Hello and welcome to the Drapylcast, episode

three 54. The Drapylcast is a weekly audio fiction magazine

that brings strange stories by strange authors to strange listeners such as yourself.

I'm your host, Norm Sherman.

Great Women and Aliens Month double-headed this week for you, featuring author Sylvia Spruck Riggly. But first

let's get to a hundred-word story. Our travel this week is called

Zither and it comes to us from Rianen Rasmussen. Here goes.

Kressala set the stained Zither across her feathered thighs.

She was not playing for handouts today.

Most people avoided the loading docks of the spaceport,

especially this empty bay, scarred by fatal accidents

among lumbering cargo cranes.

She tuned the strings, then plucked out a chasing ghost song.

Discordant notes drew restless spirits in.

A whisper, a gust, spun out from between open airlock doors,

scattering dust and flakes of yellow warning paint.

She lured it with melody closer, closer.

Then slapped her hand against the zither once, twice.

The wind died.

Chrysala smiled.

A new stain

stain marked her zither's belly. And on to our double-headed special this week, alienated and old flames by Sylvia Spruck Riggly.

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