Podcasts about when kira

In S3E24 of DS9: Shakaar, Kai Winn pulls Kira into a political battle down on Bajor.  When Kira discovers that Winn wasn't being entirely honest with her (SHOCKING), Kira finds herself back in the trenches with her resistance fighting friends.  This episode includes guest stars Duncan Regehr and (our favorite) Louise Fletcher!Send us your feedback at rebingeit@gmail.com.

Eman Zabi is the founder of The Scribesmith - a launch copywriting agency that specializes in research-based strategy and conversion copy for digital products. As a part of The Scribesmith's umbrella, she created The Conversion Kits, brainstorming decks to help entrepreneurs raise conversion, and Terrain, a curated course marketplace for entrepreneurs. Eman graduated with a degree in International Politics from Georgetown University (which explains her love for the nerdy stuff) and has been writing for as long as she can remember.   When not working, she can be found drinking copious amounts of tea, playing with her cat, Cat, and cooking up new ideas for the Scribesmith team to take on.   Here's what we covered on the episode: How Eman and I both knew of each other but had never spoke and how I heard her speak on The Copywriters Club Podcast about Terrain, which I thought was interesting because there are so many courses but no one really checking them to say whether or not they're good  When Eman posted on Facebook and asked if anyone had a web design course, a couple people tagged me, so I applied to be part of Terrain     Eman tells the story of being an unemployed grad who was trying to make money online, who had never heard of copywriting until someone sent her a link to Rob and Kira's podcast, The Copywriter Club—she binged all the episodes in a couple weeks and decided copywriting was what she wanted to do  Shortly after Eman was introduced to the podcast in 2017, Rob and Kira started their Accelerator Program, so she took the opportunity to be part of that and things really took off from there  Before Eman started her business in 2017, she graduated from University in mid 2016, and did blogging here and there, making $20-$30 for work and then got a full-time job that she ended up leaving when she moved to Canada, which is when she went full-time with her business  Eman shares that she was doing a lot of outdoor copy when she first went full-time and shares that she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2015, so she used that as a distinguishing factor, that all her branding was outdoor themed and she was writing for the outdoor niche How Eman's first paid gig was writing about training for Mount Kilimanjaro  While in the Accelerator program, Kira, who is in the personality driven launch space subcontracted some work for Eman, which is when she realized how much she liked the launch side of things When Kira was sending clients Eman's way, she still had the outdoor branding but was taking on launch clients by early 2018  Eman shares that 2018 was a weird year for her business due to her mom being hospitalized and shares that she signed her first big client at the time and everything she made from that client was paid to a VA she hired in order to keep the business afloat  2019 was the first year Eman felt she could take her business seriously, grow and invest and says she hired another person, making it a team of 3 and launched the Conversion Kits that November The story of how Eman decided a week before Black Friday that she wanted to launch the Conversion Kits after only having the 3 cards that were going to be on the landing page, so they put together a landing page and presold 100 which paid for the manufacturing and production  Once they started getting the decks out, they started getting a lot more clients and since then the team has grown to 11 people, plus some contractors here and there  Erman got the idea for Terrain a few weeks after coming back from TCC IRL but sat on it for a while because she didn't have any background in it and she knew hiring a developer would be a significant investment  The story of how 3 weeks after speaking to developers and putting a deposit down, things went crazy with covid and the developers got furloughed and had a non-compete, so Eman couldn't hire them as freelancers  Because Eman had already announced Terrain to the world, they decided to build it themselves after losing the developers and the deposit  Eman explains on the agency side, she usually adds a person to the team for every 1 or 2 retainers that they take on and explains why she hires fresh grad students and trains them to where they essentially take ownership of these projects and run with them   How Terrain was a byproduct of frustrations in this industry for Eman because personally she takes a lot of courses and has spent 20k on bad courses from well-known business owners with glowing testimonials on their sales pages  After realizing that this industry had a big problem with quality control, Eman wanted to initially create a vetting service for courses but says then it exploded because she realized the problem went deeper than quality control and wanted to create something that tackled all the problems at once  Eman shares that she and her friend, who's an UX designer built the platform for Terrain where she was doing a lot of the back end workflows and he was doing the front end design work and shares they used a platform called Bubble, which is an interesting hybrid between coding and a no-code platform     When looking for courses that were good versus ones that needed a little more work, Eman and her team created a rubric that looked at depth, clarity, video/audio quality, if it was up to date because things change quickly in this industry, relevance to the audience, etc. The idea, Eman shares is that they would look for courses that would help entrepreneurs level up in some way, so they have included courses on mindset and leadership skills, diversity and inclusion, courses on email marketing, specific sales courses, plus way more  Many of the courses have come from ones Eman has taken personally, and have been great or from people in the industry who are well known and confident enough in their courses to put them through the vetting process    Eman shares that 200+ people applied and they have put up 45 courses  How a lot of what went into Terrain was created because Eman isn't a great course taker herself, and how this platform is great for people who normally struggle to finish courses because they built it as a very focused learning tool A week leading up to the Terrain launch, Eman shares that everything that could have possibly went wrong, went wrong and shares some of the stressful things they had to deal with, but says once they officially launched, everything was fine and they haven't had any major problems since Eman tells us their goal was to acquire as many users as possible until the end of the year and then aggressively market Terrain at the start of the new year  How they have started onboarding the next round of course creators and their plan for making the process more efficient so they can upload more courses  Where people can go to sign up to be a user for Terrain is, know the terrain.io just click the purple sign-up button to join for free—Eman also says they will be offering some free courses starting in January   Eman explains what Peak Points are for Terrain, which are completion points for purchases because they want you to actually finish the courses—then you can trade Peak Points in for discounts at their store, the conversion kit.com  or donate them to Kiva, a Women's Entrepreneurship Fund  Two things Eman learned is that she could have built the platform more efficiently if they built the front end first instead of building the back end first and understanding that everyone wouldn't use the platform the way she intended them to, and think about all the ways people might use it while building The name for Terrain came to Eman while she was taking a walk in the woods with her parents and says she likes the idea of knowing the terrain because the landscape can be challenging but once you know it, you've got a handle on it  Terrain's logo is a mountain that has an arrow in it, which Eman's UX designer came up with and shares that they voted on the color palette  Connect with Eman on Twitter or Instagram   Links mentioned: The Scribesmith The Conversion Kit Terrain  The Copywriters Club Podcast The Copywriters Club-Accelerator Program  Bubble  Kiva- Women's Entrepreneurship Fund Connect with Eman on Twitter Connect with Eman on Instagram     Like what you heard?  Click here to subscribe + leave a review on iTunes. Click here to download my Sales Page Trello Board Let's connect on Instagram!

