Station 103 Presents - Remnants

February 28, 2025·29 min·1 clip

An apprentice must learn to read the poignant memories stored within a simple porcelain teacup.

The episode opens with a brief introduction from Rae of Station 103, who recommends the audio drama Remnants by Aera Major of Hanging Sloth Studios, citing the studio's other shows: Spiritbox Radio, Not Quite Dead, and Clockwork Bird. The main story begins in the archive: an apprentice is given an unmarked box containing a porcelain teacup and told to 'read' it by a master who then vanishes. Confused but curious, the apprentice follows a large golden arrow deeper into the mysterious building. The narrative then enters the teacup's embedded memory. A young girl named Celine lives in poverty in the south of France with her father, a failed painter who drinks brandy and exploits his daughter's early talent to sell paintings to tourists. As Celine grows older, her skills far surpass her father's, though he grows critical and resentful of this. To supplement their meagre income, Celine pickpockets passersby. On one such day, she steals from a governess, buys bread and a pastry, and returns to find her father dead at his painting stall. Years later, an adult Celine has become a skilled art forger in Paris, selling fake Monet and Renoir paintings to wealthy buyers under the fictional name of a dealer called Monsieur Fouvreur. She navigates a transaction with a naive young British officer named Jules, accepting a mix of francs and sterling. As the war begins — September 1939 is referenced — Celine observes the British soldiers treating their departure to war as something resembling a holiday. During the German occupation, Celine survives by selling forgeries to Nazi officers, including spending nights with them. She returns home before dawn after one such night, unable to cry, and resumes work on a Renoir forgery, rehearsing the false provenance she will use to sell it. After the liberation of Paris, Celine has her hair cut by people who brand her as a collaborator; she reframes this as a bold, chic style choice. She has a son, Benoit, whose father was a Nazi officer shot by the French Resistance the night before VE Day. Celine tells Benoit his father was René Favre, killed by German soldiers. At a ballroom event in later years, Celine meets de Perrier, a young English lord with rough hands and a knowing manner who quickly deduces she forges paintings. They begin an intermittent relationship over several years. De Perrier is the only person with whom Celine can be candid without speaking the literal truth. Their final meeting is in Valencia, where de Perrier seems disturbed and hurried. Afterwards, he asks again whether it hurts that no one knows the paintings are hers. Celine answers that if the paintings were acknowledged as hers, nobody would love them. De Perrier leaves in disgust. Celine remains in the house, which is bare except for a teacup resembling the one her father used for his paints. She squeezes oranges into it and sips the juice outside; someone strikes her from behind. The narrative returns to the archive apprentice, and the episode ends with a brief, cryptic exchange about criteria and judgement.

As heard by us

A dark fantasy mystery that turns a simple object into a source of memory and feeling.

Remnants begins with a porcelain teacup and a request that will not stay routine. The Apprentice is asked to read the object, and the story quickly settles into dark fantasy with a faintly eerie, intimate pull.

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Why you'd press play

A Porcelain Teacup mystery that folds memory into a dark fantasy hook.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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