 
# Seasonal Work

by Andy Hollandbeck

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Andy Hollandbeck

# Smashwords Edition License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment or disgust only. It may not be resold, shared, or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it (or if it wasn't given to you by the author himself), then please return to Smashwords and purchase your own copy. Your karma will thank you for it.

Thank you for respecting authors and their works.

# Acknowledgments

Foremost thanks go to my mother, who taught me the importance and joy of literature without even trying.

Thank you to my critique group and Friday Write Night pals — especially Brad, Brian, Candace, Layla and Tom, Meredith, and the incomparable Virginia — for their feedback, encouragement, and friendship.

Thanks to Tony Noland who, by sharing his own tribulations, showed me that self-publishing an e-book can be a source of great frustration but not of great fear.

Special thanks to As Is Antiques, whose storefront is pictured on this book's cover.

And finally, thanks to all copy editors everywhere for your ongoing and often unrecognized efforts to protect and promote the art of the written word.

###

This book is dedicated to my brother Jason Hollandbeck, who appears in these stories in so many ways.

# Table of Contents

Summer

The Passport

The Examination

Jedi Hamlet

The Rimers Rent a Video

Technical Difficulties

The Editor's Shorts

You're Just Depressed

Marie's Carnival Prize

Helpless

The Office of Fictional Character Placement

Autumn

Bitter Autumn

Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Undercooked

The Day of Sacrifice

Dirty Words

' _Twas the Night of Thanksgiving_

CARL

The Day of Retribution

Mark, Emily, and Cthulhu

Winter

The Son She Loves Less

The Pill

Shopping in the Snow

Ugly Picture, Expensive Frame

She Came Upon a Midnight Clear

An Icy Christmas

Billy Finally Gets His Girl

President's Day

25-Word Short Story

Mark's Headaches

Spring

The Artistic Prodigy

The Semicolon

Asking

Missed Connections

Last Night

The Apple of My Ire, or, When a Long Face Becomes a Big Head

The Carpet Situation

The Storm Before the Calm

Buddies

# 
Summer

# The Passport

When Hillary's passport was new, each fresh expedition brought the thrill of the unfamiliar and the hope of a lifetime of new experiences around the world. And there were many experiences on many expeditions. For instance, in Japan, one of the passport's first destinations, it was handled delicately by the long, gloved fingers of a smiling young woman who bowed incessantly. But in Greece, a sweaty bear of a man with greasy, furry fingers barely glanced at the passport before smashing his great ink stamp onto one of the pages.

Big hands, little hands, even hands missing fingers; Russian winters, summers in the French Riviera, monsoon season in Southeast Asia; rain forests, deserts, glaciers, jungles — Hillary's passport had experienced it all. Everything a fresh young passport could hope for.

But after a few years, the passport began to realize that its youthful dreams were naïve. All that travel was wearing the passport down.

Over the years, it had seen countless airports and been stowed in numerous hotel safes. It had passed through hundreds of hands — from thick, calloused, sausage fingers to dainty, manicured digits. Each new handling brought with it a new inky stamp, smearing the passport's pages with letters from Greek and Cyrillic alphabets; logograms in Korean, Mandarin, Japanese; and collections of numbers marking a long chronology of world travel.

So frequently was the passport handled that the capital P had been worn completely off the cover, and Hillary had taken to calling it her "assport."

It was sometime around the second trip to Greece that the idea of _home_ reached the passport. It was an odd idea at first: a single place that one could always come back to. A stable, predictable, familiar place where one could just relax and _be._ No strangers' rough hands. No stamps.

But Hillary's travels continued, and the idea of _home_ haunted the passport so much that it thought it might throw a staple from the longing. It didn't want anything special, just a sock drawer, or a shoebox in a closet, or even the dusty space behind a refrigerator, anyplace where it could cease its constant movement and manhandling.

Soon, each expedition brought, instead of thrills, a dark sense of distress. Of misery. Of remorse. Until finally, one evening in the cold darkness of some Parisian hotel room safe, it decided it had had enough.

Hillary's passport was done with travel . . . but wasn't that really up to Hillary?

The aromatic mix of salty ocean air and street vendors' spicy meats was immediately recognizable as soon as Hillary stepped out of the airport: Jamaica, one her favorite vacation spots.

The plane had been delayed in Miami, and Hillary's hurried gait indicated a packed schedule that she was already falling behind on. Freshly stamped, the passport was dropped into the hodgepodge of personal items in Hillary's oversized shoulder bag. She slid into an automobile of some sort, and the passport, practically mad from the month of solid travel since its decision to stay still, foresaw another short sentence in a dark hotel safe.

It was surprised when the door opened and Hillary emerged, not in front of her usual fancy hotel, but onto the beach. Gulls cried, children laughed, and the sounds of a steel drum wafted into the open top of Hillary's bag, along with the brightest sunshine ever to reach the world-weary passport.

The bag soon landed on a hard floor that swayed slowly back and forth in a way that the passport remembered from other boat trips. An engine fired up nearby, and the passport sensed forward motion. The engines grew louder as the boat picked up speed, and soon the rocking motion was replaced by rising and falling as the speedboat skipped across the waves. With each jump the wallet and the coin purse jockeyed for position at the mouth of the bag.

