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

greetings Clarksworld citizens, and welcome to our second story for the month of April 2022 issue 187.

I hope that you are doing well, all things considered, and that 2022 is treating you

as well as it can, with all of the things that are currently on fire.

I want to thank you for taking the time to step out of the smoke, put on some headphones or

drive to work and listen to us. Thank you for that ongoing support, whether this is your first

story or it's your over 700th at this point. Thank you for coming back each and every time.

Thank you for your ongoing support on patreon.com forward slash Clarksworld as well.

We cannot put this out without your help each and every month, so thank you.

Our story is titled two spacesuits and is by Leonard Richardson. Leonard Richardson can be found

at crummy.com and works as a software architect at the New York Public Library, making it easier for

library patrons to borrow ebooks, is the author of two SF novels, consolation games and situation

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

A four hour drive between me and my parents is a distance that works well for everybody.

I can come back for a weekend, but they don't call me back for every little thing.

So when mom did call me at work in the middle of the day and said, your father's acting weird,

I feared for the worst. Nursing home, power of attorney weird, I said, what kind of weird?

He's building something in the backyard, said mom. I can see it now through the window.

Looks like a hobbit hole with a little wooden door, and he won't admit that it's not a normal thing

to be building. Is he working on it right now? No, he's out on a job, but the hobbit hole is out there

staring at me like a thing of evil. Can you send me a picture? After three minutes of mom

mobile phone fumbling, I received a picture taken through the kitchen window. The back lawn was

...