Get out your dermal regenerator as we sit down for "Indiscretion"!Podcaster Mikanhana returns to the show this week to discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that introduces us to Dukat's more "human" side. When Kira finds a long-lost freighter carrying Bajoran slaves, she's forced to take Legate Dukat on her expedition. But when a Dukat "family secret" is revealed, she'll have to risk everything to save the life of a defenseless girl!Skrain(?) Dukat is a fascinating character and really the first and arguably most successful recurring villain in the Trek franchise. He is not, however, a "cool guy". We admire qualities like self-sufficiency and confidence in others, but those qualities are divorced from any particular value system. They are admirable in empathetic and conscientious characters like Sisko or Kira, but they're onerous in venal, petty, and sadistic characters like, well, Dukat. On this episode, we discuss the way that some fans miss the point of Dukat in the narrative of DS9, the persistence of "Dukat was right" memes, the dangers of failing up, weaponizing values when you have none, the "family feel" of DS9, liking unlikeable characters, and the virtue of being vulnerable.We also discuss being the Flanders of the galaxy, fighting over Luke Skywalker, taking a long car ride with Hitler, an Empok Nor Surfin' Safari, dissing Shane, the first of many Ziyals, the difference between Ten Forward and Quark's, the secret of the long runabout scenes, #2 Kira hair, keeping away from Geordi, Kal's stuck on Farscape again, Mika's got a million unanswerable questions, and OW MY BUTT!It's a big step!Follow Mika on social media and listen to the Sailor Noob podcast!http://www.twitter.com/noob_sailorhttp://www.instagram.com/noob_sailorhttp://www.twitter.com/justenoughtropehttps://www.spreaker.com/show/sailor-noobGet out and Trek the Vote!http://www.trekthe.voteLearn the story behind your favorite Trek stories with BackTrekking!http://www.twitter.com/backtrekkingEat rations with us on Facebook and Twitter and the Just Enough Trope Discord!http://www.facebook.com/eistpodhttp://www.twitter.com/eistpodhttps://discord.gg/UeytGNPBuy us a cool suit on Patreon and Ko-Fi!http://www.patreon.com/eistpodhttps://ko-fi.com/E1E01M2UASubscribe to the show on iTunes!https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/enterprising-individuals/id1113165661?mt=2

Get out your dermal regenerator as we sit down for "Indiscretion"!Podcaster Mikanhana returns to the show this week to discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that introduces us to Dukat's more "human" side. When Kira finds a long-lost freighter carrying Bajoran slaves, she's forced to take Legate Dukat on her expedition. But when a Dukat "family secret" is revealed, she'll have to risk everything to save the life of a defenseless girl!Skrain(?) Dukat is a fascinating character and really the first and arguably most successful recurring villain in the Trek franchise. He is not, however, a "cool guy". We admire qualities like self-sufficiency and confidence in others, but those qualities are divorced from any particular value system. They are admirable in empathetic and conscientious characters like Sisko or Kira, but they're onerous in venal, petty, and sadistic characters like, well, Dukat. On this episode, we discuss the way that some fans miss the point of Dukat in the narrative of DS9, the persistence of "Dukat was right" memes, the dangers of failing up, weaponizing values when you have none, the "family feel" of DS9, liking unlikeable characters, and the virtue of being vulnerable.We also discuss being the Flanders of the galaxy, fighting over Luke Skywalker, taking a long car ride with Hitler, an Empok Nor Surfin' Safari, dissing Shane, the first of many Ziyals, the difference between Ten Forward and Quark's, the secret of the long runabout scenes, #2 Kira hair, keeping away from Geordi, Kal's stuck on Farscape again, Mika's got a million unanswerable questions, and OW MY BUTT!It's a big step!Follow Mika on social media and listen to the Sailor Noob podcast!http://www.twitter.com/noob_sailorhttp://www.instagram.com/noob_sailorhttp://www.twitter.com/justenoughtropehttps://www.spreaker.com/show/sailor-noobGet out and Trek the Vote!http://www.trekthe.voteLearn the story behind your favorite Trek stories with BackTrekking!http://www.twitter.com/backtrekkingEat rations with us on Facebook and Twitter and the Just Enough Trope Discord!http://www.facebook.com/eistpodhttp://www.twitter.com/eistpodhttps://discord.gg/UeytGNPBuy us a cool suit on Patreon and Ko-Fi!http://www.patreon.com/eistpodhttps://ko-fi.com/E1E01M2UASubscribe to the show on iTunes!https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/enterprising-individuals/id1113165661?mt=2

This week I’m sharing my conversation with the amazing Kira Onysko. We had a chance to talk about to shift our workout mindset when it comes to exercise. She encourages you to embrace a performance based mindset (rather than a body-focused aesthetic mindset). Like so many of my guests, Kira’s work evolved with her own personal journey and struggles. This is a great conversation! Have you listened in to my on-demand training yet? It’s free, and it offers 4 steps that let you get started with intuitive eating today! If you’re ready to take care of yourself and feel good in your body, this is for you! You can check it out HERE. Kira’s Start with Movement As a certified personal trainer, Kira works exclusively with women. She’s highly passionate about teaching women how to incorporate fitness into their lives in a balanced, non-restrictive way as they improve their workout mindset. In her view, exercise and fitness shouldn’t consume your life. And all too often, they do! Kira’s family was always movement oriented. She grew up loving exercise