“Blur" by Carmen Maria Machado

A woman in a troubled relationship loses her glasses at a rest stop along the highway, and the world shifts in and out of focus. Content advisory: explicit language, abuse From the forthcoming collection A BRIEF AND FEARFUL STAR, to be published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses ( www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/LEVAR ) and Native ( www.nativedeodorant.com code: LEVAR).