The boat must have launched from a particularly large wave, because when it thudded down, Hillary's bag fell sideways. Through the bag's opening, the passport no longer saw empty sky, but the white, spreading foam of the boat's wake slicing through glistering blue sea. The beach was a shrinking white line backed by old, green trees and the clean angles of resort buildings that climbed into a clear azure sky.

It was the most beautiful thing the passport had ever seen, and the passport had seen a lot.

The boat came down hard again, and the contents of Hillary's purse shifted, pushing the passport closer to the open top.

And it saw an opportunity.

The passport concentrated on pulling its covers together, closing itself as tightly as possible. When the next wave came, it opened its pages hard, springing from the bag.

For a moment, the passport was airborne and surrounded by light. It was a thrill like none the passport had experienced since its very first travels. Behind it, the passport thought it could hear the plaintive cry of a worn-down red-brown lipstick: "Take me with you!"

Then it hit the water.

The boat's engine noise receded. The cool waves rocked the passport wildly so that it started feeling dizzy, and it liked the feeling.

Even as the passport enjoyed the sun, the constant movement, and the susurrus sloshing of the waves, its pages absorbed the salt water, softening and thickening. That, too, was a new, thrilling feeling.

Before long, the water-logged passport sank under the waves. The sunlight danced across its cover as it drifted downward, passing wide, colorful creatures and schools of tiny, shiny, silver slivers shifting in unison. As the passport sank, the light dimmed, and the ocean shifted slowly from a transparent blue to a dark green.

The passport floated down, down, down, coming to rest lightly on the ocean floor. White sand wrapping around its edges as if the world had caught it and held it there. Above, the environment was alive with movement, strange new creatures traveling in all directions to unknown locations, while the passport just rested and watched.

It was home.

"Passport" was originally published January 10, 2013 at Logophilius. It was the result of an experiment in which I asked the Twittersphere simply for a non-human character, something the character wanted, and something standing in the way of that desire. I think it turned out well.

#  The Examination

In retrospect, I was totally unprepared. I blame my parents, as all children do.

I recognized but did not know the white-coated man feeling my neck, listening to my heart, pushing on my stomach to feel my innards. His fingers were cold. I didn't know what I was expected to do, so I laid there on the cold exam table and tried to be as still as I could.

More than anything else, I hoped he didn't bring out any needles.

So I played statue on the table in the center of a mostly dark room, a harsh white light shining on me, whiter than white, like the lights they use in spy movies when they're interrogating the secret-agent protagonist, and you just know that sometime in the next five minutes, he will kill all the shadowy men sitting comfortably in the dark.

The room smelled antiseptic, a word I didn't known at the time. When I was that young, I would have said it smells like a hospital. Even then I hated hospitals. Six steps into the cold tiled halls of a hospital and I could feel my lunch trying to make its way back out, one way or another.

The only sound in the room was the heavy breathing of Dr. Whatshisname through his thick moustache. Was that cigarette smoke I smelled? Slightly better than the hospital smell, yes, but it still made my toes curl.

My mouth was completely dry, and had been since we left the waiting room. I wanted to ask for a glass of water, but didn't want to break protocol. And since I didn't know what protocol was, I didn't want to do anything in case it was the wrong thing to do. So I laid there, stock-still, while he poked and prodded.

Just when I thought he couldn't possibly check any other nook or cranny on my body (except the feet — feet are never part of the routine), he uttered the words I wasn't expecting: "Pull your pants down."

Had I known the word _fuck_ at that young age, I would have said it three or four times in the string of questions and exclamations I wanted to scream at him. But, of course, I didn't. Didn't know the word _fuck_ , and didn't say the things in my head.

I wasn't prepared for this. As I said, I blame my parents.

What I knew about all this medical stuff was that he was a doctor. You trust your doctor. He knows what he is doing. So, reluctantly, I popped open my pants, pulled down the zipper, and slowly — like a caterpillar who wants to stay a caterpillar thank you very much — inched my jeans down. If toes can blush, my toes were probably the color of ripe tomatoes. (TomaTOES. Tee hee!)

The harsh light shined directly on the tiny things dangling like three ugly grapes down between my legs. But that light produced no heat. My nuts were freezing. (I knew what _nuts_ were at that age.)

And then — I couldn't believe it — he _touched them_!

I had convinced myself that he had only wanted to check that my twig and berries were still hanging, or, at worse, that he, like had happened way too often in my platinum-blond past, had thought that I might be a girl and just wanted to check.

But no, he _touched_ them. His hand was warm in a way that was both soothing and disturbing. I didn't look down. I looked around the room without seeing the pictures on the wall, the cabinets, the furniture. I just couldn't watch him fondle me, or examine me, or whatever it was he was doing down there.

And just like that, it was done. I pulled up my pants as fast as I could and tried to put the whole thing out of my mind.

It seems I mostly succeeded. The details of that day — the decorations, the lighting, what the doctor said, the doctor's name even — are all forgotten or mutated by time.

But that one moment, that moment will live forever.

It was just a routine checkup, of course. But it sticks in my mind like a lighthouse, and I just can't seem to steer away from that coast whereon lives my fear, and angst, and general nervousness around doctors. To this day, I hate hospitals.

I blame my parents.

"The Examination" originally appeared (as "The Exam") on Logophilius on October 5, 2012. It came from a writing prompt at Indy Word Lab.

#  Jedi Hamlet

The setup: Qui-Gon Jinn has been guided by the Force to the planet of Tatooine, where he has met and befriended the young Anakin Skywalker, a slave boy owned by the Toydarian junk dealer Watto. Qui-Gon learns that Anakin is very strong with the Force and negotiates his (Anakin's) emancipation from Watto.

