---

Death by Pink in the Lollipop Apocalypse

By Ryan Cole

In the dark of her bed, curled up in her sheets, Susie tried to hide from the next few days and the reckoning they’d bring: of prom and graduation and the dozens of goodbyes she’d have to force herself to say, wishing she could follow. No college escape. Her applications rejected. Not to mention that she’d been bragging for months—to Piper and all her other refugee friends—about the fake acceptance letter from Delaware State, and the phony full-ride, and the lie that she’d be rooming with Piper in the fall, just like they’d always wanted, two peas in a pod.

Which made her want to run—like Dad always did. But she couldn’t be like him. Couldn’t leave when his only child needed him most. When the city they’d fled—along with half a million others—was buried in a thick layer of saccharine crust. A crust that devoured every street, every house, every skyscraper standing like a hollowed-out lollipop, that only kept spreading, kept crushing every straggler that lay in its path, as relentless as a river and impenetrable as stone.

So much for the “climate crisis fix” that Dad had promised. That the world had promised. A bacterium that could metabolize their trash into sugar they could burn into cheap, clean energy. Giving Susie hope things could go back to normal, and Mom could find a job that would help her pay the bills, always a paycheck and a month’s rent behind.

It’s okay, Piper would tell her in times like these, when Susie dwelled on the worst. Piper, who was more than just a best friend forever, cross your heart and hope to die. Who could drown out the world with the beauty of her laughter. Who could make Susie blush with the warmth of her smile, Susie’s throat going dry at the thought of Piper’s lips.

Lips Susie had kissed, before Piper pulled away.

Which, yeah, wasn’t great. But hey, it’s okay. It’s okay that Piper’s mom had yelled at Susie to leave. It’s okay she left a voicemail outing Susie to her mom. It’s okay because it was nothing, just a joke. Or was it, really?

Now, two weeks later, she wasn’t so sure. Piper hadn’t called, hadn’t knocked on Susie’s window to gossip ‘til midnight, to talk about the future and going out east and the world-ending sugar-crust chasing their dreams.

Susie picked up her phone; she dialed Piper’s number for the two-hundredth time.

But Piper didn’t answer.

About what she’d expected—but still, she’d hoped, you know? Nights alone were hard. When all she could look at, all she could think of, was the tiny speck of sugar-crust fixed to her elbow, that wasn’t supposed to be there.

Susie didn’t touch it. She tried to stay calm. To forget about the picture on the Channel 7 News, and the day she’d believed that their lives could get better, way back in the beginning, before they’d lost control.

A picture of bacteria. The crust it created. And what color it had been.

The same as she saw when she stepped out of the shower, eyes wide in the mirror, only three days ago.

A color she hated, that she’d never forget. A death sentence.

Pink.

---

A very dangerous thing: to have your body encased in a sugar-crust shell. Impossible to move. Even harder to breathe, once it covers your mouth. An ever-changing problem, ever-growing and evolving. For which the scientists said: not to worry, in the beginning; and avoid all contact, when the mutations started; and it’s learning how to grow on human skin as the truth of their mistake became clear.

Susie had seen the horror stories on the news, had heard of what the hospitals did to those patients. Strapped to their bed ‘til they ran out of air. Racing the clock, day and night, to find a cure.

But she also knew this: that Mom was as smart as any one of those doctors. That, even though she hid it, she had her own speck of sugar-crust growing on her skin, on the back of her knee, that for some reason, hadn’t grown out of control.

But Mom was still gone. Disappeared in the night to sneak back into the city—the ruins of San Francisco—searching for money or watches or jewelry, anything to sell to keep ahead of the bills.

Susie was alone. Mom couldn’t help her.

So, she went to see Dad.

“Hey Honeybee,” he said when she entered his office, using the nickname he’d called her as a child—before the cheating started. She tried to ignore the new ring on his finger, the placard on his desk—with Ben DiSilvestro and Sacramento Department of Public Health in silver print. More reminders of the new life he’d chosen for himself. Of a man who was determined to make up for his mistakes.

“Hey Dad,” she said with a one-arm hug, too much space in between them.

He smiled and offered her a seat at the desk. As if these kinds of visits were a common occurrence, and it hadn’t been over a month since they’d spoken.

“What’s wrong?” he said, catching the way she held her arm.

