Author Topic: PC768: The Consequences of Microwaving Styrofoam  (Read 701 times)

Ocicat

  • Castle Watchcat
  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 3722
  • Anything for a Weird Life
on: January 05, 2023, 08:01:50 AM
PodCastle 768: The Consequences of Microwaving Styrofoam

Author: Leah Ning
Narrator: Peter Adrian Behravesh
Host: Matt Dovey
Audio Producer: Devin Martin

PodCastle 768: The Consequences of Microwaving Styrofoam is a PodCastle original.

---

Content Warning:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)



Show Notes
Rated PG-13



 

We meet when we’re sixteen, and the Spark pops bright orange between us the moment our eyes meet. I don’t want to be friends with her. She’s strange and aloof and unkind. But the Spark is the Spark, and everyone saw it, so soon I’m alone. No one else wants to be friends with her either, so they draw away from me by association.

Now she’s the only one who’ll share a lunch table with me. We sit as far apart as possible, me with my sandwich dripping jelly onto the plastic bag I’ve placed carefully beneath it and her loudly slurping microwaved tomato soup from its Styrofoam bowl. I think about telling her she shouldn’t microwave it and don’t. Maybe if it kills her I won’t have to bother with her or that fucking Spark.

It occurs to me that maybe I, too, am strange and aloof and unkind. It also occurs to me that maybe she’s not the reason no one wants to be friends with me.

I search for ways to get rid of the Spark in incognito browser tabs, rubbing at wrists that weren’t sore before we Sparked. Google just brings up dry Wikipedia pages on the first appearances of the Spark fifty-seven-point-five years ago and chirpy blog posts by Spark-bonded best friends for life who just can’t get enough of spending time together. I pretend to gag even though I’m alone in my room and it’s 2 a.m.

Yeah, my Spark was definitely an excuse for my “friends” to get away from me.




Listen to this week's PodCastle.
Follow us on YouTube and Spotify!