It Could Happen Here - CZM Book Club: Girls Who Look Through Glass, by Alex Smith

Episode Date: March 15, 2026

Margaret reads you a story about the magic embeded into the mundaneSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Tonight, our 2026 I-Hart podcast awards are happening live at South by Southwest. It's the biggest night in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is... Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display.

Thank you so much. IHeart Radio. Thank you to all the other nominees. You guys are awesome. Watch live tonight at 8. You know, Eastern 5 p.m. Pacific, free at veeps.com or the Veeps app. You know Roald Dahl. He thought up Willie Wonka and the BFG.

But did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, The Secret World of Roll Dahl, I'll tell you that story, and much, much more. What? You probably won't believe it either. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you.

I was a spy. Listen to the secret world of Roll D'Old. Dahl on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Chetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Hillary Duff, singer, actress, and multi-platinum artist. You desire in family like this picture, and that's not reality. My sister and I don't speak. It's definitely a very painful part of my life.

And I hope it's not forever, but it's for right now. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story? Evidence has been made to fit. The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed. What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe? Oh my God, I think she might be innocent.

Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Lettby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Media. Book club, book club, book club. Hello, and welcome to the Cool Zone Media Book Club. The only book club where you don't have to do the reading, because I do it for you. And this week, we have a tour the force from an author, artist, and musician named Alex Smith. It's called Girls Who Look Through Glass. And it's from Alex's phenomenal 2022 collection, ArkDust from Rosarium Publishing.

There is so much in this story to be excited about. It has incredibly niche radical cultural references. It has a main character who brandishes a box cutter as her blade of choice. It has white people being extra white. It has divine metaphors for the experience of grief or of being newly called into medical movements or I don't actually totally know what the metaphor is exactly about. It's up to you because that's the beauty of reading and it's what makes this story so good. So let's get into it.

Girls who look through glass by Alex Smith. Packs of artisanal biscuits stacked in several rows, shrink-wrapped and dusty, rows of organic pickled sauerkraut and reclaimed mason jars. She wields her box cutter over these items like a samurai with her sword, ripping through splintered cardboard boxes, down the aisles decorated with rows of burlap sacks filled with bacon-infused, gluten-free syraccia bars, and oat cakes in cellophane bags adorned with pictures of old white men on horses.

She slits the top of a package with one precise, gentle glide, ignoring the picture of a knife with a ghostbuster slashed through it, her blade gently grazing a packet of caramelized satan chips. She then snaps the blade back in its metal sheath and glides the thing into her back pocket. It's a delicate act of violence. The aisles are quiet tonight. Minutes ago, they were a yammering mix of gentrifiers

glued to their cell phones on conference calls, and soccer moms shrewish, in their investigation of every ingredient and the packs of incense and the bags of frozen kale lining their carts. The only time, it seemed to her, that any of them cared about whether something was organic or free range, was if enough of the hoard was within earshot. They all seemed to compete for airtime,

bearded hipsters with their own grocery bags made of hemp rope, hippie nannies and thrifted sun dresses still caked in dirt from repairing bikes all day, or planting bok choy in the hydroponic garden they started in the cemetery behind a school. Ma'am, that's, it's not free range, it's lettuce, she'd say, tucking a whittled down pencil behind her ear, straightening her apron, backing away incrementally, trying to blend back into the background as if she never existed.

But I do exist. She says out loud, snapping out of her reverie, where am I? A quick look around at the shelves, some barren and scattered, some so sloppily haphazard, now melting frozen soy shark fin dangling over a row of numinose cookies and botanical powdered nutrient bath supplements tossed behind cans of overpriced Amy's three-bean soup, that she might have wondered out loud if any of that postgraduate school money they were earning could afford her customers some manners.

She let out a snort. Oh, yeah, inventory. She lifts herself off of her knees, dusts herself off, habit checks for her box cutter. Get hold of yourself, Vanda. Most nights were spent in the back room, sitting with Chef, watching her chain smoke as she scrolls through reels of security tape,

looking for anything odd she might have missed on her shift. Hey, baby girl, chef calls to Von. Patti the chair beside her as if to say, Sit, letting out sick, ropey streams of smoke with every word she barks. A white girl from the Northeast who battled through the meth epidemic unscathed, Chef's presence is commanding.