The concern in his voice caught Susie off guard. Made her notice his scruff, the bags under his eyes, so much worse than before, when she could still hold him, still love him, still trust him. Now, what would stop him from hurting her again? From spreading her secret? He’d already betrayed her. No matter how much he tried to make her think he hadn’t.

But still, he was Dad. And she had to do something.

She bit her lip, looked him in the eye, and said, “It’s Mom.”

He let out a slow breath, waiting for the punch. For Susie to accuse him like she usually did.

Instead, Susie said, “She hasn’t come home.”

They both knew what that meant. Dad was aware of the trips Mom took—the trips he ignored for the sake of their family. To go into the city was a crime, after all, to stop the spread, yadda yadda.

He whispered, “How long?”

Susie counted back to the night Piper’s mother had called in a rage. “Almost two weeks,” she said. “I don’t know what to do. She isn’t answering my calls. What if she’s hurt?”

Or even worse: what if it got her?

Dad wrung his hands, white-knuckled, on the desk, and he wiggled the tooth at the back of his mouth, which he only ever did when he was thinking. Or scared.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said. “We can send out a patrol unit. See if she’s stranded.” He stood up and put a gentle hand on Susie’s shoulder. The worry in his eyes only deepened her discomfort. “Are you sure there’s nothing else?”

And she wanted to tell him, she wanted to trust. She wanted to roll up the sleeve of her sweatshirt, to hug him and hold him, to hear him say rest, Honeybee, I’ll protect you, like her younger self would have.

But he wasn’t that man. And she wasn’t that girl.

So, she smiled and nodded, hoping he’d believe her, that he wouldn’t see the sugar-crust creeping down to her wrist.

---

Susie holed up in her bed that night, doing what she shouldn’t: picking at the sugar-crust scab on her arm, now half an inch thick, and steadily growing.

She wished Piper were there. If she shut her eyes, held her breath, Susie could feel her, could imagine Piper’s body right there in the sheets.

Piper would tap on the bedroom window, would let herself in. Tap-tap-tap, Susie heard in her dreams. Wishing and hoping and praying it was real.

Then she opened her eyes. There was a shadow in the window, a too-familiar rhythm of fingers on the glass, and before she could think, she was out of the bed. Because Piper was there, she had really come back.

Piper stepped carefully over the ledge, the blonde end of her ponytail catching the moonlight. For once, she wasn’t smiling. She didn’t have a joke or a quip to lighten the mood. She crossed her arms, looked over nervously at Susie—the first time they’d seen each other since That Night, when everything went wrong—and she said, with a half-hearted shrug, “What’s up?”

Enough to make Susie want to scream with excitement, to know they weren’t over. That the person she loved the very most in this world—who she thought she’d lost forever—hadn’t left her for good.

“I’m glad you came,” said Susie.

And that was all it took. Piper followed Susie to the edge of the bed, still farther away than she usually sat—but hey, it was a start—and in just a few minutes, their how are you and I missed you turned to laughter of which color prom dress they’d wear, and how excited they were to go to college together, how nice it would be to have a room to themselves.

All of it a lie. But she still couldn’t say it: that Susie wasn’t going; that she never got in; that the life they’d been planning was nothing but a hoax.

Which only made her feel worse, the longer they talked. The bright light of Piper’s presence buried in guilt. Until the room went silent, and Piper stopped laughing, and Susie saw Piper’s face drain of its color. When Piper said: “Wha—What’s that growing on your arm?”

Susie glanced down at the sleeve of her sweatshirt, the still-covered elbow, the crusty patch of pink that was creeping over her hand.

“Wait!” said Susie as Piper stood to leave, like the whole world did whenever Susie opened up, whenever she showed a bit too much of who she was.

“Where the hell did that come from?” said Piper by the window.

Susie shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. Even though she pretty much did.

“Has anyone else seen it?”

Silence, the two of them staring at each other.

“Fine. Yeah, fine,” said Piper, now pacing. “Look, we can fix this.” Ever the optimist. “We can get someone to help. A doctor, or… someone.” Even though they couldn’t. She knew as well as Susie: they’d lock her away in a hospital room, run test after test until the sugar-crust consumed her, tippy-toes to forehead. “Your mom—is she back yet?”

Susie shook her head. “She’s been gone for way too long.”

