What the Hoffenphaafs Know

Toasted Cake 170: What the Hoffenphaafs Know by Samantha Henderson

Episode #170! In which we are an egg.

The Hoffenphaafs know it, the mud-men know it, the steam urchins sprouting in their vesicles know it, even the protein-sellers that carry the thick-frozen slabs between slaughterhouse and tower on their enormous calloused shoulders know it - the pillars of the earth shiver in the heat, the golden-tiled floors of the playtime levels are bending, the face of the earth below buckles until it near breaks.

This story was first published in Grendelsong.

Samantha Henderson lives in Southern California. Her stories have been published in Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, and Interzone, and the anthologies Tomorrow's Cthulhu and the Mammoth Book of Steampunk. She's the author of the Forgotten Realms novels Dawnbringer and Heaven's Bones.

Original airdate: February 4, 2018