and physical activity. Her extended family also embraced a food loving culture that brought them together around lots of food. As a result, she felt she had a pretty good relationship with food and movement. Around pre-puberty, however, her body changes started to impact her gymnastic performance. As she grew taller and gained a bit of weight, she started to feel her ability to perform in the gym and in competitions began to suffer. Her solution? To start limiting food and paying more attention to her diet in order to minimize weight gain. A few years into those patterns, one of Kira’s gymnastic coaches brought a box of donuts to year end party. When Kira passed, her coach took her aside and told her that she could have the donut. Whatever else she said in her pep talk, it helped Kira break out of her food restrictions and realize that eating was a normal, acceptable thing! The Downside of Workout Culture Post-high school, Kira experienced the absence of athletics and organized exercise. Having been an athlete her whole life, she missed movement, and she found herself not feeling as good as she would have liked. During that time, the health & fitness climate was very different. The only real adult role models in the field were fitness models and body builders. The mindset was – you work out to burn calories, lose weight, and/or change your body. This means that you eating habits get adjusted as well. Because you’re pushing yourself hard in the gym to burn calories, it’s natural to want to decrease caloric intake in order to help your efforts go farther. Obsessing over intake and restricting food is celebrated and expected. Because it’s so normalized, you don’t even realize it’s necessarily an issue at first! Eventually, Kira found her friendships and relationships were being affected. Missing workouts or consuming too many calories started to cause anxiety. She hesitated to go to new restaurants, since she couldn’t guarantee that she’d be able to find a food she felt she was “allowed” eat. Fortunately, during Kira’s degree program she was introduced to CrossFit. For the first time since school, she was able engage in movement that was performance based. There was no focus on mirrors, body size, or other aesthetics. Instead, she was able to make mind/body connections and engage in movement for the sake of movement. Fitting In with Fitness For the first time as an adult, Kira felt excited about working out without needing to change her body. She was introduced to the exciting variety of American Oreos, and she realized that you could enjoy working out AND enjoy good food that you wanted to eat. She feels that she finally “saw the light” of all that was possible when it comes to enjoying the you move and the way you eat, no strings attached. Kira did note that even within the CrossFit community, there can still be a lot of emphasis on food and eating. Dieting and food restriction is very bonding. It’s something to talk about, commiserate over, and compare notes on. It’s an easy fall back conversation, and it helps create a sense of belonging. Even if the movement component is something you love, sometimes too much focus on food can create a tension that doesn’t provide an ideal atmosphere. Also, that’s not to say that all food talk is “bad”. Eating to aid recovery and fuel workouts is important when you’re challenging your body and engaging in movement. And one of the best ways to make that happen is to get tips and tricks from others! The key, however, is to enjoy it as a conversation and then check in with your body to see what makes sense for your needs. Since her transition to CrossFit and weightlifting, Kira has had huge workout mindset shifts in her life. She now feels she is able to embrace movement and eating in a way that works for her body and needs. Performance Based Workout Mindset Kira shares that many of her clients have never truly seen when their bodies are capable of. Many times they’ve engaged with lots of cardio and light weights, but they haven’t really pushed themselves to try other forms of movements. When she puts programs together, Kira loves to create benchmarks based on “max effort”. In a certain amount of time, a client is challenged to perform as many reps or seconds of a movement as possible (pushups, wall sits, etc). More often than not, by the program mid-point all clients have surpassed their goals and feel really proud of how they’ve grown. These benchmarks have nothing to do with weight, measurements, or aesthetics. They are purely about personal bests and personal growth. Often, this sort of growth is more inspiring and motivation than previous metrics based on body changes. Although shifting the workout mindset can take time, it’s an amazing way to build confidence and begin loving your body! Exericse is NOT Punishment! Kira encourages her clients to engage in movement they actually love. Rather than trying to punish your body or force yourself to move in a way you think you “should” be moving….you can find things you actually enjoy. Don’t be afraid to experience with different options; you might be surprised by what you like! You might try exploring different classes and groups. Not only are you moving, you’re also engaging in a chance to meet others who have similar interests. Who knows, you might even find a new friend or two! Getting to have fun, make friends, try new things – these are ways to appreciate your body for what it can do, rather than just what it looks like. Kira also points out that many of our most amazing experiences in life are movement based. From water skiing to kayaking, mountains climbing to hiking, we often base whole vacations around moving in ways that feel GOOD for our bodies. You can find those sorts of movements and do them frequently (rather than just once or twice a year as part of a trip).

