What you see is what it is. And also what it isn't. Frida comes out late, the way Frida always comes out late, and finds Jayme already at the fire pit with a beer she isn't drinking. The Davis Mountains are a darker dark. The stars are obscene. Melissa has a pitch she wants to bring. Jayme is going to do what's responsible, which they both know is not the same word as yes. Mindy does not come to the fire. Chloe and Casandra have built their own smaller fire on the other side of the property and are laughing at something on a phone, twenty-two and twenty-eight, cataloguing the night. On the far side of the compound, a different division has their own fire going. The worlds don't touch tonight. They just burn, separately, under the same indecent stars. The phone is still on the desk in Dallas. The phone will still be there Monday. So will whatever is on it. Featured: Frida Martinez. Jayme Nichols. Casandra Cass. Chloe Dawn. The Marfa Munchies is a daily fiction podcast about a food, beverage, and lifestyle division of a creative agency between Marfa and Dallas. Episode 1 closes here. The phone will still be there Monday. Follow the world at @marfamunchies on Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky. . . . | ai-assisted fiction

Right is not the same as beautiful. Mindy Carpenter in the back room with the lights off, scrubbing through the selects from the week's clean-label shoot. Frame 0847 is the one. The window light did what it was supposed to do. The frame doesn't lie. Her phone lights up on the desk beside the keyboard. She does not pick it up right away. Something passes across her face in the dark that the monitor light catches and that no one is there to see. She turns the phone face down and goes back to the selects. On her way out she tells herself, in the private voice everyone keeps for the lies they need, that it was a good week and everything is fine. She drives home through the Dallas dark with the radio off. Featured: Mindy Carpenter, creative director. The Marfa Munchies is a daily fiction podcast about a food, beverage, and lifestyle division of a creative agency between Marfa and Dallas. New episodes weekday mornings. Follow the world at @marfamunchies on Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky. . . . | ai-assisted fiction