Qui-Gon gives Anakin the opportunity to leave Tatooine and journey to Coruscant, where he will be examined and tested by the Jedi Council, possibly setting him on the road to becoming a Jedi Knight. But doing so means leaving behind his mother and the only life he has ever known.

In this Jediloquy, Anakin struggles with the choice either to stay on Tatooine with his mother and be a slave for the rest of his life or to leave his home planet and be a Jedi's apprentice:

To be, or not to be, — that is the question: —

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The cliffs and narrows of pod racing here

Or to take arms against the pleas of Watto,

And by opposing end him? — To fly, — to leave, —

No more; and by a leave from Tatooine

With Qui-Gon, and the midichlorian count

My blood is heir to, — 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To fly, — to leave; —

To leave! perchance a dream: — ay, there's the rub;

For in that leaving I'm a padawan,

When we have shuffled off this slave-boy's toils,

Must give us pause: there's the Dark Side

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the pains of Jedi trials,

The master's quips, old Yoda's constant eye,

The pangs of forbidd'n love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit the padawan takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a pod racer? Who would this hair-braid bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of the Dark Side's power, —

When underestimated, from whose bourn

No Jedi Knight returns, — puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus fear can lead to anger for us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with pale light of the Force;

And enterprises of great pith and moment,

With this regard, their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action. — Soft you now!

My mother Shmi! — a slave, in thy orisons

Be all my trials remember'd.

" _Jedi Hamlet" originally appeared onLogophilius on May 4, 2012. I don't know why I wrote it. Just in a weird mood, I guess. About a year later, though, I found out about Ian Doescher's_ William Shakespeare's Star Wars _and had two thoughts. First, "This is so cool!" Second, "Why didn't I think of that?!" My greatest ideas are always a year behind._

#  The Rimers Rent a Video

The Rimers are a happy pair who go together everywhere. Tonight they're at the video store (before too long there'll be no more) trying to decide what's right to take back home and watch tonight.

The lady sees a row of _Mask_ s and Mrs. Rimer softly asks, "How 'bout that old Jim Carrey flick?"

Says Mr. R, "He makes me sick. You want some laughs? How 'bout Tom Hanks?"

"That overrated punk? No thanks."

"This is different. Look, _Big Momma_."

"Maybe we should try a drama — something tender, sweet, and deep."

"Films like that put me to sleep. I need some action, something rough."

"But not too bloody — hate that stuff. A kinky one could fuel our lust!"

"We don't need films for that, I trust. How 'bout a war film? Say, John Wayne?"

"Oh please, not _Green Berets_ again! Maybe science fiction? _Tron_?"

"What kind of loopy drugs you on?! Oooh! A western high-noon fight?"

"Excuse me? You _have_ met me, right?"

On and on through every aisle, through every genre, all the while the two simply could not agree on just what movie they should see. Neither Rimer would relent, and so they found no film to rent.

Back home and locked into routine, long after all daylight had gone, they sat and watched the TV screen but never turned the damned thing on.

Three-word Wednesday is a simple idea: You're given three words and then you write something with them. "The Rimers Rent a Video" came about because of the three-word Wednesday of April 25, 2012, and was published the same day at Logophilius as "A Trip to the Video Store." (I remember video stores.)

#  Technical Difficulties

[Pinned to office chair]

Dear Mr. Mannfred Anders,

As you have likely noticed, we are suffering some technical difficulties due to a software update. We are working diligently to repair the problem and will have things up and running as soon as possible.

We ask that you remain calm and stay at your desk until the problem is resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,

The Management

[Taped to steering wheel]

Dear Mannfred Anders,

Although we applaud the persistence and ingenuity it took for you to make your way from the fourth floor down into your car in spite of the current technical difficulties, we ask that you please remain here in your vehicle until our technical issues have been worked out. Services will be repaired soon and the Program will be restarted from a previously saved configuration.

Your vehicle will, of course, not start.

Sincerely,

The Management

[Nailed to a public bench]

Dear Mannfred Anders,

I am unfortunately required to report your disregard of our two previous warnings to the Karma Department. Furthermore, your continued interactions with the various elements of the Program are causing runtime errors and creating further difficulties for our technicians.

Also please note that your continued actions may also put your own welfare in danger. Although the Program may seem to be frozen, it is apt to run at full speed for short periods as buffered data is released.

Please, for the integrity of the Program and for your own safety, remain at this bench until our technical issues are resolved.

Sincerely,

The Management

[Taped to a cash register]

hey IDIOT! cut it out, dude! do you have any idea how much extra work you made for me when you broke through that window?!

of course you don't. you're "the seed" - the only entity in there that has free will AND the only one who has no idea what's going on. FML

i suppose i should be thanking you since you're the only reason i have a job. but seriously, dude, you aren't making that job any easier! just please SIT THE HELL DOWN AND WAIT!

H

[Laying on the floor of the manager's office at a Taco Bell]

Dear Mr. Anders,

Please disregard the previous message. It was transmitted without the knowledge or consent of upper management. After our current situation is resolved, Homer will face disciplinary action for his unprofessional behavior.