When Kira is having a tough time finding a dinner party date, she never expects one to beam in from the Mirror Universe. But when her new man proves spicier than the guys she typically dates, his appetite for Kiras might not be satiated by just one. Is there any man on DS9 that's good enough for Major Kira? Do they get multidimensional transporter devices from Star Wars? What's the best part of a religious ceremony to steal someone's seat? It's the episode where we wore the worst possible shirt to school on 9/11.

When Kira is forced to remove a farmer from a Bajoran moon, she finds her loyalties divided. And when Jake and Nog start a futuristic version of "The Golden Bird" the tone of the show is also divided. Matt teaches Briar about the predominant culture of Bajor. Briar just wants more ecologically-sustainable energy extraction.

When you look at Kira Hug’s website, you KNOW she’s a savant on branding - and how to attract dream, premium-paying clients with branding done right. Kira Hug is a brand personality & launch copywriter who runs a copy boutique AND co-runs The Copywriter Club, a community of 10,000+ copywriters. No. Big. Deal. Kira’s a star example of how to present yourself uniquely online to bring in incredible, high-paying clients.  From our conversations over cocktails in Charleston to Zoom coaching calls, I can tell you personally this woman is not just a force of business nature online - She is everything and more in-person, running events and inspiring with her fierce, fun intelligence.  (Fun fact: March 2020, this is being released only 2 weeks before the next The Copywriter Club In Real Life *TCC IRL* conference where I can’t wait to hug Kira already + speak as a panelist this year.)  Throw on your favorite costume *Bunny ears? Dinosaur outfit?* and join the conversation to hear:  After baby #2, why Kira had an identity crisis *it involves real-life black bears* How Kira picked her niche in copywriting The way to test branding ideas EVEN with a tiny budget What dressing as a pirate has to do with her early copywriting business The characters Kira crafted in her branding and HOW she chose them Why you HAVE to change and grow when you elevate your branding How to grow a team *and - if desire - still stay the face of the brand* When Kira began a second business, her struggle to juggle both brands the first year *and how she manages now* How most of us are *without know it* hiding - (And the problem with ONLY educating your client) Kira’s realization about WHY she wore costumes and the challenges that come with now ditching them  FOR MORE OF KIRA, GO TO:  The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Club Instagram TheCopywriterClub.com KiraHug.com

When Kira is confronted with the prospect of the most awful person possible becoming the head of her planet's government, that news comes with a mission from that same awful person. But when she tries to repo some farm equipment from her old terror cell, it's more than just pizza ovens in peril. What character in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure was most foundational to the host's sexualities? Should Sisko have joined O'Brien for darts a long time ago? How long does a resistance refractory period last? It's the episode that gets a John Doman rookie card in mint condition. Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Prophets! Support the production of The Greatest Generation.

When Kira and Odo borrow a Starfleet runabout they get stuck doing Starfleet work. But when the mission turns into a crisis, Odo will have to decide if he believes Kira's performance. Does Odo have a butt? Which side of the iron curtain is the best venue for metamorphosis humor? Does O'Brien have a kayak kink? It's the episode that adds a fifth rule of Greatest Genquisition. Come see us live on tour with Greatest Gen Khan

Crossfire! You'll get caught up in the... Crossfire! When Kira starts to become romantically interested in the visiting Shakaar, Odo begins to realize that he might have missed his chance to tell her his true feelings. Another superb character story from the skilled pen (typewriter?) of Rene Echevarria, and Rene Auberjonois wastes absolutely none of his screen time as the conflicted shapeshifter. But is the central conflict something that holds up, even after you've moved on from your teenage years? Clay and I discuss board games where the loser goes to Hell, acting through make-up, and writing for non-human races! Are you looking for older episodes? Find this and every other episode at The Pensky Podcast! Thanks for listening. Stay connected: • https://thepenskyfile.com/links/ • e-mail: thepenskyfilevideo(at)gmail.com

Elisabeth is rejoined by Brittany Slater-Gautreau, to discuss the difference in REITs, hedge funds, syndications, and other investments. Then Elisabeth talks with Kira Golden, CEO of Direct Source Wealth, about investing in Puerto Rico, investing in syndications, how a woman's perspective in real estate can add to a company, and why diversification doesn't mean what it used to mean. Key Takeaways: Britteny Gautreau Interview: [4:11] The difference in REITs, a hedge fund, and a syndication [8:06] What an "accredited investor" is and why it came about [12:39] What is a REIT, traded and non-traded? [15:36] It's not enough to know how to get into a deal, you have to know how you're going to get OUT of it Kira Golden Interview: [18:14] Kira's investing background [22:53] What potential tax implications investing in Puerto Rico presents [26:45] Whether Kira focuses on vacation rentals or multifamiy residential real estate [29:43] What is a real estate syndication deal? [32:31] Kira's opinion on Wall Street (and it's not all bad!) [37:17] Why diversification is an outdated thought [41:12] When Kira was reminded how people don't think of women in real estate development, and how companies are missing out not having a woman's perspective Website: www.DirectSourceWealth.com 844-SOURCE4 www.ClarityCapitalLLC.com

