You are listening to a Clarksville magazine podcast with your host and narrator, Kate Baker.

Greetings, Clarkville citizens. Welcome to the last story for the month of October, 2025,

issue 229. All these stories, all of our past stories, and hopefully all of our future ones,

are made possible by your generous support. So thank you if you've gone and bought a

subscription. If you've gone to patreon.com forward slash Clarksworld. You've checked a few bucks our way

via a donation or supported us in the myriad ways over at Clarksworld magazine.com. Every little bit

helps. Our story is titled, in Lux Panoply, Glad I Stand, and is by Phoebe Barton.

Phoebe Barton is a queer trans science fiction writer.

Her short fiction has appeared in venues such as analog, light speed, and kaleidotrope.

And her story, The Mathematics of Fairyland, won the Aurora Award for Best Short Story in 2022.

She lives with her family, nine typewriters, and many books in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

So, my dear listeners, I hope that you can sit back, relax, and let me tell you a story.

Seven months since the war and two since winter should have ended, and Lake Erie is still

frozen thick enough for me to walk out and gather care packages dropped from orbit.

Soon enough, those metal husks will spill out harvests from Luna, Titan, Mirabilis.

Even worlds as far as Unsurvalden, Tamraparni, are sending what they can spare.

Seven hungry months I waited before a ship warped in from La Mancha, full of mourning and grief.

The messages didn't blame me for surviving were Annalor and Zainab hadn't.

I wish they did. I do my best not to dwell on why.

It's easy to sink into those thoughts away from the shore. Out here, the water's deep enough

that even I could drown in it. As I have today's packages onto the sledge, the clouds part in Earth's sun delivers a dazzling haymaker.

I'm left staggered for a moment despite my sunglasses.

...