EP021: Platypus Girl

[Russell Nash]

EP021: Platypus Girl

By Jonathon Sullivan.
Read by Stephen Eley.

Rufus didn’t relent. “How come you ain’t got a license, skillet face?”

Shari struggled to keep her own distaste under control. Emotion could screw up the reading, her own pheromones and toxins clogging up the massive olfactory bulb and entorhinal cortex that occupied most of her cranium. She took a deep breath, pulling air through her huge nostrils, trying to calm herself. At least she didn’t have to see the man’s face.

Rated R. Contains violence, profanity, and crimes against chemistry.



Listen to this week’s Escape Pod!

[Unblinking]

This was a fun story.  POV characters with different sensory abilities are interesting because they can tell us about the most mundane things in the world, and we can see them through eyes (or nostrils). 

I didn't realize Platypi were so well renowned for their sense of smell.  I would've expected a dog or something, so a platypus was an interesting choice.

One small quibble:  I was never sure if the character actually had a beak or if her nose looked human from the outside.  A couple clues in the stories seemed to point in opposite directions (I don't remember what they were anymore).

[Boggled Coriander]

It's been a while since I heard this one, but I pictured the protagonist as looking totally human from the neck down, and vaguely platypus-y from the neck up.  Which is exceptionally freaky when you actually stop to visualize it.

Here's a little quibble I have, which might be entirely do to my poor memory: the protagonist was genetically engineered to be the way she was, right?  So then she was born with a sense of smell that was vastly over-developed in relation to her sense of sight.  (Maybe she just had really poor eyesight, but I remember her being totally blind.)  If I'd never been a visually-oriented creature in my life, I think it wouldn't occur to me to have thoughts like "at least I didn't have to see the man's face." 

But then, I don't know anybody who's been totally blind since birth; maybe I'm wrong.

[Unblinking]

Oh, and did anyone else think of Perry the Platypus?  Phineas and Ferb FTW!