Susie could see the gears turning in Piper’s head. The mental calculations. They were close enough to know each other’s deepest, darkest secrets. The crust on Mom’s knee. Her trips into the city.

Then, Piper surprised her. Piper, perfect Piper, who always had an answer. She didn’t say good luck or you’re on your own, like Susie had feared. She sat on the bed, and she reached for Susie’s hand—the one without the crust— and she pressed all her warmth into Susie’s trembling fingers. “Well, we’ll just have to find her, then, won’t we?”

---

Getting out of town was a cinch, easy peasy. There were guards along the makeshift walls of the city; cameras on the exits. All of them run by the Department of Public Health and the biocontamination unit Dad was now in charge of.

“Are you sure this will work?” said Piper in the dark, as they crouched by the entrance to the easternmost gate. The one that Mom used, that she said wasn’t guarded as fiercely as the rest. Cuz really, who cared if they wanted to leave, to go farther inland? The city, and the danger, was all to the west.

Under cover of darkness, they snuck into the night, making their way to the long-abandoned highway that would take them to the coast.

“We’ve got this,” said Piper, whenever Susie fell behind, the bulk of the sugar-crust weighing her down. When she dwelled on the guilt of putting Piper in danger. The lie of their future. If Piper would hate her when she found out the truth.

Yet, she couldn’t give up. Had to focus on the journey. Had to silence the buzz of her phone in her pocket—all from Dad—throughout the night. That only kept coming as the miles crept by, and the night turned to morning, and the morning to evening, and the texts of hey, Honeybee and I’m worried about you turned to Susie, where are you? Why aren’t you in your room?

None of which she answered. Knowing, if she did, he’d only make things worse. He would see past her lies.

But then, she got a text that she couldn’t ignore. One that was worse. So very much worse. That Susie deleted as soon as she read it.

Don’t worry, Honeybee. I’m coming to get you.

---

By midnight, they made it to the entrance to the Bay Bridge.

It was as epic as Susie had hoped it would be, spanning from Oakland to the heart of San Francisco. Not made any less by the thick sheet of sugar-crust coating its towers, a kaleidoscope of cotton-candy fuchsia and red, of violet and cobalt, a melting-pot of mutations, of the dozens of strains the bacteria had formed. Susie couldn’t breathe for how magical it was. How drop-dead gorgeous.

Piper, not so much. “What a wreck,” she said, pointing to the other end of the bridge and the corpse of the city they could see through the fog, that no one had lived in for seven long years. “Hard to imagine how great it used to be.”

“Yeah,” said Susie as she crept to the entrance, stepping over veins of familiar hot pink. They crumbled into powder as her sneaker crunched into them.

“Careful,” said Piper as she tiptoed behind. “You never know if it’ll spread.” She skirted the veins that Susie trampled over. But the more they walked through it, the more Susie realized: it was harmless. Dead as dirt.

Which let them relax, let their guard down a little.

“Remember when we’d sneak out to the wharf?” said Piper. “Those sea lions were my favorite. I wonder if they’re still there.”

Susie wondered too, thinking back to those days. The joy of having nothing to worry about but homework and the way Piper’s laugh made her heart skip a beat. Now that they were here, they were home, that joy was back. Like, maybe all she wanted could actually come true. Like, maybe, for once, she could have a happy ending.

Her ears began to hum with the thrill of possibility. For the first time in days, Susie let herself smile.

“Do you hear that?” said Piper.

And then Susie realized: it wasn’t in her head. That humming was coming from above, in the clouds. And the longer she listened, the louder it grew.

“It sounds like…” said Susie. Like a monster honeybee. Like a swarm of honeybees. Which made her think of Dad. The calls she’d ignored. The dozens of unanswered texts in her pocket.

That was when she saw it: the nose of a helicopter cutting through the fog. Another one descending to the tower of the bridge.

Susie looked at Piper, eyes wide, and yelled, “Run!”

They dashed along the crust-enveloped asphalt of the bridge—towards Yerba Buena Island in the center of the bay. Ducking every time they heard a helicopter swoop, its yellow searchlight blinding them in the reflection of the crust.

With each step she took, Susie knew they wouldn’t make it. Knew she’d be captured and thrown in a jail cell, alone in the dark until the sugar-crust consumed her.

But somehow, the copters didn’t see them as they ran. They stuck to the safer Oakland-half of the bridge. Patrolling the perimeter.

