EscapeBOD, Episode 145, The Graduates of Foremost 891C, by Frank Bad Hughes. bad hues. Hello. Hello and welcome to EscapePod, your weekly science fiction podcast.

I'm Valerie Valdez, your host for this episode.

Our story this week is The Graduates of Farmist 891 C by Frank Baird Hughes.

This is an escape pod original.

As a content note, this story contains some descriptions of animal surgical modifications.

Frank Baird Hughes has been an educator and anthropologist.

He lives in Philadelphia with his family.

Our narrator, Jarister Nett, is a middleman,

middle-aged, middle child, living in the middle of the United States.

After living most of his life in such exotic locations as Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, and Tennessee, he relocated

to Chicagoland, where he spends time working in corporate America.

Jaris is a lifelong skeptic who loves reading stories of fantasy and the paranormal, both

silently and aloud.

Now get ready for a wail of a crash landing tale because it's story time.

The graduates of foremost 891C by Frank Baird Hughes, narrated by Jaris Dernett.

They say that in Texas the best jobs go to the best citizens. The goal is national full employment,

and everyone, no matter their work history, has a place in this great plan.

You want me to leave Earth to be a child wrangler?

Ask Blooming, but I've never taught anything to anybody, not even to ride a bike.

He regarded the job counselor with a half-hooded gaze, struggling to produce alternatives,

anything besides those positions he had already turned down and failing.

Blooming pushed his chair back, made as if to stand, then waited to see what the counselor

...