You're listening to another Clark's World magazine podcast. I'm your host and narrator Kate Baker.

Welcome to the last story of the month of December 2025, issue 231. The last story for the year.

And you know what? This year, along with all of the stories here at Clark's World, have been brought to you by you.

You're amazing and generous and wonderful support. So thank you. You've gone to patreon.com for us to Clark's World have been brought to you by you. Your amazing and generous and wonderful support.

So thank you. You've gone to patreon.com for it's not Clark's World. Checked a few bucks our way

via a donation or bought a subscription or even told a friend about a story that you liked or nominated

it for an award. You are the foundation on which we stand, so thank you so much.

You let me do what I love to do in telling you a story. And this story is titled Homegrown,

and is by Madeline Vigneron. Madeline Vigneron, she, her, is a graduate student in English literature

at Carton University.

She is an editor at Auger magazine.

Her writing has been published in Corio, Quilt, the undergraduate review,

collective reflections, writing in the gallery, and performed by the Dan Studio series.

So, my dear listener, I hope that you can sit back, relax, and let me tell you a story. My sister and I flip a coin. It's tales, which means that I will escape, and she will not. We won only one seat on the

asylum ships, so one of us will die on earth. She cries brutally for several minutes. I cannot.

When she's finished, I say, you can have it and hand her the tissue box. Or we'll flip the coin again.

But she shakes her head after wiping the snot from her face. No, you won. I won't take it from you.

In the three weeks before my departure,

I often hear her crying behind closed doors.

She helps me pack my one allotted bag

and reads to me from the space travel

instructional pamphlet over dinner.

...