Escape Pod 807: T _ ME

Escape Pod

Escape Artists Foundation

Fiction, Science Fiction, Drama

4.7 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2021

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

T _ ME By Alex Jennings The portable classroom was larger than Joan Ellen had expected. Lit from overhead with fluorescent lights and busy with seventh-grade artwork, it smelled of chalk dust, old books, and refrigerated air. It reminded Joan Ellen of home. These days, most everything reminded Joan Ellen of home – or at least how far she was from it. She tried to pay attention, but now Joan felt the yawning chasm of distance, the thousands upon thousands of miles between Tunis and DC. “I’ll put this as simply as I can,” Mrs. Thornton said. “Patrick is a brilliant boy.” Liz Thornton was Patrick’s homeroom teacher. She was a heavy-set fortyish woman with close-cropped brown hair and a mouth that bunched up at the corners. Like many of the teachers here at ACST, Mrs. Thornton had come overseas with the Peace Corps, married, and stayed. “I had a hard time getting through to him in our first few weeks together,” Mrs. Thornton said, “but I think his last essay assignment represents a breakthrough. He – I have it here.” The teacher opened a manila folder on her desk blotter and handed Joan a short typed manuscript crawling with red pen marks. Joan Ellen frowned as her eyes slid over the heading at the top of the page: What Comes After Science?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today, Escape Pot is sponsored by the Annual Migration of Clouds by Premiumohamad, a biologist
0:07.2	and rising star in speculative fiction, and a good friend of those of us here at Escape
0:11.6	Pot.
0:12.8	The Annual Migration of Clouds is a Kly-5 post-apocalyptic novella by author Premiumohamad.
0:19.2	It takes place in the distant future, after the climate crisis has entirely disrupted
0:23.0	life as we know it, and a mysterious mind controlling fungus has warmed its way through
0:27.4	the scattered population.
0:29.8	The story focuses on a choice.
0:32.1	Read a young woman who carries this parasite has been given a chance to move far away to
0:36.4	study in one of the few communities sustained by pre-disaster technology, but her mother
0:41.2	is ill and in a world where the planting season is planned down to the minute, everybody
0:45.8	counts.
0:46.8	It's not easy for her to leave behind or love ones.
0:51.0	To set her family up for life, Read decides to take part in a full hearty and dangerous
0:55.2	mission.
0:56.2	To accomplish this task, she must ask others to put great trust in her, but she can't
1:00.7	easily separate her own thoughts from the parasite's will, making it difficult for
1:04.8	her to even trust herself.
1:22.6	EscapePod Episode 807, T. Me, by Alex Jennings.
1:53.6	Hello, and welcome to EscapePod, your weekly science fiction podcast.
1:58.7	I'm Brent Lambert, your host for this episode, and part of our Black Future Month Special
2:03.4	event.
	...

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