“Think we lost ‘em,” said Piper as she stumbled into Susie, both of them gasping, doubled over from the chase.

Susie caught her breath. She tried not to worry if Dad was above them, in one of those copters. If he’d come to arrest her. Come to try to save her. If, for once in his life, he’d follow through on his promise. If he’d be the kind of dad she’d always wished he could be.

The one time she didn’t want him to.

---

Come morning, they started their search in the city. The docks by the wharf (sadly, no sea lions); the shops at Union Square; the banks downtown with their windows shattered, all long ago looted. And always, the dim buzz of copters in the distance.

No sign of Mom. No sign of anyone. No sign of the vibrancy the city once had, that made it so special.

“Change of plans,” said Piper, as they walked along the long-abandoned stretch of Market Street, avoiding the here-and-there patches of crust. “Where else could she be?”

Susie tried to think, to shy away from the crust growing thick up her shoulder, only inches from her neck. “Um—I don’t know.”

Piper just laughed—an alien sound in such a desolate place. “C’mon, you gotta try.”

But Susie came up empty.

The coffee shop where Mom used to work in the Castro?

Her bench in the center of Golden Gate Park, where Dad had proposed?

The studio apartment on Sutter and Hyde, where they’d moved when Dad left?

It was already sunset by the time they’d given up. All they’d discovered was an emptied-out city. No more ideas. No more suggestions.

Except, no. Wait.

Susie turned to Piper, who crouched in the shade of a deserted Muni stop, the train tracks smothered in angry purple crystal. “What about the house?”

“The one on Judah?” said Piper.

A dead-last resort. Mom would never go there: where Susie had been born; where she’d learned about Dad; where she’d cried into her pillow for so many nights, hoping he could change, he could make things right, ‘til the rumble of the N-line train put her to sleep.

“Worth a shot,” said Susie. Even though, in her gut, she’d never wanted anything less. The pain of that place was too raw, too deep.

By mid-morning, she stood on the porch of the house, her muscles like putty. Fearing what she’d find on the other side of that door, its blue paint preserved through a sheet of dead crust, her whole body tense as she took a deep breath, her chest weighed down by the pink on her neck.

Piper stood next to her. Nodded at Susie to push open the door.

It was tighter, and emptier, than Susie remembered. No couch by the window where Susie used to read, writing love poems to Piper that she’d hide in the trash. No picture frames dotting the mantle over the fireplace; no plank in the hallway where Susie had carved her initials into the wood, with Piper’s beside them, all wrapped in a heart. Best friends forever. Cross your heart and hope to die.

No. There was nothing that Susie once loved.

That is, until she walked a bit deeper into the house. Crept to the bedroom where Mom and Dad used to sleep. Where, now, there was a thick pod of crystal on the wall, as tall as the ceiling and wide as the doorway. A bright, vicious pink. Still alive, still growing.

And within that crystal, her mouth pressed to the surface, straining for air where she’d been frozen alive, was a face Susie knew. The face she’d come to save.

Mom.

---

Susie charged at the wall. Blow by blow, she tried to shatter the crystal, sucker-punching the surface ‘til her knuckles were bloody, ‘til she struggled to breathe from the weight of the sugar-crust encasing her own neck. Making her think this was all a big mistake, and how could she have been so naive, so stupid, to think she could win when the world had failed?

“It’s no use,” said Susie as she fell on Mom’s tomb. The only one who could help her. Who couldn’t even help herself.

But Piper, as usual, wasn’t ready to give up. “It’s okay,” she said, over and over, on the floor, after kicking the crystal one too many times. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Kinda cute, her optimism. Any other time, it would have made Susie gush, made her cling to Piper’s joy as she clung to her good looks and cherry-tang lips, the hope that she could want Susie as Susie wanted her.

Now, though, Susie couldn’t bury the truth. It was over. They were over. They’d had a good run, truly one for the ages, but this was their last stop. Their checkmate. Kablooey.

Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse: the hum of a copter, growing louder and louder as it flew towards the house. That sounded as if it were right overhead.

“What the hell,” muttered Piper, just as Susie heard an ominous buzz in her pocket, that she wanted to hide like she’d done with all the rest. But somehow, she knew: this message would be different.

COME OUT OF THE HOUSE, Dad had texted. All caps.