Her belly is a mound of asymmetrical flesh easing around her overalls in a liquid swim. Chef's fingers are sawn off sticks, racked with jaundice and dirt, her hair a swath of tangled grease. Chef laughs, points a cigarette at her monitor, while Vonda eases into the doorway. This girl, she says, still chuckling. This girl in the goddamn trench coat.

What a goddamn creeper. Vonda takes a step or two towards the monitor. She pulls back her long dreads and squints tightly, focusing. There's a woman on the screen and a long black trench coat, yes, and a black, wide-brimmed hat. Vonda thinks the woman on the monitor looks ridiculous. Who is that? she asks, chef. What, I don't know, I thought you knew, chef retorts, more amused than astonished. She just sort of appears on the screen over here every time you do.

Like, she scrolls. Yeah, like right here. You're spraying down the apples, and she just sort of stands there, like hovering or some shit. I don't know. You're telling me you don't know her? Nah, Vonda whispers as the hair on her back gently ripples. Nah, I don't know that woman. Oh, Jesus Christ!

The woman on the screen seems to coruscate as she moves, her body smeared with traces of staticy black lines. The mystery woman, this vague creature, she looks like a smudge of clotted ink, barely cohesive, her every movement to streak. Did you just see that? See what? She's just standing there. What? Chef looks at Vonda with concern.

You all right, baby girl? Vanda usually. balks when chef calls her baby girl and feels unfamiliar and a little forced, ripped from a butch to English dictionary. But this time, feeling a little woozy, Vanda lets it slide without any remarks or turn of the lip. Vanda is transfixed on the security monitor. The woman of static stops moving suddenly in the middle of rummaging through apples, straightening up and smoothing out her coat, turning until she seems to be facing the camera, peering through the monitor screen. Her eyes are small beads swimming around underneath thick horned rims.

She looks directly into the camera, her lips like a total blur, moving rapidly, as of speaking in tongues. Whoa, okay, that's different, chef yells. Is this some kind of prank, Vanda? It's like she knows we're watching her or some shit, like now, in real time. Chef's voice quiet, as if she realizes the ridiculousness of her own statement. Honestly, I swear I've never seen her in my life, Vonda exclaims, panicking. Vonda can feel her breath getting shorter. Her words quavering, bouncing and tingling off the backroom walls like metallic feathers. She moves nervously, closer to her chef's sitting, bending down and nearly shoving her face into the screen.

Vonda gets so close that a waft of the smoky husk, its cardamom and carcinogen, emanating off of chef seems to float there, in the space around her like an aura. The woman in the trench coat leaps suddenly at them, her mouth wide, gnarled and grotesque, her fingers long and wiry. They both jump. Chef loses her cigarette, nearly falling out of her chair.

The screen turns to fuzz and static, then black, and then, back to the serenity of the co-op, where hippies and stay-at-home dads with large-headed white babies and cloth sings on their backs, frolic amidst vegan peanut cheese. shoes and kale chips. But you saw that, though, right? Vonda asks chef with a tremor snaking through her voice.

I'm not, I'm not just seeing things, am I? I don't know, that was fucking surreal. What am I even seeing, baby girl? Vonda unfolds a chair leaning on the wall and slumps down in it beside her co-worker. She cups her face and her hands and sighs deeply. After a moment with chef staring at her, as if Vonda would provide an explanation somehow, magically perhaps, to the weird shit they'd both seen. Chef, I don't know, Vonda huffs.

She leans back, reaching for chef's pack of cigarettes. One left. She pops the Lucy out and gently tosses the pack at Chef, who, startled, catches it in her nicotine-stained, yellowing fingers. And stop calling me that. And call everybody that, chef responds, turning back to you. to the monitor, her voice a muted murmur. And do you know who always call you baby girl in a maternal but still kind of stilted way? That's right.

It's the products and services that support this show, because they love you so very dearly. But the confines of capitalism must always keep them at arm's distance. Here's ads. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are at them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce. Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart and I'm Catherine Clark and in this podcast we interview Canada's most inspiring women entrepreneurs artists athletes politicians and newsmakers all at different

stages of their journey so if you're looking to connect then we hope you'll join us listen to the honest talk podcast and iHeart radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts tonight our 2026 iHeart podcast awards are happening live at south by southwest just the biggest night in podcasting will honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is... Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. IHeartRadio.

