A Ring, A Ring O'Roses by Simon Kewin

A tale of an alternate London, where Vapourmen man giant rosewater towers to protect the populace from bad airs. Richard Elen reads. #steampunk

Red lights flickered all across the board filling one wall of Dartford Vapour Monitoring Station. The tiny gas flames in the bulbs hissed, their combined sound angrier and angrier as more and more sparked into life…

Simon Kewin is the author of over 100 published short stories. He lives in England with his wife and their daughters. His wife is a microbiologist, so he doesn’t really believe the stuff about bad air. He is currently working on the third volume in his Cloven Land fantasy trilogy. Find him at simonkewin.co.uk.

Richard Elen is a recording engineer, writer and designer based in Cambridge, UK. He is Technical Director of internet radio station Radio Riel, and co-host/editor of Designing Worlds, a weekly online TV show about design and designers in virtual environments. He also creates marketing materials for clients in the consumer and professional audio fields.

The story music is from The Cog Laments by Spiky.fr from the album Carnival Symposium.

Theme song: Ashes, Ashes by Deus ex Vapore Machina

Osgoode’s Chorus: Walking Around by Kevin MacLeod

Released under a Creative Commons 4.0 International attribution noncommercial no-derivatives license. Share often, but don’t sell it, change it, or make a transcript.

Manning the tower: Kris Law

Minding the engines: Kevin FrostS

Filling the vats: Andrew, Jed, Samuel, Scythian

Outro: SuperSuz