites. via Pocket
via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io
via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io
The little cleanerbot whirrs as it crisscrosses the arena, sucking up the robot dust with the vacuum chute on its right and picking up strewn robot parts with the multi-hinged arm on its front. via Pocket
Escape Pod 673 Optimizing the Verified Good (Artemis Rising) - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2CIrft3
Surveillance Fatigue By Jennifer R. Donohue Is this woman a terrorist? It's my job to decide. My typical first step is social media, before I delve into the emails, the school records. via Pocket
Escape Pod 623 Surveillance Fatigue - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2nTsk9F
I'm sorry I waited so long to tell you this, but I really hate your vacation cabin. Everything about it creeps me out. The sound of crickets at night makes my skin crawl. via Pocket
Escape Pod 650 Some Things I Probably Should Have Mentioned Earlier (LIVE) - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2Aj0YRk
Carmen would have expected a gold necklace or tarnished antique, maybe some money or a secret family recipe card, but she'd never dreamed her grandmother would try to immortalize herself through an inheritance like this. via Pocket
via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io
Escape Pod 702 Inheritance - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2qnrR48
Escape Pod 715 A Box, a Pocket, a Spaceman | Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2Tv9sij
The spaceman shows up on a hot summer afternoon, not in the dead of night when you're crouched in the garden peering through a telescope that shows you the endless glories and wonders of the night sky. There's no spaceship making a bright arc agains…
via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io
Naru Dames Sundar writes speculative fiction and poetry. His work has appeared at PodCastle, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons and is forthcoming at Shimmer Magazine. He lives in the redwoods of Northern california. You can find him online at www.shardof…
Escape Pod 605 Straight Lines - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2j3bBC4