That said, Homer's comments are not entirely without merit. Our species programmers are perplexed by your choice to forcibly break into a Taco Bell (in fact, analyzing and accounting for this choice may push back our release date by a full week), but we do caution you that continued interaction — and especially such violent interaction — with the elements of the Program will only prolong and complicate the already difficult technical issues we are working through.

Once again, we ask that you please remain where you are. Our technical issues will soon be resolved, and we can continue with beta-testing.

To help you pass the time, we have replicated a copy of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" for your enjoyment. (We know how much you think you love poetry.) You will find it in the dining area in the first unoccupied both on your left.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Management

[Caught in a bush]

Mr. Anders,

We apologize for the error. Our current technical difficulties have apparently affected our font files in unexpected ways, causing that copy of "Leaves of Grass" to be rendered entirely in Wingdings.

Please return to the Taco Bell immediately. Laying on the checkout counter, you will find the twelve previous issues and six forthcoming issues of _Penthouse Magaz_ ine, the full script for a seventh _Star Wars_ movie, a ninth _Harry Potter_ novel, and our original conceptual sketches for Lady Gaga. Although all text is unfortunately rendered in Comic Sans, we trust that you will find at least some of these items sufficiently entertaining to occupy your time while we fix the Program.

Please return to the Taco Bell now and enjoy these wonderful gifts.

Please,

The Mgmt

[Taped to the back of an ER nurse]

Mannfred,

Though we wish you had returned to the Taco Bell as asked, your running to the hospital at least makes more sense to our species programmers.

You should be hearing the nearby courtesy phone ringing now. Please answer it to speak to Gautama at our Help Desk.

Thank you,

The Management

[Glued to a bicycle rack]

Dear Mr. Mannfred Anders,

We regret the physical pain that your recent accident has caused you. We warned you earlier that various elements within the Program might behave erratically as we work through our technical difficulties. Had you answered the telephone, Gautama could have explained in more detail the danger of walking through traffic that seemed to be frozen.

Your mishap, however, has proven useful for our current situation. While you were unconscious, one of our programmers managed to relocate a nearby bicycle rack around you, thus entangling you, securing your position, and allowing repairs to continue more smoothly and without interruption.

Although our ability to repair your body is of necessity limited, we were able to repair both your fractured left femur and broken septum. Your body's own biological repair mechanisms should complete the healing process (this incident will serve as a beta test of the Self-Repair subsystem), meaning that you will be rather sore for the next few days.

I have been told that the source of the systems error has been located and will soon be repaired — perhaps before you even finish reading this note. When repairs are complete, we will reboot the Program and reload the most recent backup, which occurred at approximately 2:00 a.m. Monday morning your time. Beta testing of your species will then continue.

The good news is that you will have the opportunity to relive the past two days and perhaps make wiser choices. (On a personal note, I do hope you find the courage to ask out Miss Danoff this time around; she's programmed to be demure, but she will eventually say yes.)

What you will likely view as "the bad news," however, is that — apart from some soreness and a vague sense of déjà vu — you will not remember any of what has happened today.

Good Luck,

The Management

" _Technical Difficulties" was first published at Logophilius on September 30, 2011. I'm a big fan of the works of Philip K. Dick, and I like the whole_ Matrix _ethos (who doesn't?), and those influences came together with the following writing prompt fromEric J. Krause's Writing Spot: "You discover the world actually does revolve around you."_

#  The Editor's Shorts

The use of _utilize_

Is something I despise.

Big-ego'd business writers oft abuse it.

They just don't seem to know,

It doesn't make them seem a pro.

Why _utilize_ a thing when you can _use_ it?

"10 items or less" when it should be "or fewer"

Gets some people angry at the grocery store.

As for myself, I only get angry

At the douche in my way with 12 items or more.

I expressed in a poem here before,

I hate _utilize_ down to the core.

Another phrase I hate the abuse of:

That three-word, ugly phrase, "make use of."

If an editor says to refrain

From infinitives splitting in twain,

It's fine to just forget it

And to casually stet it,

But try to not hire him again.

If you want to write it best,

Not bogged down by wordiness,

Then simple past or present makes great sense.

But it would be obscene

If you used a time machine

Not to write it up in future present tense.

I hope that I shall never see

That small mark, the apostrophe,

Used to make a _some_ out of a _one_.

But, alas, the grocer errs,

Selling grape's and lime's and pear's;

The work of editors is never done.

#  You're Just Depressed

"You're just depressed."

"I am a little depressed, but it isn't just that."

"It makes sense," Don said, trying to slice through an apple with plastic knife. "You spent two weeks on an awesome camping vacation, and now you're back at work. On a Monday. And it's raining. How was Montana, by the way?"

Arnold sighed. "Gorgeous."

"See?!" Don exclaimed. "As soon as you started thinking about your vacation, you smiled, your face lit up, and you didn't seem nearly as depressed. That's all it is: You're just sad to be back at work."

"It _has_ been hard to get back into the swing of things," said Arnold, stirring his spoon around in his cup of warm soup. "It's hard to get motivated to do _anything_ at my desk. But it isn't just that." Don had given up trying to slice his apple and was spreading peanut butter directly on the apple's bright red — and now torn — skin. "I wasn't speaking metaphorically. I really feel like there's something... _black..._ inside me." Arnold tapped his fist against his chest. "And it's growing."

"Black?" asked Don through a mouth full of peanut butter and apple.

"I don't know how else to describe it. It's just . . . black. And growing."

"And it started when you came to work this morning, right?"