Susie could see the fear in Piper’s wide eyes, the look of defeat—they were done for already, so what was the harm?—so she passed her the phone. Neither of them spoke as Piper scrolled through the texts.

“You didn’t tell me?” said Piper. “About this. All of this.”

She chucked the phone at Susie, an underhand throw from their softball league days. But this wasn’t a pitcher-to-catcher kind of throw. It was made to be messy. Made to hit. Made to hurt.

Susie caught the phone before it smacked her in the face. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t want to make you worried.”

And what good would it have done? Dad would still chase her. The crust would still crush her. She’d been a good friend, been protecting Piper, really.

Not as Piper saw it. “You lied to me,” she said, her eyes wet with tears. “After everything I did for you. Everything I risked.” She bit her trembling lip. “What else haven’t you told me?”

A question that hit Susie dead in the gut. That made Susie realize this wasn’t about the phone; this was about them and the fate of their friendship, the fear that they wouldn’t both make it out alive. Not if they didn’t do something—and fast. Susie could feel the sugar-crust on her chin, on the cusp of her cheeks. Crawling ever higher.

And she might as well do it. Just say it like she should have done the day she got the letter.

So, she took a deep breath and said: “The school, my application. I—I didn’t get in.”

Piper recoiled. So much for their friendship. The hope it could be more. The twist to Piper’s lips said it all without speaking: You’re a liar. A traitor. You’re not the girl I thought you were.

The helicopter hum became a boom, and the whole house jolted as it landed on the street. A few seconds later, a man stumbled through from the hallway to the bedroom. He landed on his knees on the floor next to Susie.

“Honeybee,” he said, voice heavy with relief, as he reached for her hand.

But then he saw the sugar-crust—the pink on her lips—that spread in a crystalline shell over her mouth.

---

Susie hated swimming: the loss of control; the weight of the water as it smothered her body, pressing her down. That was how it felt, as she looked at the world through a rose-tinted shell, and the sugar-crust spread to the tip of her forehead, covering her eyes, unable to blink, unable to speak, to say what she wished she’d had a chance to say to Piper: You’re right, I should have told you.

And the truth she’d been hiding even longer: I love you.

Dad scrambled up to her; he dug at the crust spreading over Susie’s head, that trapped her where she lay. But he wasn’t quick enough. As soon as he cracked it, the sugar-shell reformed, regrown by the ravenous bacteria inside it.

“Hold on, Honeybee,” he said, gritting his teeth. Susie could see as he looked over at Mom, at the woman he’d lost—right next to the daughter he was going to lose—and the fear in his eyes sent a chill down her spine.

Ten swings. Twenty. His knuckles cut bloody as he pummeled the crust.

Susie slowed her breathing. To save the little air that was trapped in her shell, that would last… how much longer? Two minutes? Three?

Not enough to save her.

Piper knew it, too. She picked at Susie’s neck, tiny bits of the crust now stuck to Piper’s fingers. Crystallizing. Starting to grow on Piper’s hands. She didn’t stop digging, stop punching, now desperate. Her sweatshirt all ripped up and ponytail disheveled. ‘Til finally, she didn’t get up anymore. She lay against Susie. Making Susie blush, even here, at the end.

Funny, how good Piper’s arms felt around her. How beautiful she looked. How happy Susie was, her whole body shaking, as Piper leaned in, and she planted her lips right where Susie’s would have been. Their epic goodbye. One final kiss.

And maybe it was wishful, was all in Susie’s mind, but somehow, her lips felt a little bit closer. A little less untouchable, like they always used to be.

But no, she could see it. The pink starting to fade. The sugar-crust dissolving. Slowly retreating from the shape of Piper’s kiss. Burning a hole right down to Susie’s face.

When they touched, Susie sucked in a lungful of air. Sweet, clean air. All laced with the dollar-store tang of Piper’s lip-gloss. It was so delicious that Susie couldn’t stop. She kissed Piper back with all the strength she had left.

And yet—how could it be real? This wasn’t a fairy tale; she wasn’t Sleeping Beauty. Piper was too cute to be her knight in shining armor.

Her lips. What was special about Piper’s lips? Nothing, aside from how juicy they were, how they made Susie’s heart race. Twin doughy crescents, spit-sticky with saliva.

And then, no way….

