The spookiness of a dim, overcrowded antique shop packed to the brim with bric-a-brac can scarcely be denied. Add some malicious magic into the equation, and you’ve arrived at the setting of Patti Larsen’s “Lifted.” This is a curiosity shop best visited during daylight hours.

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Essay Written By: Patti Larsen

Essay Voiced By: Jasmine Hammond

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Kallista Kusumanegara constructs a singular vision out of flashes of many, lending new ideas to what comes after life. “Destination" calls for a letting-go, allowing us to surrender to the wash of words, visuals, and stories.

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Essay Written By: Kallista Kusumanegara

Essay Voiced By: Gary Spangler

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Mirages. They can come from wistful thinking, from nostalgia, from the burning sun. In “Heat Stress,” Claire Ibarra immerses us in the mind of a mother running away from her past into the Moab desert. But what is she running toward?

Check out this essay at: https://vocal.media/fiction/heat-stress

Essay Written By: Claire Ibarra

Essay Voiced By: Tessa Flannery

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The ballet - an art which embodies culture, beauty, and grace. But what of the people behind the performance? Elodie Hollant’s “Libellule” offers a glimpse into the personal world of one ballerina, following her as she moves from a childhood love of dance into the darker complexities of adulthood.

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Essay Written By: Kelson Hayes

Essay Voiced By: Crystal Judkins

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“Fresh Off the Boat” provides a look at the present through the lens of a sobering vision of the future — a world darker, but not too different from our own. Kelson Hayes brings us to a dystopian Central Europe which may be just around the corner for all of us.

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Essay Written By: Kelson Hayes

Essay Voiced By: Gary Spangler

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It's one of the hottest summers in recorded history and a couple are attempting to navigate their relationship to each other — and to the future of the Earth. In "Burden of Proof," Scott Hardy captures cycles of inner and outer conflict with a dark and biting wit.

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Essay Written By: Scott Hardy

Essay Voiced By: Wilson Conkwright

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A familiar scent is a surefire way to catapult the mind back into memory, to a particular moment in time. Decay, a sea breeze, wine. Three smells that tie this story together, and propel the protagonist down a west coast highway. Steve Hanson’s “The Envious Flood” resists the pull of nostalgia to level a clear-eyed gaze at the past.

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Essay Written By: Steve Hanson

Essay Voiced By: Gary Spangler

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There’s fear of the unknown - darkness, monsters, and the like - but sometimes the most terrifying are the things - and people - we think we know best. Jacqueline Garrahan’s “Bull” is a masterful look into the frigid, the cruel, and the disturbing, deep in the dead of a Maine night.

Check out this essay at: https://vocal.media/fiction/bull-s44z6d0a07

Essay Written By: Jacqueline Garrahan

Essay Voiced By: Gary Spangler

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Settle into the southern humidity with Lucas Díaz-Medina’s “Going Fishing.” A journey of introspection and self discovery unfolds as two boys mosey down a bayou back road. Family history and mythmaking collide when a passerby gives the boys a lift. 

Check out this essay at: https://vocal.media/fiction/going-fishing-5gecdm0imj

Essay Written By: Lucas Díaz-Medina

Essay Voiced By: Daniel Ison

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Matthew Daniels puts a new spin on job interviews with “Mistress of the House of Books.” With a heavenly interviewee, the power dynamics are bound to be flipped. But there are some roles in this world that just can’t be reversed.

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Essay Written By: Matthew Daniels

Essay Voiced By: Tessa Flannery

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