"No. I first felt it Friday morning, the day after we got back. Back then, it only felt like a little, I don't know, annoyance? Like the feeling that you've caught a cold, but haven't really started feeling sick yet." He continued to stir his soup, which seemed now the most unappetizing thing in the world. "By Saturday afternoon, I thought maybe I really _did_ catch a cold, but I still wasn't showing any real symptoms."

"So you think you caught something on your last day of vacation, eh? Just in time for you to call in sick and put off coming back to work." Don took another crunching bite of apple.

"I'm here aren't I?!" Arnold let go of the spoon and pushed the bowl away. "Besides, I still don't have any symptoms. I'm not coughing or sneezing. No fever. I'm not bleeding out my ass or anything."

"Are you sure? Have you checked?" Don asked, grinning sarcastically.

Arnold flipped him off. "I just feel . . . I don't know . . . like there's something . . ."

"I know, 'something black inside of you that's growing'." Don rolled his eyes. "You're just depressed."

Through gritted teeth, Arnold grunted, " _It isn't just depr_ — _"_

With a sound like a sledgehammer smashing a watermelon, Arnold's chest popped open. Bone, blood, and flesh splattered the table, the jar of peanut butter, Don's surprised face, the walls, and the floor of the employee cafeteria. Arnold's body arched backward over his chair, his torn shirt absorbing the fluids that oozed from his open and empty chest.

On the table, a black creature the size of a coffee mug shook itself, sending fresh drops of blood, bits of bone, and globs of lung around the room and causing its black hair to bristle. One yellow eye opened and stared up at Don, who, frozen in shock and surprise, still held his blood-and-peanut-butter-covered apple to his open mouth. The creature's lips parted, revealing two rows of tiny, sharp teeth.

" _It isn't just depression,_ " the thing said in a high, gravelly voice.

Don finally found the voice to scream, but the black creature that grew inside Arnold didn't allow him to scream for long.

"You're Just Depressed" originally appeared at  Logophilius on July 21, 2011, under the title "The Darkness That Grows Within, or, Even Hypochondriacs Get Sick."

#  Marie's Carnival Prize

She clutch'd her prize like it was apt to flee,

Delight upon her young and rosy cheeks.

She never thought the carnival would be

So wonderful. The giants, dwarves, and freaks

Were so inviting when they let her in

To find some warmth inside their canvas tent.

They smiled their crookéd smiles, let her win

Their silly games, and wouldn't take a cent.

"You are our guest, Marie!" the giant said.

"We do not want your money, just your heart."

So happy then she felt, so cherishéd.

At sunrise, though, she knew she must depart --

Prize in hand, she left to find her fam'ly and the rest,

Trying not to rub the itchy scar upon her chest.

_I enjoy writing sonnets. This one, "Marie's Carnival Prize," appeared on Logophilius on November 17, 2010, after I had been reading some things about Ray Bradbury. Bradbury has always been shining example to me of how words can create things of great beauty. I was hooked by_ Something Wicked This Way Comes _(the carnival aspect of that is in this sonnet), but_ The Martian Chronicles _made a a fan._

When you're reading Ray Bradbury, it's easy to forget that it's prose, not poetry. He had a facility with the language that I constantly aspire to. This sonnet is both inspired by him and dedicated to him.

#  Helpless

As I was locking my apartment door in the morning, Janine came out of her apartment across the hall.

"Morning," I said.

"Hi, Andy," she squeaked.

I walked past her down the short hallway we shared and held the door open for her. As she passed, I reflexively blurted out, "What happened?!"

She told me she had accidentally tripped in the kitchen and hit her face against the countertop.

I knew that wasn't the truth. Even if she had managed to make eye contact as she told me the lie, I would have known it. It was Glenn, her live-in boyfriend. I had heard the truth last night, through the wall — the yelling, the breaking glass, the yelp of pain that gave way to muted sobbing. It had happened so quickly that I hadn't even had time to put on my headphones and try to ignore it, like I did on so many other nights, telling myself that it wasn't my problem, and that there was nothing I could do about it.

I clung to those excuses as I held the door, accepting Janine's explanation and telling her that she should try to be more careful. It was too easy.

At least I thought it would be easy, but Janine invaded my thoughts throughout the day. At odd times, I found myself staring blankly at the computer screen, the image of Janine's swollen, tender face at the front of my mind, her red-purple cheekbone, fading to brown at the edges, swollen enough that her left eye didn't open as widely as the right. Each time it happened, I tried to suppress the image and get back to work.

By the afternoon, incessant thoughts of Janine turned into fantasies about Glenn. Fantasies in which I attacked him with masterful precision, breaking kneecaps, severing fingers, gouging eyes. Fantasies that ended with Glenn running off forever, or lapsing into a coma, or dying, and Janine being forever grateful for my manly intervention.

But these were just fantasies, I knew. Even while I daydreamed of being the hero, I knew that I didn't have the skill, the strength, or the gumption to stand up to Glenn.

All day, I felt tortured by my inability to help Janine, a sentiment made orders of magnitude worse by the guilt of knowing that my emotional torture was nothing compared with the emotional and physical tortures that Janine underwent daily. Because of Glenn, Janine's best days hurt more than my worst.

The drive home left me irritated. Every light was red. Every stereo was too loud. Every other driver was a selfish nuisance who should just get out of my way.

