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

Greetings Clarkville citizens and welcome to the last story for the month of January, 2024,

issue 220. The piece is titled Autonomy and is by Meg Ellison. And you know what? These pieces

throughout this whole entire month are brought to us by your support so

if you are a subscriber if you've gone to patreon.com forward slash clarksworld or you've gone to clark's

citizens.com thank you so so so much your support means that we can bring you these wonderful

stories the nonfiction the art art, the podcast, and helps

pay the people who put this all together each and every month. So if you're enjoying this fiction

and you haven't yet subscribed or gone to patreon.com forward slash Clark's World, please consider

doing so. Now our author, Meg Ellison, is a Hugo, Philip K. Dick, and Locus Award-winning author,

as well as a Nebula Sturgeon and Otherwise Awards finalist.

A prolific short story writer and essayist,

Ellison has been published in Scientific American, McSweeney's, Fantasy and Science Fiction,

Van Gogheria, and Best American Science Fiction

and Fantasy.

Ellison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley.

She lives in Brooklyn.

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

It happened again Friday night.

Janine was chewing gum fast, jaw running like she was in training to eat bricks.

What? A dude just stood in front of your car?

Momta tried to keep up, but Janine walked as fast as she talked, as fast as she chewed.

...