Sunshine Satellite Story Podcast Amanda Louise VanStratum

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” -C.S. Lewis
Not far from here, there was a garden encircled by a stone wall. Lacing through the middle of the garden was a healthy, productive Grapevine. In this garden, songbirds laid their eggs in nests constructed from pieces of vine that they had clipped with their sharp beaks.


The mother and father songbirds both worked hard, protecting the eggs that housed their baby birds. They would keep the eggs warm until they hatched, and then they would continue to provide warmth, love, and food until the babies grew old enough to fly away and eat the grapes on the vine without help.


Now there was in this same garden, a Fox and a Snake. Fox was tricky and fearful, but Snake was cunning and evil. Although the Grapevine had never failed to produce enough grapes to feed all the animals in the past, Fox was afraid of scarce resources. He worried that someday there would not be enough grapes. The old Snake was everyone's enemy, plotting in the hope that he could one day utilize Fox's fear to consume the songbirds.


Now, Snake was more crafty than all the animals that lived in the garden. One late night, while the garden slept, Snake brought Fox some fermented grapes to eat. While Fox ate, Snake uncoiled an evil plot.


The songbirds knew that Fox and Snake were not their allies, but they did esteem their worldly wisdom. They knew that Snake could perceive when frosts were coming and that Fox was full of gossip about events happening in distant fields. So when Fox and Snake went to the songbirds heralding impending destruction, they listened from a distance at what they had to say.


Snake explained that an expected frost would kill most of the Grapevine, while Fox warned that there would not be enough grapes to sustain the flock in the spring. The songbirds knew that the Grapevine had never failed to provide everything needed for nesting and food. Even in the cold months, the birds could eat the plentiful insects in the fallen leaves and fruits. However, Fox and Snake spoke with conviction, so the songbirds listened to them. A seed of anxiety was sown.


Time in the garden continued as it had. The sun rose in the east and traced a happy arch across the sky, before melting into the arms of the soft summer nights in the west. The enlivening afternoon rains fell on all the animals whether they were wise or foolish, evil or good. In all this abundance, the songbirds forgot to remember to be afraid of scarce resources.


By and by, Snake warned the songbirds again that if they did not leave the garden and go into the fields, there would not be enough food. While the songbirds continued as they had been, laying eggs and building nests to protect them, they were uneasy. Snake knew that, if he wanted Fox's seeds of anxiety to sprout into fear, he would need to water the threat with more deception.


Again, evil enlarged in darkness. At night, while the songbirds were sleeping with their eggs, Fox disguised his voice to sound like an owl. He ventriloquized, "Who? Who -who? Who will adventure with me to the hills? Who will go out into the fields to gather better food?"


Some of the father songbirds heard the owl call and left. Some of the fathers left because they were impressed by the wildness of the mysterious owl. Others left because they believed that they would have better opportunities if they abandoned their eggs. Some fathers deserted because they saw the others forsaking their families and felt compelled to imitate. But still, the mother songbirds remained with their eggs, alone in the quiet darkness.


Although the tricksters had caused significant damage, they were not satisfied. Their ultimate goal was to own the entire Grapevine for themselves. Again, in the night, under the deep shadow of the stone wall, they applied the final coating of corruption to their deceit.


Fox found...