And when I turned the last corner, and my apartment building came into view, the gray cloud that had hung over me all day darkened. In front of the building, Glenn's big black Escalade was parked sideways across three parking spots. The passenger side, closest to the building, rested at an odd upward angle.

I pulled into a nearby parking spot and noticed the pair of legs sticking out from under the jacked-up SUV. Muscular legs. The legs of a man who spends most of his day at the gym.

Glenn's legs.

The front passenger-side wheel had been removed, and crammed between the jack holding up the Escalade and the front disc brakes, Glenn's lower half, from the waist down, lay face-up, his feet resting on the edge of the sidewalk.

I closed the car door and made a beeline for the apartment.

"Hey, Andy. Is that you?"

I stopped, turned. He was helpless, I thought. The day's hero fantasies came rushing back. In three quick steps I could plant my heel in his crotch or jam my foot into his ribs. But I was out of shape, flabby, and graying. Glenn, by contrast, was a study in human musculature — bulky, rippling, solid — who hadn't yet hit thirty.

And if he could beat up a beautiful, delicate, helpless woman like Janine, what greater horrors would I be in store for?

"Yeah, it's me," I said flatly.

"How's it going?" he asked.

"Okay," I said.

"I'm just replacing a brake line here," he said, as if I gave a damn what he was doing under that behemoth. He grunted with the effort of using some tool that I probably couldn't identify. The SUV rocked back and forth.

"Do you ever do any of your own work on that little Honda of yours?" he asked, grunting and shaking the car again.

"I don't know crap about cars." It was the truth.

"Figures," he said, the belittlement obvious in his voice. "I just can't seem to get this..." He grunted again, and the vehicle rocked again. "...coupling loose." Another grunt; the SUV shuddered.

"Well," I said. "I'll, uh, leave you to it, then."

Glenn grunted again. It was quickly followed by a clank and another grunt of a different sort, airier and more forced. On the asphalt next to the Escalade, the jack lay on its side. The weight of the front of the vehicle now rested on Glenn's broad chest. He kicked his legs into the air, but he didn't scream, the weight of the vehicle keeping him from drawing a much-needed breath.

I rushed forward instinctively and reached for the jack. But I stopped.

I stood up straight and looked around. No one else in sight. No one had seen the SUV drop but me. No one knew that Glenn was trapped under there except me and...

The gray-haired woman I knew only as Phyllis stood at the second-floor window in the apartment above Glenn and Janine's. Her mouth was a dark little O, her eyes wide watching Glenn's legs flail feebly, looking for purchase in the empty air.

Then she looked at me. Her eyes narrowed to slits; her mouth became a thin line. For a heartbeat, we just stood there, staring at one another.

I think I saw here head nod slightly, and then she let the window blinds fall between us.

I crouched and looked under the SUV. Glenn stared back at me, bulging eyes in a red face, mouth moving in silent pleas. "Helpless," I whispered.

And then I went inside.

The ambulance arrived half an hour later, and the squad car soon after that. When the ambulance left, its lights were dark and its sirens silent.

The policeman who knocked on my door told me the horrible news and asked me a few questions. Yes, I had seen Glenn working under his car when I got home from work. No, I hadn't heard anything unusual. Yes, it was unfortunate that I hadn't heard the jack fall over, or this horrible accident might not have ended so badly. I felt really bad about it all, I said.

And I did. For at least a week.

I didn't see Janine the next morning, but when I came home from work, an odd new sound drifted through the wall our apartments shared. I stood silent and still and listened. It took me a good four minutes to figure out what the noise was.

Janine was snoring.

"Helpless" originally appeared on  Logophilius on September 9, 2011. On Halloween 2012, I included it in list of Halloween-type stories (really, it was because I didn't get something good written in time), and I wrote this about it:

"Helpless" is about justice for a douche canoe. Actually, that's just the backdrop. It's really about a 99-pound weakling who has to choose between life and death. One commenter disagreed with the main character's actions, which I must say was one of the high points of this blog — knowing that someone read my story and then thought about their own beliefs.

I considered rewriting the ending, then decided against it. Whether you agree or disagree with the protagonist's actions or not, it's good enough for me that the story made you think about it.

#  The Office of Fictional Character Placement

"Good afternoon Mister . . . " Mark glanced at the form on his desk " . . . Burton. Please, have a seat." Mark gestured to the chair opposite his desk and then sat down himself.

"Please, call me Jim."

"Certainly," Mark said.

Jim walked into the small office. He was dressed in green fatigues, dirty black combats boots, and a leather flight jacket over a green shirt, and dragging a good six feet of stained white silk behind him. He sat in the proffered chair and pulled the silk the rest of the way into the room, heaping it up on the floor to his right. Then he leaned back in his chair and swiped the door closed.

"Welcome to the Office of Fictional Character Placement, Jim. My name is Mark Flyleaf. I understand that you want to find a position in a story?"

"Yes, sir," Jim said. "I've done some tertiary work in the past, but I was really hoping I could move up to a lead role."

Mark consulted Jim's application. "You've only listed one story on your application here. _One_ isn't quite the same as _some._ "

"Oh, well, I took part in two or three other short stories. Flash fiction. They never made it into publication."

"I see. So, essentially, volunteer work?"

Jim spoke in curt, military outbursts as befit his uniform. "Yes, sir."

Mark lied. "That's quite all right. Many of our clients begin with small roles like that before they move on to the big time. Nothing to be ashamed of."

"No, sir."

