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

Greetings Clarksville Citizens and welcome to the last story for the month of July,

issue 214. Our story is titled Born Outside and is by Polinth Blake.

And this story, along with every single story we have ever released, is due to you. your support, you listening to the podcast, you telling a friend,

you purchasing a subscription or going to Patreon.com forward slash Clark's world.

We can't do this without you. We wouldn't want to. So thank you for all of your ongoing support.

Poland Blake lives in England with a menagerie of invertebrates.

They previously had work in Strange Horizons, Nature, and the Rosalind Siblings Anthology.

So my dear listener, I hope you can sit back relax let me tell you a story. You were all too young to remember this, says the teacher.

I remember everything that's ever happened to me, but I can't say things like that. Instead I stare at the

teacher's forbidden cupboard where she keeps all the new pencils and pens. I try to

peek inside sometimes but she says no children allowed. I might take too many pencils and waste them.

This can be upsetting, but you need to know.

The whole class is about the same age, so we were all babies then.

Though Jenny was already seven over the holidays and I won't be seven until next week.

My best friend Tom is the youngest every year, so we'll be six almost forever.

And then seven when we're all eight.

Peter died last month, so is six for actually ever.

What did I just say, Tulip?

There are times when I don't feel like Tulip at all, and I wish people wouldn't use my name, but I can't say that either, so I answer,

The Pod War was the most important war in human history, because I remember even when I'm not paying attention.

She carries on the lesson and puts on a documentary about the war.

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