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 extraordinarily well.

I hope that you are enjoying July. Wherever you may be, I hope this podcast gives you a nice

distraction you're looking for, or aids you while you do work, while you garden, maybe why you commute.

Thanks for spending your time with us. Thanks for spending your dollars if you choose to support us

that way. Please go to patreon.com for slash Clark's World to see how you can check a few bucks

our way every month to be a part of this magazine and what we produce each and every month.

This is our second to last story for the month of July issue 178. This title, The Falling, is by

M.V. Melcer. M.V. Melcer is a Polish-born fiction writer and a filmmaker currently residing in

the United Kingdom. When not writing, she is working on supplementing her English MA with a

degree in astronomy and planetary sciences, with special interest in black holes. You can find more

about our author over at our website, M.V. Melcer.com. So my dear listener, I hope you can sit back.

Relax. And let me tell you a story.

We are falling. Two facts are contained in the statement. The first, falling is a permanent condition,

the truth of our past and present, and for some time still, the future. The second, I will let you

deduce for yourself. What's the cube root of 12,326,391? My mother blinks her eyes

losing focus the way they always do when she's working. I count the seconds. My sister squeals and

pops her cheeks, fighting the urge to reveal the answer, I give her a stir and look and keep counting.

231, my mother breathes swords out. 15 seconds, I announce. A shadow crosses her face, even as she puts

on a satisfied smile. That's perfectly fine, my father says holding her gaze. My mother nods,

three more years and she can shift to teaching. She'll be safe there until of course the time comes

for both of my parents to move. But that won't be for another 20 years. And for me, at seven,

...