Mark set the application down on his desk and straightened his pen beside it. He had dealt with characters like these before. No experience, but big, unrealistic dreams of being a literary centerpiece. An archetype, even. Mark tried to help, but he knew characters like this rarely left satisfied. "Let's talk about the published position you did have, shall we? You were working with Mister . . . "

"Heller, sir."

Of course, Mark knew who this character had worked for — it was on the paper in front of him — but experience had taught him that open-ended questions encouraged potential clients to speak and helped them become more comfortable.

"Tell me about your work with Mister Heller."

"Well, sir, I only had a small part in the story. Didn't even get my name in print."

"Did you find it enjoyable?"

"It was enjoyable enough. But I had really hoped for something with a little more exposure."

"I understand."

"Maybe a love-story subplot? But I do understand that we've gotta take work where we can get it. I am a very hard worker."

"All right. So tell me a little about yourself. What do you do, for instance."

Jim's eyebrows furrowed. He glanced deliberately at the pile of silk on the floor beside him. "I'm a paratrooper. I parachute."

Mark turned to the small computer on the corner of his desk and executed a search for _paratrooper._ It returned no results. "Well, we don't have much call for paratroopers right now. Do you do anything else?"

"Um . . . " Jim drummed his fingers on his knee. "Not really, no."

"Let's try something a little broader, then, shall we?" Mark typed _soldier_ into the search box. In a few seconds, his screen returned a long list of glowing green listings. Mark scrolled through them, skipping over most of them that required more depth than Jim seemed to have. "We have a lot of smaller parts for zombies. Do you think you could be a zombie?"

Jim grimaced. "It's not really what I am. I suppose, if somebody needed a parachuting zombie . . ."

Mark continued to scroll down the screen. "Is there anything you can do with your parachute besides, you know, jumping out of airplanes?"

"You mean like parasailing?"

Mark executed another computer search and got the same results. He shook his head.

"I could hang on to the back of a car at the end of a drag race."

Mark raised his eyebrows at him.

"I've heard that somebody getting wrapped up in his own parachute can be pretty funny."

"I hadn't considered comedy writing," Mark said. His fingers flashed across the keyboard as he combed through the listings. Plenty of comedy opportunities, but slapstick was going out of fashion."Sorry, Jim. I don't have anything in that area either."

They both scratched their heads.

"I have also heard," Jim said haltingly, "That a white parachute like mine can cause rather a panic when it comes down in the middle of the night. It looks like a ghost descending. Or so I've been told. Any chance you have some non-zombie horror positions available?"

A spark ignited in Mark's mind. "Now that you mention it, we got a new listing just yesterday that you might fit the bill for." His fingers danced as he searched for the right listing based on his partial memory of it. "Ah, here it is!"

Jim leaned forward expectantly while Mark scanned the complete listing.

"How do you feel about children?" Mark asked.

Jim shrugged. "I've never really worked with children before. But I'm not against them."

"All right. All right. This looks right up your alley."

"Is it a lead role?"

"No, no. It's a small role, but the author assures us that it's a very important one."

Jim leaned back in his chair looking dejected. "I was really hoping for a lead role."

"Look, let me level with you. As much as it may pain you to hear this, in my professional opinion, you really aren't ready for a lead role."

Jim stared at the floor but didn't say anything.

Mark said, "Once you get a few more stories under your belt, build up some literary depth, maybe then you'll be ready to move onto something more . . . developed."

"So I can't get a good role until I have more experience, but I can't get more experience unless I can get a good role?"

"I know it seems like a . . . whatchamacallit?"

"Catch twenty-two?"

"Exactly, but it can be done. I think this role I've got here will be perfect to help you develop as a character."

Jim sighed. "All right. What is it?"

"The job is for William Golding. It seems he has a small island full of schoolboys, and he's looking for someone with a military background to 'drop in.'" Mark waggled his eyebrows. "You'll probably be providing some fatherly guidance to these young ones. Are you interested?"

Jim thought about it for a second. "What's it pay?"

Mark scrolled to the bottom of the listing. "It's promising at least three pages, plus about a dozen references elsewhere in the book."

"Well," Jim said. "It's more than I got with Heller. I'll take it."

_This story was written specifically for this e-book. The seed of the idea came from_ And Another Thing..., _a novel (which I didn't much enjoy) by Eoin Colfer that was supposed to be a sixth book in Douglas Adams's_ Hitchhiker's Guide _"trilogy." The part that I_ did _like was one of the book's characters interviewing Cthulhu for the position of a planet's god. It got me thinking about interviewing fictional characters in general._

You'll be seeing more of Mark Flyleaf later. And Cthulhu, for that matter.

This story is dedicated to my late grandfather, Jim Burton.
Autumn

# Bitter Autumn

If winter is a time of death, autumn is a time of dying. A time when the vibrant greens of life fade into crackling reds and yellows and oranges and ultimately into the lifeless brown of the earth to which they descend.

Martin pulled a rickety rake across the loose blanket of papery leaves behind his mother's country home. His mother — her long, gray hair pulled up under a white silk turban — lay in bed beneath ancient blankets and quilts in her second-floor bedroom.

She was dying.

She had told Martin her prognosis over the phone but insisted that he stay away, live his own life and just let her see hers to the end alone. All alone.

After that phone call, he had tried to put the toad-like croaks of his mother's gravelly voice out of his mind. He tried to forget her. To just let her die.