Curiosity Fruit Machine by S. Qiouyi Lu "What is it?" Alliq says. Jalzy runs eir hands over the object. It's a box of some sort, made from metal with organic paneling; a narrow lever sticks out from one side. Ey finds emself reaching out to the lever, eir fingers grasping the pockmarked knob at the end as if working from unearthed muscle memory. "I have no clue," Jalzy says. "But... I kinda wanna pull this and see what happens."   CURIOSITY FRUIT MACHINE and THE SLOW ONES are both GlitterShip Originals. [Full transcript after the cut]  ----more---- Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip, episode 33 for February 14, 2017. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to be sharing these stories with you. We have two stories this week, "Curiosity Fruit Machine" by S. Qiouyi Lu and "The Slow Ones" by JY Yang. Even better, S. narrated both stories for us! S. Qiouyi Lu is a writer, artist, narrator, and translator; their stories have appeared in Strange Horizons and Daily Science Fiction, and their poetry has appeared in Liminality and Uncanny. They are a 2016 graduate of the Clarion West writers workshop and a dread member of the Queer Asian SFFH Illuminati. Find them online at s.qiouyi.lu or follow them on Twitter at @sqiouyilu. JY Yang is a queer, non-binary writer and editor who has short fiction published or forthcoming in places like Uncanny, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons and Tor.com. Their debut novellas, THE RED THREADS OF FORTUNE and THE BLACK TIDES OF HEAVEN, will be out from Tor.com Publishing in Fall 2017. They live in Singapore, edit fiction at Epigram Books, and swan about Twitter as @halleluyang.     Curiosity Fruit Machine by S. Qiouyi Lu   "What is it?" Alliq says. Jalzy runs eir hands over the object. It's a box of some sort, made from metal with organic paneling; a narrow lever sticks out from one side. Ey finds emself reaching out to the lever, eir fingers grasping the pockmarked knob at the end as if working from unearthed muscle memory. "I have no clue," Jalzy says. "But... I kinda wanna pull this and see what happens." Alliq frowns. "Don't. For all we know, that thing could be some sort of weapon. We should probably wait for the others to catch up so we can get the engineering team to take a proper look." Alliq's voice fades into a mumble. Jalzy presses eir nose to the glass front of the object and brushes a tight curl of hair out of eir face. Ey can just barely make out some lettering—PAY. Eir grasp of 21st-century English is weak, but this seems to be a money machine of some sort. Surely, ey thinks, bringing eir arm down, a money machine can't hurt em... "Don't—!" The object whirs to life, three wheels inside the glass case spinning; a few of the bulbs lining the edge buzz and spark. Jalzy jumps back. Oh crap. Ccccccclackkkclackkclackkk—didn't old-timey explosives make that sound? Or were explosives more of a tick-tock sound? One of the wheels clicks as it stops—Jalzy grabs Alliq by the wrist, drags xem to a safe spot behind a wall of heavy crates—then another click—they brace themselves—and—click! Alliq flinches. Jalzy waits a moment—a dud, perhaps?—before peeking past the edge of the crates. The object's face shows one symbol, then two of the same symbol. The first is an oblong, yellow shape, and the next two are round, red orbs connected by an inverted green V. "I think we're safe," Jalzy whispers. Alliq comes up from xyr braced position. "Goddammit, don't do this to me," Alliq hisses. Xe's sweating a little, xyr forehead shining, and Jalzy has to suppress a giggle. "Hey, we're fine, right?" Ey steps out from behind the crates and goes back to the object. Ey crouches down. There's a metal trough underneath the symbols, but it's empty. Do they need to put something in there? "Jalzy," Alliq says from over eir shoulder, "those are—those are pictures of fruit." "What's a fruit?" "Seriously?" Alliq says, voice laden with exasperation. When Jalzy gives xem a blank stare, Alliq points at the oblong symbol and says, "Look, the first one is a lemon. Those two on the right, those are cherries." Jalzy squints. "I thought 'cherry' and 'lemon' were just colors. You know, like how we also have orange nutriblocks in our sustenance packs." Alliq snorts. "You know there used to be a fruit called 'orange', right? It wasn't just a color. Those are actually flavors. They came from these." Jalzy straightens up and paces around the object. "So what is this, a fruit-making machine?" "Did you never take terrabiology?" Alliq says. "History of Earth? Anything?" "Look, I took astrophysics so I wouldn't have to deal with so much reading, okay," Jalzy says, flipping eir crown of curls over eir shoulder. "So just educate me already, O All-Knowing Alliq." Alliq crosses xyr arms over xyr chest in a huff. "Fruit comes from seeds, not machines. I mean, we perfected the science to duplicate the flavors all the way back in the 21st century, but we never really got down how to duplicate the organic material. So the best we've got now is our nutriblocks." Xe unfolds xyr arms and circles around the object. "This—this is something else entirely. I don't think it actually has anything to do with food." "So, if it doesn't seem to be a weapon, and it doesn't produce anything... wanna pull the lever again and see what happens?" Jalzy grins slyly at Alliq, who raises xyr hands in surrender. "I'm going to check out the other room. If I were you, I'd just keep doing inventory until engineering gets here and can confirm what kind of object that is." Jalzy sticks out eir tongue. "Good thing you're not me," ey says. And ey pulls the lever again.   