Part 1 of 1
Read the full text, as well as the show notes, at http://flashpulp.com
Tonight, we present a tale of the generation gap, creeping terror, and childish misadventure.
The Skinner Co. Network
FP327 - Of the Old School, Part 1 of 1
Some days grew me, my hours are slumberless. Dear is the shadows I live with, I'm underless. Little wife flowers will never awaken you. Not where the brachult you saw was taking you. Angels have no fire ever turning you. Would they be angry if I saw to join in you? Welcome to Flashpulp, episode 327. This evening we present, of the old school, Part 1 of 1. This week's episodes are brought to you by the Parsecs. The Parsec Awards, those strange and compelling trophies for speculative fiction podcasting, came to earth in 2006 with powers and abilities far beyond those of normal awards. The Parsec Awards have been known to make you a better podcaster, so you can stand straighter, walk taller, and stop taking separate bubble baths in front of sunsets. So what would you pay for such an opportunity? Don't answer yet. Act now and nominate a podcast before May 27th, and you too can help a deserving podcaster turn his or her life around and win a parsec award. Go to parsecawards.com and nominate a deserving podcaster. Act now. Operators are standing by. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age. Three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. Tonight, we present a tale of the generation gap, creeping terror, and childish misadventure. Of the old school, written by J.R.D. Skinner, art in narration by Popon X, and audio produced by Jessica May. [MUSIC] She didn't enjoy talking to people, especially folks she didn't know. But Octavia Archer was determined to offload some thin mints. Sometimes, that required patience. "I'm of the old school," Mrs. Hemming, her current prospective customer, was saying through a thin-lipped mouth. "But it strikes me that a girl your age shouldn't be out running around by herself." The girl thought, "Should I be off learning to cook instead?" But said nothing. The pair were standing in the front hall of a Victorian-style house that smelled of dust, with the scout holding a bag full of cookies and the old woman grasping two boxes of sweets, while peering into a velvet change purse. Octavia had often heard urban legends, mostly ghost stories about the residents, but the girl's mother had taught her to know that no one could afford such a palace without having some money, even if the place did appear to be collapsing in the slow motion. As the young Archer was preparing to clear her throat in impatience, a train entered the hall. Its approach came in jerky inches, and its choice of direction looked to be largely decided by the coincidence of its orientation after impacting on the floral print of the opposite wall. "Is that a robot?" asked Octavia. It moved like a cheap Christmas present her little brother would love. But the two-foot high and three-foot long engine was made of wood and brass ornamentation. It was painted in a mint green with gold accents, and its domes and chimneys were entwined in an intricate pattern of carved loops. While the thing's rubber wheels rolled across the oak floor, she heard a tick tick tick, which put her immediately in mind the baseball card she sometimes saw in kids' bike spokes. "Not as you're used to," responded Henning. "My toys were built using ancient techniques, not electricity. As you can see, there's no plastic involved. Except for his rollers, there's nothing involved that my mother couldn't have accomplished in her day." At the sound of her voice, the locomotive began a wide turn, seeking its builder. "There's also a whistle that I'd wrought with my own hands. But he never uses it." "Huh," said Octavia. "I've got change for a 20th, that's all you can find." Henning turned from her creation to the girl. Her lips flattened and her nose twitched, but her eyes sparkled. "Most children have forgotten how to be polite in the last two decades," said the woman. "Never mind, though. Come with me. I've got a jar with some extra paper money in the basement, but I'm afraid I'll need you to grab it for me. I'm not as nimble as I was." Without waiting for an answer, she departed. It was the sort of house that swallowed noise, and after turning a corner, the tinkerer seemed to have been absorbed by the rotting walls. "Tick, tick, tick," said the approaching train. Octavia followed. The basement appeared to have been fully furnished once, but the side rooms that the youth passed on her way to her supposed payment were now filled with carpentry tools, workbenches, and pencil-scrawled diagrams. Some of the spaces contained more automatons. A half-cabinet, half-man construction whose aimlessly swinging arms looked to Octavia like a rock-and-sock-on robot without a partner. A crudely carved dog that crawled with the same painful inching as the train above. But whose spindly, unmoving legs the girl's scout decidedly did not like. In a series of three boxes that she thought of as moving sculptures, a waving flower, a writhing snake, and a woman's arm. It was the limb that made the girl stop. The flower looked to be largely made of felt, and the snake was built from a series of overlapping cloth rings that gave the thing cartoonish scales. The arm, however, was slender, smooth, and absolutely realistic. Octavia did the math, decided she could simply cover the two missing boxes out of her own allowance, and began to reverse. "Thank you. Thank you. You can pay me later," she announced. But her hostess had disappeared into yet another chamber filled with tools. An interest in waiting for her return, the girl ignored the pathetic imitation of a mutt that had begun to follow as she made her way to the stairs. From within her increasingly distant room, Heming was saying, "I'm of the old school." Survival skills were important, then. You youth. You were all too couch-bound to run. Too used to the safety of your carefully padded existences to recognize danger. The girl was nearly to the banister when the train rolled its last. Octavia left the door at the top open, and as the machine's cowcatcher cleared the first step, it let fly with its whistle. Its flight was not long nor graceful, and its descent was largely spent bouncing and over end with increasing momentum. It stopped when it came up against the stone and mortar wall, but not until its oak frame had split and its brass bells scattered. Within the wreckage was also the ruin of a man. His left arm had been chipped away as with a chisel, and his right had been bound tightly to his chest so long ago that his body had grown around the leather and chrome of the belt. Beside him lay the panel that had made up the bottom of his conveyance, and the girl noted a small window that she soon enabled him to claw at the floor. It was his sole form of transportation for where his legs ought to have been. He had only flailing stumps topped in pink scar tissue. He attempted to say something to Octavia as he died, but his tongueless mouth summoned just whistles and clicks. "I think he was trying to warn you, but he stopped you instead," Heming said into the girl's right ear. Octavia did not always agree with her mother, but she knew one thing about the woman. She was of the new school, and she had raised her daughter to be so as well. The pepper spray cleared the girl's pocket before her intended attacker could raise her axe from her shoulder. And the modern science of death's methyl dehydro capsaicin flooded the woman's eyes and nose. In the time that it took to leap the train wreck and sprint out the front door, Octavia had already begun to shout directions to the 911 operator on the other end of herself on. [MUSIC] FlashPulp is presented by FlashPulp.com and is released under the Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 3.0 unported license. Text and audio commentaries can be sent to comments@flashpulp.com, but be aware that they may appear in a future Flashcast. We'd also like to thank the FreeSound Project, found at freesound.org. For a full listing of effects used during the show, as well as credits for the users who provided them, check this episode's notes at flashpulp.com. And thanks to you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please tell your friends. [MUSIC] Sunday is gloomy, my hours are number left. Give it the shadows I live with are number left. [MUSIC]