A story in which an ancient trickster spirit gives an enchanted Selfown to a little girl intending evil against her, but it worked out for her good because she learned how to see things with new eyes.
__________
A beast
does not know
that he is a beast,
and the nearer a man
gets to being a beast,
the less he knows it.
- George MacDonald
___________
Once upon a time there was a normal girl who lived in a nice neighborhood and went to a good school. In fact, I think you might know her, or at least you know someone who does. She had a dog, two cats, some goldfish, and climbing tree. Her porch hosted sunsets in the evening and the stars twinkled between her strawberry curtains where her mother kissed her every goodnight.
Life was good for this little girl, and she was happy; mostly, except for one thing: this little girl really wanted a cell phone. Her friends had cell phones. And data plans. And Wastebook accounts. And InstaKudo accounts. And. And. And. Her friends posted pictures of their epic adventures in Suburban Teenager Land so that all of Family-and-Friend fandom could tap their pictures and pithy statements with clicks of approval. It was wonderful, with a simple snap of the lens both Grandma Sarah in Seattle and Aunt Gertrude in Corpus Christi could both instantly know and approve of the cream in your coffee and the color of your sneakers. The little girl wanted so much to be caught up in this interconnected world wide spider web, but her mother and father would only give her a flip phone. It was awful. The only thing you could do with the flip phone was make phone calls.
That particular morning, was a very normal day: sunny with a high of 72 and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich were all that was expected. The little girl zipped up her backpack and headed off to school. She was walking down the sidewalk path when she was surprised to see a silver slithering off into the bushes. Of course, all normal little girls are intrepidly curious adventurers, so the little girl followed the silver slithering to a hollow dead tree on the outskirts of the park.
“Did your mother really say that a cell phone would not be good for you?” the silver slitherer asked the little girl.
“She said it was not necessary to be so focused on promoting my external self-image,” the little girl paused and scrunched her nose as she tried to remember the rest of what her mother had said. The slitherer had such large engrossing eyes. “Mom said, “I would be happier if I focused on building my self image from the inside out by concentrating on learning useful information and playing active outdoor games.’”
The slitherer made a wheezing sound that the little girl assumed was laughter. “And you really believe that? Of course she wants you to think that. That’s how grown-ups make themselves look good. They don't go to school anymore, so they have to show off their children’s achievements in order to make their friends like them.”
The little girl had never thought of it that way. It sounded true. Mostly true, anyway. Did her mother really feel that way? The slitherer must be very clever to have noticed that.
“Here, I have something special for you.” coaxed the slitherer. And from a hole in the old dead tree, he produced a smooth shiny cellphone with a silver emblem of a bitten fruit on the back. Take it. It will make you wise. You will see all the things your mother wanted to keep from you.” The slitherer coiled its body around a dry bone of a branch and whispered in the little girl’s ear. It is called a SelfOwn and you can take pictures of yourself with it, but not just any pictures. This takes Soulfies which make you appear more vibrant than any other little girl in the world.”
The little girl touched the slender silver box. It really was pretty slick, but when she looked up the slitherer was gone. The phone was innocuously off. It certainly did not look magical. It looked like any other well packaged piece of asian made

In the first chapter we are introduced to the viking Akedah, a Norse man with a Hebrew name that means "ultimate sacrifice." He is well respected in his community, but unhappy underneath it all because he has no official quest. The evil Snow Queen takes an interest in him and decides to test his mettle. Akedah finds that the reward for success is different than what he would have guessed.

Akedah packs up his gifts from Asgard to rescue a princess in peril. Unfortunately, the Princess Moiety, whose name means "half of a whole," becomes a whole handful as Akedah battles the evil Inuit giant, Aipaloovek, on vacation from up north.

In our first two podcasts we met the viking, Akedah, a basically honorable man with good intentions, yet without a quest. The Snow Queen had taken an interest in him. She wanted to add him to her collection of frozen man souls. When the viking prevailed, the gods of Asgard noticed him. They gave him a quest to find a compass on the island of Atlantis. We also met the Princess Moiety, a beautiful young lady whose attractiveness was only skin deep. She was in the process of allowing herself to be sacrificed to Ipaloovek, an ugly ocean giant, when Akedah rudely interrupted her grand plans. Akedah tried to kill the Giant with arrows that Thor had given him. The problem was that the arrows, which were wrought from the same type of silver as Thor’s hammer, boomeranged back into the quiver before doing any real damage to the intended target.

In this episode the princess decides that she also would not like to be rescued by the North Wind and winds up falling in with the Misandrist Mermaids.

In our first three chapters Akedah the viking was given a quest by the gods of Asgard to find a certain compass after defeating the evil Snow Queen who had wanted to add him to her collection of frozen man-souls. The gods gave him three magical gifts to aid him on his journey. Thor gave him silver arrows, Idunn gave him a bag of oranges, and Odin gave him a scroll of poetry. The viking was supposed to be able to get the compass from an Atlantean princess. However, when Akedah found her drifting out to sea as a human sacrifice, she was not exactly amenable to being rescued. He used his silver arrows from Thor to defeat a fat foolish giant, and the oranges -which turned out to be golden apples- to defeat some misandrist mermaids. The viking was ready to turn back for the north, but he first had to stop at a mysterious island to make repairs to his boat.

In this episode Princess Moiety gets lost on the island and discovers an ancient terrible evil hiding in the jungle. The viking sets off to find her, and receives help from an unlikely source.