END       The Slow Ones by JY Yang   "The grass is dying." Kira looked up from squeezing a sachet of turkey-flavored sludge into the cat's bowl. Thom was standing by the living room window in his bathrobe still, holding a chipped mug of coffee and gazing out. "What?" she asked. "The grass. In the garden. It's gone all brown." She dumped the sachet in the trash and almost rinsed her sticky fingers under the kitchen faucet. But she remembered in time, and instead wiped them on the dishtowel she'd hung up. She hurried into the living room. "There," Thom said, "see?" In the small rectangle of dirt they called a garden the sparse tufts of grass had shriveled and turned colorless like the hair on an old man's head. A flap of crisp packet gleamed in the far corner, silver-underside-up, chicken bones scattered around it. The neighborhood kids. Kira wondered how long they had been there. Maybe forever. Everything seemed stuck in stasis these days. The grass had been in decline for a long time, months before the invasion began. Once upon a time Kira had plans for that patch. She had imagined cultivating flowers: Tulips, daffodils, rosebushes. Climbing ivies for the trellis. Maybe even one of those outdoor water features. But there hadn't been any time, had there? "Hasn't rained in weeks," Thom said. "Might never rain again." Kira exhaled and stormed back to the kitchen. The clock said five to three and she wished it didn't. She took a box of porkloin out of the freezer and popped it into the fridge. "Might as well dig it all up," Thom said from the living room. "Yeah, why don't you do it?" she said, louder than she'd intended. The cat had cleaned out her bowl and now stood staring at Kira, tail stiff in expectation. Kira snatched the water dish off the floor, then gingerly ran a centimeter of water into it. "Don't waste it," she told the cat as she sat it down again. In the living room Thom had settled into the armchair, knees apart, eyes blank. "What would be the point?" "What?" He turned to look at her, framed in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, and shrugged. "There's no point." "Whatever," she said, and went to put her boots on. The cat had followed her out of the kitchen. "Come here, girl," she heard Thom say, his voice soft and charming, like it always used to be. Kira shoved her feet into the narrow confines of her boots. "I've left pork chops in the fridge to defrost," she said. "If you have time, you could make dinner." She knew he wouldn't. The cat settled on the windowsill to watch her as she stepped outside and locked the front door. Kira pulled her coat around herself, and then, because she had to, like pulling a plaster off, to get it over with; because she couldn't just ignore it, she looked up at the sky. From horizon to horizon, the sky above their street was filled with aliens. A thick layer of massive silver bodies, like cumulus rolls made of mercury, slid by over the tops of the streetlamps, the roofs, the twisted fingers of bare trees. Sunlight sometimes leaked through their bulk, but not often; the world had been in a state of weak thunderstorm dusk for weeks. The president of the United States had called them the Slow Ones, and the name stuck. Their enormous smooth bodies slipped against one another in a never-ending parade. There were scales and faint markings on each one whose purpose was impossible to discern. Concentric discs in alternating light and dark colors, larger across than a commercial jetliner, were assumed by observers to be eyes. But the gaping maw in front of each one, leading into unfathomable darkness: That one everyone could agree on. It was a mouth. A permanently open mouth. They were sucking up all the water vapor in the atmosphere. That was what the scientists on the proper news channels—BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera—were all saying. But even the so-called experts knew so little about what was going on that people were no worse off reading crackpot theories on the Internet. Those had sprung up like mushrooms in the wake of rain, or perhaps, in the absence of it. They offered up all kinds of explanations as to what was happening: Act of God, benign migration, hostile invasion, collective hallucination. The first few days after the Slow Ones arrived, pouring into the sky above Alaska like reflective pancake batter until they blanketed the Earth, Thom had spent hours scrolling through theory after theory after theory, the most promising of which he served up to Kira over dinner, or texted to her while he was at work. That was when he still had work. The Slow Ones were aliens. This was something almost everyone—the scientist, the conspiracy theorist, the person on the street—agreed on. They were not of this world. The prevailing theory was that these were migratory creatures and they would leave for unknown pastures in good time. And then sunlight and blue skies and rain would return to the world. Wind and weather and water evaporation, all those good things. It was unlikely a theory as anything, but it allowed people to hold on to hope. Kira put her hood up and hurried down the street. If she walked fast enough, she might catch the three-fifteen bus to the city center. She missed the bus. When Kira finally arrived at the city center, the air under the Slow Ones was still. Not a wing stirred in it, not a guttural call rang out. Gulls were a year-round phenomenon in Norwich, sailing from spire to spire and filling public spaces with their noises regardless of the season. But their numbers in the market square had been dwindling since the Slow Ones arrived, and today was the day, it seemed, they passed the point of no return. Kira noted this with an odd trill in her belly. She, like everyone else, had grown numb to the clipped tones of a Dr. Somebody explaining to a presenter, in clinical terms, how the disruption to the Earth's water cycle was killing all the fish in the ocean. But it was another thing entirely to watch all the seabirds vanish before her eyes, relegated to an unknown fate. She hurried through the semi-sparse mid-afternoon crowd. When Thom's agency had moved him here a few years ago, she had been struck by how many retirees she saw on the streets. It felt like a different kind of fabric had been sewn in place compared to London which she had just gotten used to, and Kuala Lumpur where she had grown up. It was a good move for them, Thom being promoted to Norfolk branch manager, but Kira had wondered about all the people here, aging in place. It put in her mind an image of people sinking to the