Category Archives: Tales from the Tub

TBM-2512.08 – Dog Days of Advent: Elves

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DDOA-08

Description:

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompt is  Elves. 

Excerpt:

Her husband—“Santa” to the winking masses—sits in his study polishing spectacles, pretending not to hear. He hates this part. Always has. Kindness comes naturally to him. Old power does not.

Episode Cast:

Melissa A. Bartell

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid blog header art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects and Music are from Freesound and UppBeat

Contact:

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:05 — 6.3MB)

TBM-2512.07 – Dog Days of Advent: Wander

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DDOA-07

Description:

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompt is  Wander

Excerpt:

One by one, they step into the starlit desert. Their glow grows brighter as they move away, pale lights bobbing like will-o’-wisps across the dunes. She watches until they’re only a constellation of tiny sparks at the edge of sight.

Episode Cast:

Melissa A. Bartell

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid blog header art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects and Music are from Freesound and UppBeat

Contact:

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:12 — 6.6MB)

TBM-2512.06 – Dog Days of Advent: Ember/Spark

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Description:

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompt is  Ember/Spark

Excerpt:

The circle widens, ripples spreading, and the two species drift into a shared rhythm — some with hands, some with arms, all with joy. In their mingled glow, something ancient rises, older than language or gravity: the understanding that warmth is not bound to flame, and family not bound to form.

Episode Cast:

Melissa A. Bartell

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid blog header art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects and Music are from Freesound and UppBeat

Contact:

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:40 — 6.2MB)

TBM-2512.05 – Dog Days of Advent: Frost

by

DDOA-05

Description:

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompt is Frost.

Excerpt:

“It’s the longest night,” he says. “Not for sorrow — for balance. The dark gives the light a place to return to. Winter holds the world still, just long enough for hope to gather its breath.”

Episode Cast:

Mark, the Encaffeinated One

Melissa A. Bartell

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid blog header art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects and Music are from Freesound and UppBeat

Contact:

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:41 — 8.1MB)

TBM-2512.04 – Dog Days of Advent: Snowglobe

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DDOA-04

Description:

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompt is Snowglobe.

Excerpt:

The lights above them pulse, soft as breathing. She remembers that first storm — the fear of the power failing, the scramble to secure the greenhouse domes, the way they’d worked side by side in the cold until dawn. That was when it began, really: not the flirtation or the laughter, but the quiet respect that came from surviving something together.

Episode Cast:

Melissa A. Bartell

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid blog header art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects and Music are from Freesound and UppBeat

Contact:

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:12 — 6.8MB)

TBM-2512.03 – Dog Days of Advent: Orbit

by

DDOA-03

Description:

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompt is orbit.

Excerpt:

Below her, ribbons of green and violet curl across the poles, shimmering like breath against the night. It’s not the first aurora she’s seen from orbit, but this one feels different — brighter, alive. She thinks of the Christmas lights her father used to hang along the eaves of their house, blinking patterns that never quite synced. He’d laugh every year and say, “Perfection’s overrated, sweetheart. Just make it shine.”

Episode Cast:

Melissa A. Bartell

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid blog header art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects and Music are from Freesound and UppBeat

Contact:

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:14 — 6.2MB)

TBM-2512.02 – Dog Days of Advent: Hearth

by

DDOA-02

Description:

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompt is hearth.

Excerpt:

Outside, the church bells strike midnight — exactly on time.

Inside the café, the world softens around the edges. The espresso machine has gone quiet, its metal belly releasing one last sigh of steam. She wipes down the counter in slow, practiced circles. When she finishes, she pours herself a small mug from what remains in the pot — lukewarm, but still comforting — and brings it with her as she turns.

Episode Cast:

Melissa A. Bartell

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid blog header art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects and Music are from Freesound and UppBeat

Contact:

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:08 — 7.5MB)

TBM-2512.01 – Dog Days of Advent: Clock

by

DDOA-01

Description:

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompt is “clock.”

Excerpt:

Time, for her, is elastic. Sometimes it stretches, gossamer-thin, like taffy pulled too far, and she can walk its length to touch the moment when her mother bent to kiss her scraped knee, or the instant she first realized she’d fallen in love. Other times it snaps tight and whips her forward, years ahead, where she sees a conversation that hasn’t happened yet, the face of a friend she hasn’t met.

Episode Cast:

Melissa A. Bartell

Links and References

Transcript: Clock 

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid blog header art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Sound Effects are from Freesound and UppBeat

Contact:

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:34 — 7.3MB)

TBM-Mirror Mirror: Day Thirty-One

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Description:

This is how it ends. This is how it always ends.

 

✨ Mirror, Mirror runs throughout October on Tales from the Tub. Subscribe so you don’t miss a reflection.

Episode Cast:

Melissa A. Bartell

Links and References

Transcript: Mirror Mirror: Day Thirty-One

Credits:

Contact:

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:51 — 4.4MB)

Day 030

TBM-Mirror Mirror: Day Thirty

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Day 030

 

Description:

In Phoenix, a teenager learns that some countdowns don’t end with midnight—they end when the mirror says so.

✨ Mirror, Mirror runs throughout October on Tales from the Tub. Subscribe so you don’t miss a reflection.

 

Episode Cast:

Nuchtchas

Links and References

Transcript: Mirror Mirror: Day Twenty-Seven

Credits:

Contact:

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:08 — 2.8MB)