Thank you to all the other nominees. You guys are awesome. Watch live tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at Veeps. Or the Veeps app. Hey, I'm Jay Chetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Hillary Duff, singer, actress, multi-platinum artist. Hillary opens up about complicated family dynamics, motherhood, and releasing our first record in over 10 years. We talk about what it's taken to grow up

in the entertainment industry and stay grounded through every chapter. It's a raw and honest conversation about identity, evolution, and building a life that truly matters. You desire in family like this picture and that's not reality a lot of the times for people. My sister and I don't speak. It's definitely a very painful part of my life. And I hope it's not forever, but it's for right now. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roll Doll, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG.

But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Doll, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary,

controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you.

The guy was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's? Played poker with Harry Truman and had a long affair with a congresswoman. And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchman. before writing a hit James Bond film.

How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids. The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And we're back. Vonda Ray leans against the wall behind the co-op. Her backpack is filled with pre-rotting potatoes. Some bottles of a discontinued brand of cumin, coriander, oregano, all-spice, with Gwyneth Paltrow's face on them,

and a bundle of scalyons that were, she finally admits to herself, just cold-jacked off the rack. She smokes a cigarette. Chef leaves the store, too, with two other co-workers. Hey, Fonda pulls a hit off the cigarette. Hey, all done in there? Yeah, chef bangs the heavy door shut, then pounds out. it with her fist. This bitch is secure. She leans into Vonda's ear. No fucking ghost creeps in this rat trap on my shift. Believe that. Chef smiles a breathy smile. Pets her hand on Vonda's shoulder.

You gonna be all right? Yeah, Vonda manages to smile back. Yeah, I'm good. She watches Chef and their two co-workers ambled down 49th Street, recounting their day, ruminating about shitty customers and the dilapidated point-of-sale system's repeat failures, and, as they disappear around the corner of Florence Street, she turns her attention to the tendrils of smoke she blows into the crisp night air. The moon is out, a reflecting pool of milk suspended in black, a weird mirror aimed at our hearts so we can see in the darkness, so we can see our own souls.

Vanda gets a text from one of her roommates. Are you coming? You're supposed to bring cardboard from the co-op dumpster. She texts back. Not tonight. You of all people should be there tonight with a frowny face emoji. She starts and stops a message several times, struggling to articulate what she feels.

It's the same weight of emotion whenever she neglects a chore on the chore wheel, or whenever she's a day late for rent, or when she's playing music a little too loudly on her laptop, tucked in her room, wishing the day away. when she's sitting in the living room having Cheerios with a friend and watching Akira on the so-called community VCR, she's taking too much advantage of the space. When she's in her room smoking weed with her on again, off again Caroline, she's being antisocial.

Being the black girl in an all-white community house in West Philadelphia feels like being stuck in the gravitron at a carnival, dizzying, crushing weights slamming her against the wall, a palpable gravity with no tangible manipulator, just constantly being betrayed by an unseen force. I'm erased here, she told Caroline over a bowl a few nights ago. Just, I don't know. Like, how did I get here, you know? Caroline followed Vonda's grand gesture of here

by looking around the room. Posters of Pat Benatar, a book on the situationists, a pile of band t-shirts with a pile of band t-shirts with names like filth and pig destroyer, littering the floor. I don't know, because, Caroline hummed, exhaling her slow southern draw, untainted by two years of living in Philly, eking out across lips so dark they were black. Seems like you'd fit right in here. Vonda smiled.

She liked the way Caroline's voice reminded her of the women she knew from the South, women who could weave a mosaic in cornrows, whose sweet tea poured out of a jug like cotton, candy. The question is, Miss Thing, Caroline said, putting the blunt out on a makeshift tin can ash tray and removing her oversized African print top in what seemed like one motion. What the hell am I doing here? They grinned at each other. Vanda's foot graced Caroline's leg, her toes walking up her friend's shin. Come here and find out. And now, while her roommates gather in the living room hands sticky with glue and palms.

covered in ink, she's in that space again, desperately seeking something to give her control over her life, to give her space to scream. Vonda turns her phone on again. She's going to put an end to this shit. Yeah, she'd worked enough hours at the co-op, saved a little cash. She'd stay on Caroline's couch for a week or two until she could come up with the remainder for a deposit. it. The worst, she figured, was that, yeah, she had stayed at the shelter before, and yeah, she could sell her cousin's broken bike for parts, so it was okay. It was time to go, and she was going to do it through a text message, sure, a taste of their own note-leaving, angry text-messaging, Facebook-shaming medicine. In all caps, Vanda would scream this time, for sure, not just in

pursuit of a metaphorical truth. On her phone's screen, the letter. Letters swirl around in a strange soup. They dance like embers, then erupt, leaping from the phone itself. Pixels form a dust cloud, like a swirl of a hundred star particles pulled from everywhere, coalescing until they are a static body. A girl, a girl of static, meshy dust and cosmic ephemera

appears before Vanda, radiating shattered light, a ghost. Do not be afraid of me, please. I don't have much time. This can't be fucking real. Vonda sinks to her knees. The ghost being swirls about her, an ionized creature, half there flickering. Vonda reaches to touch it, but...

