You are listening to a Clarksworld magazine podcast. I'm your host and narrator, Kate Baker.

Our second story for the month of December is from across time and is by Chisom Ume.

And guess what? This story is brought to you by you. Your support of this magazine helps us bring you

these wonderful stories each and every time, each and every month, each and every year. So if you

have subscribed, if you have told a friend, if you have gone to patreon.com forward slash clarksworld

or Clarksworld citizens.com. Thank you so much.

You allow me to read and do something I really love doing. Chisom Ume is a Nigerian

speculative fiction writer and poets. When he's not watching movies or writing about fantastical

things, he's tweeting about movies and fantastical things.

These short stories have been featured in Omenana, Apex, Isele, Gears Best African Speculative

Fiction, 2023, African Ghosts, Mythaxis, Sci-Fi Shorts, and Elsewhere.

So, my dear listener, I hope you can sit back, relax. And I'm going to do it. Mythaxis, sci-fi shorts, and elsewhere.

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

Dear a Daisy, the dark woman in the video says,

if you're watching this, then I no longer exist, at least to you.

Adese takes her eyes off the screen, peers down at the motherboard, sitting on her work table,

and soders a chip onto the board.

The smell of the burning metal always feels like therapy to her.

Her workspace is a mess.

Wires, screwdrivers, and batteries litter the place.

But Adéze pays the chaos no mind.

The machine she's working on is the life raft she holds on to amidst the rolling waves.

...