You are listening to a Clark's World magazine podcast with your host and narrator, Kate Baker. Greetings Clark's World Citizens.

I hope this podcast finds you well. This is our fifth story for the month of October, 2022.

Issue 193. I hope that you're doing well, and I want to thank you for your ongoing support.

Whether it's just showing up and listening to this, the first time, or if you've

opened a subscription, or if you supported us on patreon.com forward slash Clark's World,

and that is Clark with an e. I can't thank you enough because you allow Neil and I in the rest of

the staff here at Clark's World to do great things each and every month, and you're a part of that.

Our story is titled Fly Free and is by Alan Hubert-Div and is translated by Alex Schwartzman.

Alan Hubert-Div, who passed away in 2022, was an award-winning writer,

anthologist, journalist, and translator originally from Kyrgyzstan, who worked and wrote in

St. Petersburg, Russia. He was the author of the first Russian language biography of James Joyce,

nominated for the National Prize, and a translator into Russian,

of works by H.T. Wells, Michael Moorcock, Paul Anderson, Ursula Le Guin, and many others. His short

stories and novellets earned him numerous awards, and have been collected into two collections.

This was his first English-language publication. Alex Schwartzman will be found at the website

aleckshortsman.com. His translations from Russian have appeared in Clark's World, FNSF,

Asimovs, Tor.com, and many other venues. He's the author of fantasy novels,

Eradani's Crown, and the middling affliction. So my dear listener, I hope you can sit back, relax.

And let me tell you a story.

I needed a true monster, so I went with a bird. Why? It's impossible to reach an accord with a bird.

From a conversation with film director, Jiraj hers.

Bird speak was the only reason Crowley got this job, without it he couldn't have dreamed of

...