No, I don't think you should touch me. Please, we haven't much time. What? Are you the woman from the store from before? No, I am not. Wait, there were others? Panic strikes the ghost woman's already tinny, darkly radioactive voice. She's phasing in and out.

Please, we are beings of light. We mean you no harm. But the dark ones are coming, the Ragnarocks, the trimetric chimera, the monastic order of the temporal knights, those who bear no name except the name of the all, the claimed everything, the men. The radiant being cast its gaze up and behind Vonda. It freezes, hovering there. It's lightning pulsing now, in and out, from bright flash to dull glimmer. If it's possible for a ghost to turn pale, that's what Vonda would be seen at do now. But do you know what will never jump scare you?

It's certainly not these corny-ass ad transitions that we write in that disrupt the flow of the narrative. Couldn't be them. All of the products and services. that sponsor the show are the perfectly approachable kinds of divine and not the scary kinds of divine. Here's ads. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Tonight, our 2026 IHart Podcast Awards are happening live at South by Southwest. This is the biggest night in podcasting.

We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. Art Radio. Thank you to all the other nominees. You guys are awesome. Watch live tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at Veeps.com or the Veeps app. You know Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life.

His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. I was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's?

Played poker with Harry Truman and had a long affair with a congresswoman. And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, before writing a hit James Bond film. How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? and what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids. The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote.

Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Chetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Hilary Duff, singer, actress, and multi-platinum artist. Hillary opens up about complicated family dynamics, motherhood, and releasing our first record in over 10 years. We talk about what it's taken to grow,

up in the entertainment industry and stay grounded through every chapter. It's a raw and honest conversation about identity, evolution, and building a life that truly matters. You desire in family like this picture and that's not reality a lot of the times for people. My sister and I don't speak. It's definitely a very painful part of my life and I hope it's not forever but it's for right now. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Vanda slowly stands up, turns around.

Two bodies emerge from the black void of a shadow. They're every step like a scratch on concrete. Their faces, not quite like those of men, partially obscured by scarves, hidden under long-brimmed hats and high-buttoned trench coats and horned-rimmed glasses, are scaly and well. Say it. One of them hisses. Say it's a child. The other whispers, a husky, dark scratch of a voice. We're the men whose name is pitched black.

We're the ones who drink to death, the stars. Then a third emerges. The woman from the security video, her form like a lumpen snake, a stepless shuffle of feet obscured by her trench coat dragging the floor. Say who we are. She demands. No, perhaps you will drink,

but not of this light. The ghost woman bursts into a searing light, an explosion that shatters the car windows around them. When the light dims, there's blackness. The ghost woman is a crystallized glass shell, her torso large, smoky black onyx. She falls to the ground. Vonda lunges to grab her,

bracing herself for the catch. The ghost woman looks heavy, but when Vonda embraces her, she realizes that the ghost woman is soft as gossamer and nearly as light as the air around them. Vane-like cracks weave up the creature's arm and shoulders and back from only such a gentle touch of Vanda's well-worn, box-tearing, blunt-rolling fingers. Give her to me, child. The men in black coats are hovering over them.

Opal shadows warp around them. No! They scream when they sense that Vonda has no intention of handing over the ghost woman so freely. They lurch for her. With one swift motion, Vanda snatches her box cutter from her back pocket with one hand, holding the ghost woman with her other, and... Vanda is on a patchy grass plane. She is being carried in a cage-like carriage by hulking men,

all smoldering, all coal-skinned and bare. barely clothed. The sun rides high and drifts on its own vibratory, heat-stroked mirages. The men stop as Vanda gasps wildly as if she has emerged from the sea itself. Her eyes searched the space. In the reflection of shiny tin bangles that adorn the carrier cage, she sees herself. She is draped in shimmering, playful accoutrements, like a North African queen, perhaps. Jewelery and colorful clothes wrapped tightly around her. But is that her? She looks closer and the woman reflected back is jet black, shaven, with eyes so watery they seem about to burst. She's beautiful, Vonda whispers, raising her hand to the reflection, the reflection doing the same.

