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PodCastle => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Ocicat on November 11, 2020, 09:16:50 PM

Title: PC651: At First Glance
Post by: Ocicat on November 11, 2020, 09:16:50 PM
PodCastle 651: At First Glance (https://podcastle.org/2020/11/03/podcastle-651-at-first-glance/)

Author: Shannon Peavey (https://podcastle.org/people/shannon-peavey/)
Narrator: Avi Silver (https://podcastle.org/people/avi-silver/)
Host: Setsu Uzume (https://podcastle.org/people/setsu-uzume/)
Audio Producer: Peter Behravesh (https://podcastle.org/people/peter-behravesh/)

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction.

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Show Notes
Rated R for strong language.



On a narrow highway in western Texas, an old Ford pickup hurtles through a curve at eighty-five miles per hour. It slips a little on bald tires, but recovers and swings out to the straightaway, accelerating.

Two girls sit in the cab — one in the driver’s seat, one behind her in the back. The driver chews her lip until it bleeds. Her younger sister has a pair of dark glasses pushed up onto her forehead and her face pressed up to the glass until her nose squashes flat like a bulldog’s. She’s careful not to look up at her sister.

Somewhere behind them, there are posters with their names and faces, policemen canvassing neighborhoods. But they are miles, miles away.

“What the hell’s with all these armadillos,” Brynn says. “I mean, look at this road. It’s a goddamned slaughterhouse.”

Sam glances back in the rearview mirror. Just a quick look, and then back to the road. The air stings her split lip. “Get your greasy face off my windows.”

“You think they’d learn,” Brynn says, without peeling her face from the glass. “Isn’t there some sort of instinct? Species memory?”

“Their mamas didn’t teach ‘em right.”

“Maybe they think you’re gonna stop for them. Maybe they think you’re a merciful lady.”

“Nobody thinks that,” Sam says, and eases off the gas.

They don’t see any live armadillos for the rest of the drive. Only dead ones, splayed carelessly along the fog line. Sam’s mercy isn’t tested.

When they stop for gas, Brynn stays in the truck and drops her sunglasses back over her eyes. She stares at her knees and imagines the scene — the long-haul truckers in their cabs, maybe a family with kids on a road trip, harried mother telling them to be quiet while she fills up the car. Though really she can’t see a thing. The lenses of her glasses are smoked and neatly coated with black paint.




Listen to this week's PodCastle. (http://media.rawvoice.com/podcastle/p/media.libsyn.com/media/podcastle/PC651_AtFirstGlance.mp3)
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