(see title)
I offer these to whatever podcast wishes to buy one/them, for their normal price.
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Terra Integumentarum
By Adam Jaeger
As I walk across the vast, soft field, I gaze around me at the natural beauty. I inspect the tall, curved stalks, coming up from holes in the ground, rising up beyond what the eye can see, and gently arching down, coming to a tapered end. The comfortable warmth, rising from the moist ground, calms me. A man could loose himself here, among the valleys and rises of the never ending landscape.
I have decided to explore a hard, crusty, reddish-brown hill that appeared one day, while I was away, in a different area of my world. As I approach the mound, I feel a sense of minisculity; I like this, it makes my world that much bigger.
I feel the mound. It's rough, and a little bit cooler than the surface. Upon inspection, I find that this rough protrusion is slightly sepperate from the rest of the ground at it's base.
I dig my fingers under the mass, and raise it up a little. It's warmer underneath it, and is considerably more moist. I lift it a little more, and a small ammount of a warm, bright red fluid seeps out from a small rip in the ground. I continue to peel back the annomaly, and more of the stuff oozes out, forming a small globule. The crusty bit comes off, so that it's hanging on by a small part of the ground, and more fluid flows out. The liquid begins to coagulate. Eventualy I loose intrest, and retire to my little cavern.
In my cavern, the ground wraps arround to form ceilings and walls, and is covered in a thick, moist sludge. There are more of the stalks, but they're smaller here, and they keep me from falling out of my abode. The next morning, after the long, rod-like suns flicker to life, I go back out to where I had peeled back the crusty mound, and find that a new one has formed, but the origional is still hanging from the ground. A week passes before I visit again, and when I do, the mound is gone, and in it's place, there is a faint white patch which is slightly tougher than the rest of the ground.
Lying back on the patch, I wonder if anyone else is out there in the vast cosmos, and I wonder if they have a world all to themselves.