We must protect the virgin princess. Virgin? Vonda says aloud. She opens the curtain and through its veil. She sees an army amassing over the horizon. Whom! The carrier cage lands with a thought on the ground. A hatch is opened and a wrinkled, gnarled hand pokes its way through to her. Protect the virgin queen? A cackling voice submits. The hand gently yanks Vonda out into the sun-soaked world. She is the one who should be protecting us. She is the one who has spent her life in the king's glass house, fed the knowledge of the ancestors. She who has fought dragons in pits of living entrails since the age of two, let her pass her sword through the bosom of our enemy with the might of ISIS herself. The woman is frail, a small thing, hunchbacked, her gowns

heavier than she is. The old crone of a woman ambles over towards a small, thatched quiver and pulls from it, a small sword. She hands it to Vonda, staring deep into her eyes, past the eyes of the virgin princess that Crone perhaps once knew, and into the eyes of Vanda, the co-op girl, herself. It's time now, child, the old woman says, calmer, knowingly, one bony hand atop Vondas, with her other hand holding the unsheathed bladed end of a sword.

Vonda takes the sword reluctantly. She looks from it and then to the sword. soldiers to the woman then finally to the gathering of large grotesque white men carrying horn-shaped muskets across the horizon edging violently ever closer the hooves of horses and giraffes and elephants sounding through the veldt getting louder until they're like jackhammers on the west philly street at 6.30 in the morning the white men's muskets crack the still quiet air and beside vanda the men in war paint and loingcloth fall. They are black drops of rain, hitting the earth and death. Vonda faces the old crone who has gone into a smile, even though her soldiers fall to an unknown magic with a sulfur discharge.

Now, the crone whispers, now. She steps aside to let Vonda face the war as it swirls around them. A pale, ashen, snarling, bush-faced man on a harnessed lion right in her face. The beast tongue licking her eyebrow. Strike now! Vonda, the virgin princess, swings her blade at the lion, catching it in the belly, and, with the same twist of the box cutter,

one being in black falls down to the ground in a heap, blackness spewing out of him once as thick, blood-like liquid, then as evaporating inky shadow stuff. A deafening scream emits from it, as if it has never experienced harm before. Around the corner a stream of men on motorbikes blast up the street,

a gaggle of frat boys drunkenly looking for a pub, stumble up the sidewalks. An army of gay boys laughing at women, loaded down with grocery bags and a few children, shoulder past them. The perfect cover to get away. Vonda, on instinct, grabs the now of fine glass ghost woman, eschewing the streets,

cutting through backyards and over fences. Vonda races forward, eyes ahead, her one free hand on her box cutter, now searching for her keys. We're going out, the vigils tonight. But it's almost midnight. Oh my God, it's an all-night vigil. Robot Squad is going.

They're doing a puppet show. Isn't... Wait, isn't this a peaceful vigil put on by Black Lives for Joe? Justice? What is that? An art project? Vonda forgot that she's holding a glass woman in her hands. Yeah, she says, looking past her nosy roommates to the stairs. An art project, sure. She beats a path up the stairs, leaving unspoken chides lodged in the agape mouths of her judgmental roommates and into the hallway, nearly knocking her room door off the hinges. She closes it behind her,

tosses her bag on the floor, and lays the ghost woman on her mattress. Vonda can see her now. The ghost woman's hips are wide, her chest ample, her lips lush. She seems quite large, almost seven feet tall. The cracks in her shell slowly closed, sealed with dim, thinning radiance. Vanda sits in the corner, murmuring to herself. Her roommates, They of the chore wheel, of the dumpstered vegan shrimp, of the combination organic cotton knitting circle slash China Mieville Book Club, will never understand any of this. Hell, she thinks to herself, I don't even understand this.

Yeah, what the fuck is any of this? She edges closer to the still frozen woman of ghost and glass. What are you? Fonda whispers to her. She gets a buzz in her cell phone. It snaps her out of her trance. Vonda scrambles for her phone digging through her bag. She finds it and, on the screen, is a glowing face. It's her.

