Tag Archives: The Literal Challenge

Long-time Companion

TBM-2106.08 – Long-time Companion

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Description:

#audio #flashfiction #ballet #liketheprose

Excerpt:

At first our relationship was tenuous. I wasn’t sure where to put my hands, how much pressure to use. Sometimes my hand would slip, or I’d lift the wrong leg, and my foot would make abrupt contact. It hurt me far more than it did him.

Links and References

Support:

The Bathtub Mermaid is now on Patreon! If you like the stories and essays I share, and want to have occasional visits from Mei-Mei del Mare, please consider subscribing.

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the Auphonic iPhone app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects are from Freesound.

Contact:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:51 — 3.7MB)

Steaming coffee

TBM-2008.14 – (De)Caffeinated

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Steaming coffee

Description:

#audio. #flashfiction Everyone has an evil twin.

Excerpt:

But she’ll enjoy the experience, even so, because he’ll lure her in with assurances that he’ll treat her the same, that her lips won’t know the difference.

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the Auphonic iPhone app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects are from Freesound.

Contact:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:54 — 2.9MB)

Feather

TBM-2008.07 – Deception Betwixt ‘R’ and ‘T’

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Feather

Description:

#Audio. #Flashfic. #Lipogram  #Fantasy A bar room magician cannot eliminate a letter from existence… can he?

Excerpt:

The food and liquor had flowed like – well, like food and liquor tend to flow in a place where the barkeep let you run a tab and the final check never actually arrived. Gourmet, all of it, or high-end where gourmet didn’t apply.

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell,
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound effects are from Freesound.

Contact:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:34 — 4.3MB)

TBM-2005.04 – Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

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Description:

#audio. #essay A piece I wrote last year that was supposed to be a didactic dialogue about gun violence. It’s neither didactic nor a dialogue.

Excerpt:

Before that day, neither of us even knew his name.

Before that day, we were typical American kids, who sometimes pretended we were holding rifles or pistols when improvising scenes or re-enacting favorite bits from action films.

Before that day, I had no problem playing video games that involved blasting alien ships out of the sky.

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the Auphonic iPhone app and Audacity.
  • Photo by Daniel van den Berg on Unsplash
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects are from Freesound.

Contact:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:57 — 9.6MB)