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

Greetings, Clarksrolled citizens. I hope this podcast finds you extraordinarily well.

This is our third podcast for the month of October 2022 issue 193.

What if you thought of our previous stories for the month of October or any in the past?

You can leave us a comment if you follow us over on Twitter. I am Kate, underscore baker, and Neil is at ClarksWorld.

Oh, and by the way, I'm a nonfiction editor at ClarksWorld.

So if you're a listener and you have a pitch, please send it to nonfiction at ClarksWorld magazine.com.

I need more pitches so I can slate the next few months.

So if you have anything, any good ideas rolling around in that head of yours,

please don't self reject and send them my way.

So our story is titled Sweet Baby and is by Thomas Ha.

Thomas Ha, who can be found at the website, Thomas Ha writes.com is a former attorney turns stay at home father who enjoys writing speculative fiction during the rare moments when all of his kids are napping at the same time.

Thomas grew up in Honolulu and after a decade plus of living in the Northeast now resides in Los Angeles.

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

Won't hurt. I know.

You don't look sweet baby in the eye when he pushes out from under the tree throw.

We know that now. Instead, the ears or what's left of them are a better place to settle your gaze.

They're close enough to the face that you can tell which way he's looking and whether or not he's smiling at you.

And in the end, those are the two things that matter most with him.

Luckily, the moon bugs are out tonight, which always helps things.

He likes this world of their lights as they gather around the lanterns planted in the backyard.

They're floating ember bodies clustering around those glowing glass boxes at the base of his tree.

...