I am a ghoster. The phone speaks with pixelated digital lips, the crackle and buzz from before gone and replaced with a voice warm and weighty. I know. I'm sorry. This is very startling. I had to warn you. They are here to erase you, to take your stories, to fold them into the secret tombs of them. the past and then tossed them into the abyss of forgotten knowledge deep within the

wells of nothingness of the no universe crap vonda snaps she suddenly angry at herself for not paying attention to her little sister's relentless meandering soliloquies about star wars and hobbits and warp drives and other nonsense it would help she opines if i had some kind of frame of reference for this shit i what do you want from me i'm just just a girl who works at a co-op. You are no mere girl. Vonda Alicia Ray of Western Philadelphia. You are the steam child, the slave liberator,

the two-spirit warrior woman, the Plains Walker, the Death Dealer, the comedic, virgin princess who rides the dragonbeasts from the east. Right, the virgin princess, right. Back there behind the co-op, it was like I was transported to another place, like I traded by,

bodies with someone and... Yes! You are all of those things, my child, and I am a ghoster, the physical manifestation of the ephemera of the souls, of lost guardians, of ancestors, set here to protect you by a powerful sorcerer to guide you on a new journey. My new journey? Yes. You will save memory. You will save all of us. You will save the universes. A knock at the door.

Hey, you in there? It's Chef. What's she doing here? Um, one minute. Are you naked? Chef sings. Come on, I'm just playing. I came back here to check on you.

You all right? I'm fine, Vonda says, scrambling for a blanket or something to throw on the fragile lump of the goaster. I'm fine. Um, just give me a minute. Her phone turns brighter and brighter until a burst of light plunges from it. sparks fly out of it and light loops towards the goaster, coating it with living energy. God damn it, this thing is not subtle at all,

Vanda yells as the goster rises towards the ceiling. It is a swirl of cosmic brightness of neon on fire. Vanda, what the fuck? I'm coming in. Chef barges in just as the goster explodes. Its eruption is high, piercing the ceiling, blasting through the roof and into the night sky. Whoa, that's that thing from before? Not exactly, Vonda retorts, bracing against the shaking walls.

It just fucking blew up. Yeah, Vanda affirms over the din. She? She does that. A swirl of energy beings pulsed from the goster's rising body as the roof shards crumble and burn in the afterglow. The ghoster is sucked up into the vortex along with shoes and coats and pencils and records. Chef and Vonda cling to each other, tears streaming from their faces.

And then, V-Vump, the light disappears. The debris falls to the ground, and they are surrounded by darkness. They sit on the bed, huddled together, whimpering, quivering. Chef pulls away and looks at Vanda, a loving, calming look, the kind of look that acknowledges that the life of the person in front of her will never be the same. Vanda looks at her co-worker for a second, and in chef's deep cigarette-soaked visage, she sees beauty. She sees the commonality between them dissipating by the second,

and then, after a brief pang of dread remembering that she left a few containers of oatmeal in an unopened box but by the dairy fridge, an act vondo is sure she'd be written up for. Her eyes narrow and focus as, to all of this, she sees an ending. And that's the ending of the story. The story has ended. back, gentle listener. This is a rich story

that is bursting at the seams with characterization and scenery and metaphor. Hazel, who helps behind the scenes, says about this quote. I also have worked at multiple bougie food co-ops. So Vonda struggles with the hypocrisy

and just plain silliness of the food she's selling, and it's implicitly packaged politics really grabbed me. This was a time in my life that I was also being radicalized by grief, and I remember so firmly feeling that everyone who went out of their way to buy cage-free eggs needed to also be a prison abolitionist. Still do. The Alice in Wonderland, Stranger in a Strange Place format, is a staple of short fiction.

But the way that Alex uses this structure to describe, at least as I'm interpreting it, the feeling of being pulled into the movement, of being called into a struggle between the forces of justice and injustice, one so bigger than yourself and so far beyond your own control, yeah, it's just fucking compelling. telling. And Vonda's frustrations with their roommates because they don't and on some levels can't understand that, even if they do have books about the situationist or whatever because they're in it for the clout

or the social aspect or for whatever. Yeah, Alex really just sticks the landing on that one. That's what Hazel has to say. What do I have to say about it? I liked the story even more on further readings, right? Like, I liked it on the first reading, but on the first reading, I kind of let it wash over me.