bottom of a lake, like sediment. Of course, at that time tourism was still a booming industry, and Thom had glowing images in his sights, futures full of holiday cottages and ski trips to the Alps. Neither of them knew what lay on the horizon: the shrinkings and the layoffs and the final collapse that awaited them. The arrival of the Slow Ones had only been a final straw. As she walked past the market square Charles, who ran one of the fruit stalls, waved at her. "All right?" he asked. An impulse seized her then, a screaming impulse, one which wanted to ask him how could he be so calm, couldn't he see what was happening? She wanted to grab him and shake him, point him to the sky and the shuttered fish stall next to him and the sad twisted things that were left of his wares, she wanted to do that and ask, Can't you see? Can't you see? She wanted to run at all the white-haired folk shuffling down the street getting on with their business as usual and shout it at them, shout it into their hairy wrinkled ears. She smiled at Charles. "Yeah, I'm alright." By the time she had gone down all the little streets that led her to the Pushcart she was half an hour late for work. As she came through the eatery's glass-paneled wooden door she caught a glimpse of Melanie's splendid silhouette at the till and her heart did that weird flutter it always did when Melanie was around. She shoved that sensation deep inside herself, where it belonged, and put on her shop-girl smile. In the afternoons the Pushcart sold tea and scones and crepes with bacon and maple syrup. Come evenings and the menu switched to alcohol and deep-fried things served in small silver buckets. Today the sign said no tea, they were under rations, bottled drinks only please. The warm brown interior of the cafe held a handful of lethargic patrons in various states of apathy, chewing fitfully or reading the news. Some of them were watching the TV nailed to the far wall, framed by old ship ropes and seashells. They usually kept it off unless there was footy going on, but since the Slow Ones came it had been permanently fixed to BBC News. The prevailing graphic, set to an indistinct voiceover, said WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR. (Nothing. They knew nothing. When governments and scientists sent drones and instruments up to the Slow Ones they stopped working, some kind of electromagnetic interference, they said. NASA was stumped. Everybody was stumped, grasping at straws.) Melanie didn't turn around as Kira stashed her things under the counter. That was an anomaly: For the past six months Kira's work routine had always begun with her warm and buttery smile. She studied her coworker's broad back, hunched over the till, noting the crooked way the apron was fastened around her waist. "You alright?" Melanie straightened up with a speed that suggested she hadn't heard Kira come in. "Hey. How's it going?" She looked tired, a collection of messy lines and dark smudges, as though the weekend had worn her face thin somehow. "You alright?" she repeated. "Yeah, I suppose. The sky hasn't fallen in, has it?" She gave Kira a laugh, and it was the kind that spoke less of mirth than it did of defeat. "How's life at home?" Kira's fingers fumbled with her apron strings. Melanie noticed her struggling and said, "Let me get that." With her back turned Kira said, "Life goes on. Thom's still moping." A firm tug at her waist. "He'll recover. Have faith." "I'm an atheist for a reason." She turned around. "How's Angie?" "Ha. Funny you should ask." Melanie sucked in a breath. "She's gone back to Sheffield." "What, you mean—" "Yeah. Permanently. She spent the weekend packing." Melanie was staring at her knuckles, which she kept lightly punching against the counter. "I'm sorry. What happened?" "Can't quite say, really. Just th— I don't know. She'd been planning it for a while, I think. She got back with her ex without telling me." She looked at Kira suddenly, eyes bright and shining. "Might as well, eh? End of the world and all that." "I'm sorry." She reached out and touched Melanie's forearm for a brief, hot moment. "I'm surprised, honestly." "Are you." "I mean, I—" She wanted to say, I always thought you two had the perfect relationship. "You two seemed so happy." "We did, didn't we?" She laughed again, and one corner of her mouth quirked upwards. In the slant of those lips Kira suddenly saw the cracking of facade and glimpsed familiar shores: the simmering irritations, the long silent nights, the cold stretches of not-arguments that thawed slowly into not-forgiveness. "Come help me with this till," Melanie said. "Something's wrong." They fought with the till. It was an old-fashioned one, just buttons and a drawer that popped out. It was jammed. They figured out the problem—a coin had gotten stuck, down the side of the drawer, and they fished it out with a flat screwdriver. "There you are, you little bastard," Melanie said, shaking the coin like a misbehaving puppy. She put it on top of the till, a tiny victory. At six a man barged into the Pushcart and slammed into the counter as Kira was ringing up an old lady's tea. "Turn your TV on," he rasped. "It's on," Kira said, pointing. The President of the United States, looking like he had aged ten years in as many days, was speaking inaudibly. In one corner a red block declared “LIVE.” The man was youngish, clean-shaven, dressed in clothes that were well looked-after. "Turn it up. Turn it up." Kira looked around, but she had no idea where Melanie was. The woman by the TV stepped up and reached for the volume dial. The voice of the US president, clipped and nasal, rose up and filled the room. "... THAT I AUTHORIZE THE USE OF THERMONUCLEAR WEAPONS AGAINST THE PHENOMENON KNOWN AS THE SLOW ONES..." "He's going to nuke them," the man who'd burst in said. "It's mental." Titters of conversation filled the room. What could that mean? Kira felt like the ground under her was vanishing, but she couldn't tell if it was her or the planet that was evaporating. The US president said: The missiles would be released