Piper’s saliva. An organic solution to an ever-changing problem. A common-sense fix, that they’d already tried on other strains of the bacteria, and which had never really worked. A fix that appeared to be unique to this strain, its sugar-crust weaker than the ones that came before it.

Which meant… which meant Piper’s saliva wasn’t special. Meant Susie could wet the inside of her mouth, touch the tip of her tongue to the shell on her nose, smear the edge with her spit.

Susie kept licking, just to prove that she could. That it wasn’t all a dream. That Piper’s silly smile wouldn’t fade when she blinked. Both of them shaking their heads in disbelief.

Then, Piper started laughing. She touched Susie’s cheek.

And oblivious to Dad, who was right there watching, she leaned into Susie—kiss-close, too close—and she stuck out her tongue, ‘til the two of them touched, tip to tip, heart to heart, like they’d done That Night.

But this time, she stayed, Piper didn’t pull away. And the world, for once, was as perfect as Susie had always imagined.

---

Turns out, her candy didn’t taste that great. Susie’s lollipop tomb, once she’d licked herself free, left her teeth full of grit, like she’d eaten pure sand.

Same with the crust that was covering Mom. Her chest barely rising as they licked through the slightly cracked shell on her face, that had left room to breathe, if only a little, and they scooped her onto the floor.

“Help me lift her,” said Dad as they stumbled to the helicopter out on the street. Susie and Piper carried Mom into the cabin. Then Piper climbed in. But before Susie followed, she walked up to Dad, and she hugged him like she used to, hugged him ‘til she hurt, a fragile whisper of I’ve got you, Honeybee in her ear. Not enough to redeem him, to erase the harm he’d already caused; just the first step in helping to heal the cracks they’d let grow. To get her closer to forgiving him, if he was willing to put in the work.

Half an hour later, they were high above the bay, the city far behind them.

Susie was silent. Still afraid to acknowledge what she felt, what she’d done. It took her until they landed to build up the courage: to turn around to Piper; to reach for her hand, interweaving their fingers.

“Friends forever?” said Susie, never wanting to let go.

Piper squeezed her hand, and she smiled at Susie, a smile for the ages, an I love you kind of smile, a no matter what, I’ll always be with you kind of smile, cross your heart and hope to die.

Which, for then and forever, was all the answer Susie needed.

---

Host Commentary

By Tina Connolly

And we’re back! Again, that was Death by Pink in the Lollipop Apocalypse, by Ryan Cole, narrated by Tatiana Grey.

About this story, Ryan Cole says:
San Francisco is my favorite place in the whole world. I lived there for a good chunk of my twenties, and I absolutely loved it – the climate, the people, the landscape, everything. The city has a certain magic to it that captivated me, and which I’ve tried my best to capture in this story.

And about this story, I say:

This is a delightful bit of magical science fiction, a story that runs on rock candy lollipop vibes. It would be lovely all dramatized in one of the TV anthology series as a different take on your standard bleak apocalypse. I could just see the skyscrapers and bridges all coated in the sugar candy.

But of course, it’s really the story of two girls growing up, two friends navigating the murky waters of a changing relationship. Or, sugary, shimmery waters, I suppose. On a personal level, I like how the story stays tightly focused on Susie’s worries about her relationship with Piper, while still having the additional complications of her parents divorce. The sugary crunchy metaphor of the hard candy shell of secrets being melted by truth, love, and lip gloss makes for a sweet ending for our brave young protagonists.

Escape Pod is part of the Escape Artists Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and this episode is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. Don’t change it. Don’t sell it. Please, go forth and share it.

How do you share it, you ask? Well! In addition to your social media of choice, consider rating and/or reviewing us on podcast listening sites, such as Apple or Google. More reviews makes for more discoverability makes for more Escape Pod for you.

Escape Pod relies on the generous donations of listeners exactly like you. And remember that Patreon subscribers have access to exclusive merchandise and can be automatically added to our Discord, where you can chat with other fans as well as our staff members. So! If you enjoyed our story this week then consider going to escapepod.org or patreon.com/EAPodcasts and casting your vote for more stories that lick the lollipop tomb. (Okay, I can hear that sounds, I’m sorry.)

Our opening and closing music is by daikaiju at daikaiju.org.

And our closing quotation this week is from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, in which they clearly say that: “impossible things are happening every day.”

Thanks for listening! And have fun.