The Compass Rose

Le Guin.

Published in the 1982 short story collection, The Compass Rose, it is... truly short and a very brisk read it's only about three or four pages and the narrative is not dense so in my opinion this is one that is really worth reading without having anything spoiled and we are going to spoil it we're going to talk about the whole thing so if you're able my recommendation would be to pause the podcast right here go find a copy of the story and read it and then come back so we're about to move into spoiler territory please consider yourself warned

I absolutely agree, by the way, about how good this story is if you know nothing about it.

I went into it completely blind.