over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, far from any centers of civilization. The US president said: America could no longer wait for world powers to deliberate on a unified course of action. The US president said: America must take steps necessary to safeguard our future. A young man near the front of house was telling his girlfriend, in loud tones, how the radiation was going to get seeded in the atmosphere and kill them all. He was a physicist, he knew. The hawks running America, drunk on their Hollywood apocalypse dreams, were going to destroy life on the planet as we knew it. "It's war, you know," the old lady at the till said to Kira. "The Russians aren't going to like it. They're going to do something, you'll see." She declared it matter-of-factly, with utter conviction, and Kira saw the young girl she had been, bent over the radio, listening for news from the frontlines. On impulse she said, "It's on the house," and closed the till. "Go on, everything's free today." The man who had run in said, "Could I get—" "No, no, we're closing." Kira walked out from behind the counter, her legs shaky but still functional, and went to the glass-paneled door. The US president was still talking. She refused to look at the sky as she flipped the “OPEN” sign over. "I'm sorry. Please, everyone, could you just leave. We're closed. Everything's on the house." The scattered handfuls looked at her and each other, uncertain. "Go home," Kira said. "Call your mother, hug your children. Go home." She watched them file out onto the dark streets. When it was just her in the Pushcart she abandoned the unwashed, undressed tables and turned the lights out. Craig, the owner, only came in on Thursdays and weekends. She'd sort it out later. She found Melanie behind the storeroom door, chest still slowly heaving in the wake of a long fit of crying. She stood up, looking embarrassed, as Kira came in. "Sorry. I—still a bit of a mess—did something happen?" Kira ghosted towards her, fixed on her red-rimmed eyes, her lips. "The world's going to end." "What?" "The Americans are going to nuke the Slow Ones. They're doing it tomorrow." Melanie exhaled. "Madness." Madness, chaos, centers not holding. Just what was she clinging on to, anyway? Kira reached up and kissed her. Melanie's body reacted with surprise at first, then hunger. She had strong arms that could lift a double carton of coffee beans over her head, and they trembled around Kira's waist. As Kira sublimed into liquid Melanie closed the door behind them, so that nobody would hear. Later, as they sat together on the floor, sticky skin to sticky skin, Melanie asked, "Why?" No modifiers, no clauses. Just ”why.” Kira remained quiet for a while, pinching her toes inside the lingering damp heat of her boots. "Thom once told me about a theory he read. You know how they said the Slow Ones might be like migratory birds?" "I've heard that one. Sounds like tosh. But pretty much everything does these days." "Well, migratory birds come back every year. So why haven't we seen the Slow Ones before? Why has no-one, out of all of human history, ever mentioned them?" "So they're not migratory." Kira could still picture Thom's face as he had grilled her over this theory at the dinner table. How his freckled face had lit up with schoolboy excitement at the prospect of humanity's destruction, something interesting happening at last. "Well, the universe operates on a different scale, doesn't it? Billions and billions. What if the Slow Ones do come back, but so long that they only appear once every geologic age?" Melanie made a grunting noise. Kira settled her soft hip against Melanie's bony one. "It's the extinction events," she said. "What are those?" "Big die-offs." She curled her fingers around one of Melanie's nipples. "Like the dinosaurs. The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction. That's the one everyone knows, but it wasn't the only one. The fossil record is full of mass extinctions. Late Devonian, Permian-Triassic, Triassic-Jurassic... Once every thirty million years, like clockwork. Scientists don't know why." Melanie turned her head, her attention caught. "The Slow Ones?" "The oceans are already all dead. That's how it usually starts." "So we're going extinct." "Probably. I don't know. It's just a theory, anyway." Melanie blew air through wet lips. "It's not like we can get off this planet, is it?" Kira laid her head against Melanie's shoulder and listened to the sound of her breathing for a while. "You know," she said, "some scientists think extinction events are like planetary do-overs. Evolution speeds up after each extinction event. New forms of life start to flourish." "Like when you get left for a younger woman." Kira snorted. Melanie caught the edge of her hand and caressed the tip of her little finger, gently feeling around the shape of knuckle. How small our bones are, Kira thought, how fragile. What if whoever comes after us never finds them? It would be as if we never existed. A blank in the fossil record. "Are you going to tell Thom?" Melanie asked. Kira thought of what Thom's reaction might be. The things he would say, and the things he wouldn't. The look on his face, both accusatory and triumphant. She felt tired. "No," she said finally. "He's got enough on his mind." She could see him now, in his bathrobe still, standing at the window, watching grass die in their garden as the sky grew darker and darker. In the fridge, untouched, a pair of pork chops slowly defrosted, waiting and waiting and waiting. END     “Curiosity Fruit Machine” is copyright S. Qiouyi Lu, 2017. "The Slow Ones" is copyright JY Yang, 2017. This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library. You can support GlitterShip by checking out our Patreon at patreon.com/keffy, subscribing to our feed, or by leaving reviews on iTunes. Thanks for listening, and I’ll be back on February 28 with a reprint of “for she is the stars, and the sun revolves around her” by Agatha Tan. [Music plays out]

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