PodCastle

* Author : Caroline M. Yoachim
* Narrator : Miyuki Jane Pinckard
* Host : Matt Dovey
* Audio Producers : Devin Martin and Eric Valdes
*
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Previously published by Uncanny Magazine



Rated R





“The Traveler’s Guide to the Goblin Fells is an expansion book for the 5th edition of the world’s most litigious roleplaying game, about halflings riding giant pugs fighting against goblins piloting arcanotech mechs for control of valuable farmland at the onset of a brutal winter. The harvest is lean and there’s not enough to go around, someone’s going to go hungry this winter, but it doesn’t have to be you. The Goblin Fells can be easily located in any campaign setting and use the Creative Commons Weskven setting by default, so look for it on Kickstarter now or DriveThruRPG in the future to support the open source setting and indie development.”

[Note: This is Part 3 of a three-part novelette. Visit our previous posts to read Part 1 and Part 2.]
 
ALIZARIN CRIMSON
 
I’m still fighting the ultramarine depths of despair some fifteen years later, when I meet Joshua at the Club DeLisa. We get to talking, a fragmented conversation to fill the space between sets. He’s a singer and he used to play trumpet in a swing band, up until he got caught in Chicago by wartime travel restrictions. Little Brother Montgomery and The Red Saunders Band are playing tonight, along with a comedian and some dancers.
“I love the music, but what really brings me here is the energy. It reminds me of the Café Guerbois —  in Paris. I used to go there with some artist friends of mine, painters who wanted to push boundaries and create something new.” There’s something about him or the music or the energy of the club tonight that compels me to keep talking. “The way the musicians build on each other, changing the nature of music, it fills me with nostalgia. They have a passion that I’ve been missing for a long time.”
He gives me a strange look. “You’re one of those immortals, like Pops.”
“Yes.” I’d heard him play once, back in the ‘20s before he moved to New York. I hadn’t realized he was immortal, but that did make sense of all the tall tales and inconsistencies when he talked about his childhood. I can’t help but wonder who turned him.
“You must really be something special, then,” Joshua says. “Show me your paintings?”
“Only if you’ll sing for me.” I’m flirting without meaning to, leaning in close as we try to talk over the noise of the club. He has the same vibrancy the performers here have, and I long to taste him, to connect at a deeper level.
We stay late, almost until dawn, drinking beer and discussing everything from the gorgeous poems in Georgia Douglas Johnson’s An Autumn Love Cycle to Archibald Motley’s vibrant paintings of nightlife —  both in Paris and here in Bronzeville. Our conversation turns to the war, and he talks about the delicate dance of supporting the war efforts while simultaneously pushing for civil rights for Black folks here at home; the Pittsburgh Courier was calling it “the Double V Campaign.” At some point he mentions the Japanese internment camps,