Greetings, Clarkial Citizens. You are listening to the fifth story for the month of April 2025, issue 223.

I want to thank you again for your ongoing support. Thank you for dropping by if this is your first time listening.

Thank you for purchasing a subscription. Thank you for going to patreon.com.4 slash Clark's World.

We simply cannot do this. We cannot put these words and worlds together each and every month without your ongoing

support.

Our title of the story is symbiotic.

It is by Carolyn Zhao.

Carolyn Zhao is a med student, speculative fiction writer, and retired English major based

in New York City and Chicago.

Her work has been published in Clark's World.

She loves her dog almost as much as her dog loves her.

And if you like what you hear, I encourage you to go back to in which Caruth is correct.

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

L detonated the EMP against the feeder sensor, a delicate organ that he had only seen in fragments,

suspended in cytology slides the shape of dominoes.

The lab, just days ago, I had been inundated with new specimens washed up on the long white beaches after the storm. The bodies had rotted so

quickly that they had barely gathered enough samples. There was the stench, first of all, like old

seaweed and ammonia, and the way the skins had fallen apart when they

tried to carry them away on cots. As they doused the stretchers with brine, A.A. had suggested

that they conserved the sensors alone. Elle had sensed his distaste for the operation through the

neural link that tethered them both, the slight revulsion behind the call for efficiency.

It was a squeamishness that never failed to make Elle laugh, even then AA had scowled back at him

...