You are listening to a Clark's World magazine podcast with your host and narrator, Kate Baker.

Greetings, Clark's old citizens. I hope this podcast finds you extraordinarily well. This is our last story for the month of March 2021 issue 174.

I hope that you are doing well. I'm glad you're spending some time with us. I'm glad you're escaping from the hell that has been the last 12 months.

Hopefully, there is light at the end of the tunnel. And I want to thank you for your ongoing support, your emails, the tweets.

I know it's hard to reach out, especially when you feel very alone.

So to those of you who have, thank you. And to those of you who continue to support the magazine, financially, the word of mouth, you guys are amazing.

Please go to patreon.com forward slash Clark's world to see how you can be a part of the magazine each and every month.

Now, our final story is titled to study the old masters in the Prado, the end of the world and is by Sarah Pauling.

Sarah Pauling sends other people to distant places for a living as a study abroad advisor in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

She was shortlisted for the James White Award for new writers and is a graduate of the Viable Paradise Workshop.

Her work is published or forthcoming in strange horizons, cast of wonders and escape pod.

If approached without sudden movement, she can be found at underscore Paulings on Twitter, where she matters on about writing, tabletop gaming, comics and books.

She can also be found on the website, SarahPauling.com.

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

You kissed her while moms broken down dishwasher, roared from the next room over.

Lucia had said it would be romantic. You her and a picture of tinto de verano whipped up from your brother's old wine stash and a flat sprite on the back of the fridge.

Like it was still springtime, like you were still at the fair and severe sketching each other dancing.

What would be really romantic you told her would be making out on a sofa that didn't have a dubious history regarding cat vomit.

A sofa you could call your own down a vanita manolette, where the apartments were spaced farther apart and the mall theater didn't play ads before American movies.

Your immigrant dream, she teased, winding fingers through your hair.

A spaceship landed on the mosque cathedral two kilometers away, dead city center and cordoba, but you didn't hear it.

The wash cycle was so glamorous you had to pretend it was waves on a shore just to relax into her again.

...