And on the second reading, I could kind of feel more what was happening. And, yeah, it's just like, it's really well done. I really like this story. I like this idea of, you know, being called into this larger-than-life thing, being called into, you know, oh, I suddenly am responsible for memory against forgetting, despite the fact that, like, oh, I'm just,

you know, some girl from Philadelphia. But I like stories that infuse our normal everyday world with the weight that they actually carry, the weight that we are all part of history, that we are like part of this grand story that continues, and we're all on different sides of these struggles, and we're all just like doing this thing. This idea of being like, you of West Philadelphia,

as if that's as like amazing of a place to be from as like some you know place in north africa or some you know far off and distant place because it is right like wherever we are from is something and we can have this weight in our lives if we acknowledge it i don't know that's what it made me think about it actually made me think about a bunch of other stuff too but that's what I'm going to go with Alex the story's author has this to say the story

girls who look through glass first appeared in a long out-of-print split scene I made with Kameh Iowaea also known as more mother from black quantum futurism slash irreversible entanglements we had been in a collective together called metropolarity

metropolarity.net they used sci-fi and afrofuturism as a form of activism knowledge-seeking slash distributing and art practice. And we pass these out at events like more mother's rockers and the readings I put together like Laser Life and Chrome City. When it came time to do arc dust, which itself started as a zine, I knew this story would be one I wanted to refine a bit and include in the collection.

It's definitely one of the weirder stories amongst a whole lot of weird, L-O-L. I had been doing a lot of spoken word when I wrote these stories 10, 15 years ago, and I made a hard pivot to not only writing sci-fi and fantasy, but reading it in public. It's been an interesting journey. This particular story is mostly me wanting to write about a woman who experiences strange future, past, ancestral shifts, some time displacement, and just general atmospheric stuff. Like, I wanted it to be about the fun SFF stuff, but I couldn't help but also talk about microaggressions and colonialism. It's difficult for me to shed politics, whatever that is post-obstabreact.

Obama and just write pew-poo zap-zap, especially because I write about marginalized people, because politics are our lived experiences. The way we move through the world, the way we exist. Apparently all that is political. Also, this story was written in like 2012, but it shares some similarities to an episode of Lovecraft Country, I've never read the book, where there are similar elements, a black woman visited by a metallic, ethereal woman who enables her to shift into ancestral time in Africa. I love that episode. but the more I thought about it, I was like, wow, that really reminds me of my story, girls.

Maybe I'm doing something right, huh. And then Alex Smith's bio. Alex Smith, aka Alexoeric, is a writer, artist, curator, and quote-unquote musician slash noise maker, living in the cosmically kinetic city of Philadelphia. His work reflects that dichotomy, stark, beautiful, wrought with Afrotopian tension, avant-garde fashion and assemblage,

and dynamic visual presentation. He is a founding member of the Philadelphia-based sci-fi arts collective, metropolarity, essential personnel in Philadelphia's early Afrofuturist community. Smith won the 2020 Pew Fellowship of the Arts, presenting work such as his short story collection, Arc Dust, Rosarian Publishing, his experimental art punk bands,

rainbow crime, solarized, spectral forces, glitch proverbs, the cyberpunk superhero indie comic series, black vans, among others. His work appears in anthology such as stories for Chip, a tribute to Samuel R. Delaney from Rosarium,

Black Quantum Futurism, Volume 2, Black Punk Now, from Soft Skull, and the Black Fantastic Library of America. He invites you to join him in the next chromatic exploration of the unknown, his art of visual portal to that liminal space.

Find Alex at patreon.com slash they are birds, or they are birds, on Instagram. All right. See you all next week. It could happen here as a production of Coolzone Media.

For more podcasts from Coolzone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources where it could happen here

updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Tonight, our 2026 IHeard Podcast Awards are happening live in South by Southwest. This is the biggest night

in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is... Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. Iheart Radio. Thank you to all the other nominees.

You guys are awesome. Watch live tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at veeps.com or the Veeps app. Hey, I'm Jay Chetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Hillary Dullery. singer, actress, and multi-platinum artist. You desire in family like this picture, and that's not reality. My sister and I don't speak. It's definitely a very painful part of my life.

And I hope it's not forever, but it's for right now. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know, Roald Dahl. He thought up Willie Wonka and the BFG. But does you know he was a show? a spy? In the new podcast, The Secret World of Rolled Doll, I'll tell you that story, and much, much more. What? You probably won't believe it either. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, because I was a spy.

Listen to the Secret World of Roll Doll on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt the case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story? Evidence has been made to fit. The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed. What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe? Oh my God, I think she might be innocent.

Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.