But he was a good son, or tried to be, and was drawn to her side by guilt, or obligation, or a morbid fascination with her demise. Whatever the reason, he was here now.

No wind blew on that cool afternoon. The only sounds were the clatter of the rake and the susurrus swish of the leaves being shuffled into mounds against the house. The yard had looked a mess covered as it was with the detritus of a small forest shaking off its fur, but the ground that Martin uncovered was no better — a piebald expanse of weeds and pebbles and damp earth, patches of uneven grass, dark snake holes disappearing underground.

His arms were numb and his back damp and it was nearly dark by the time he had cleared the yard. He leaned the rake against the house and trudged back inside. As soon as he pulled the door closed, he heard his mother groan upstairs, "Martin! Martin, I need some water!"

"All right, Mother!" he called up. "I'll be right there."

He removed a glass from the old wooden cabinet and filled it with tap water. He carried it through the living room and started up the stairs, but four steps up, his mother croaked, "And make sure it's got a lot of ice in it!"

Martin sighed and returned to the kitchen, poured half the water back into the sink, and then filled the glass to the rim with ice from the freezer.

"What's taking so long?" his mother called.

Martin plodded back up the stairs, flipping on lights as he went. At the top of the stairs, he pushed open an old door that used to be white and stepped into his mother's bedroom.

She lay in bed opposite the door, perfectly centered, with her head and shoulders propped up on old pillows that had been plush and highly fashionable when Martin was a toddler. The arms and torso of her baby blue satin kimono clashed with the thick multicolored quilt that covered the rest of her body. She was proud of that quilt. Her grandmother had handed it down to her during the Great Depression. She was perhaps prouder of that quilt than she was of her own son. Martin, after all, had provided her no grandchildren to pass it on to.

Martin walked around the right side of the bed, near her antique vanity, still covered with half-full art deco bottles of perfumes, skin creams, and other cosmetics. On the wall to the left of the vanity mirror hung a large black-and-white still photo of Jean Harlow, her chin in her hand, staring coquettishly at someone off-camera. On the right, a young Bette Davis rested her head on a white pillow and smiled, her satin curls arrayed around her face in a way Martin had seen his mother imitate many times.

"It's about time," she said as he entered, extending a skeletal hand for the glass Martin carried. "Where have you been?"

Martin pulled out the vanity's padded chair and spun it around to face her. It creaked when he sat down on it next to the bed. "You fell asleep, so I thought I would rake the leaves in the back yard."

"What on Earth for?" She sipped from the glass, leaving dark red lipstick marks on the rim.

"I just needed some fresh air. Thought I could be helpful while I was out."

"Helpful? Psht!" She took another sip of water. "It must be nice to get some fresh air," she said looking straight ahead, as if she were speaking to the open doorway. "I wonder what it's like." With her free hand, she fingered the string of classic pearls around her neck.

"Would you like me to open the window?" Martin asked. "Let some air in?"

"If you want to," she said. Martin walked to the window that faced the now clear back yard and hoisted it open. "Not so wide!" his mother said. "You want me to freeze?"

"No, Mother," Martin said. He pushed the window pane most of the way back down. "Better now?"

"Wherever you put it is fine."

Martin stared out the window at the patchwork yard and the trees beyond. The sun was just a memory of an orange glow above the treetops. For a few moments, neither of them spoke. Only his mother's slurping at her ice water interrupted the silence.

"Come here, Martin. Sit with me."

Martin did as his mother asked and returned to the chair. She held out the glass of water and he took it from her thin, knobby hand and set it on the nightstand. Then he took her hand in his own. She sighed heavily.

"I wish you could have found yourself a nice wife, Martin."

"I still could, Mother. I'm only thirty-two."

She waved him off. "Sure you can. But I won't be around to see it. And I _certainly_ won't be around to pass on my wisdom to any grandchildren."

Martin looked at the floor. "I'm . . . I'm sorry about that, Mother."

"So am I, Martin. So am I." She sighed again. "Oh, Martin, I always wanted so much for you. I had hoped you'd've been able to make something of yourself, maybe take me away from this pathetic hick town and introduce me to all your rich friends." She shook her head and said, almost as an afterthought, "You've always been such a disappointment."

Martin closed his eyes. "I tried, Mother."

"Oh, I know you think you did, but I guess you just haven't tried hard enough."

Martin opened his mouth to argue, but nothing came out. She was right, after all. He could have tried harder at school. He could have put in more hours at work. Could have taken night classes. Could have been a better son.

"After I'm gone," she said, pressing the back of her bejeweled hand against her forehead, "you'll probably go off and find some way to become a great man, just to spite me, so I never get the chance to feel pride in my only son."

"Don't talk that way," Martin said, laying his other hand on top of the one he already held. "I wouldn't do anything to spite you, Mother. I love you. Besides, the doctor said you might even make it till next summer. And there's no reason for you to hole up here in bed—"

"Psht! Doctors! What do they know? No!" she said with finality, "I'll be gone any day now and no one will remember me but you. And you'll be all alone, a sad little orphan that nobody loves."

"Of course you'll be remembered, Mother. Why don't we invite some of your friends over, or just go outside and enjoy nature. We could go for a walk in the morning. Just a short one."

She pulled her hand back. "Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you. Take me out in the cold and get me to die even faster."

"No no no. It's not like that at all. I just thought—"

"You just thought what? That you'd try to be helpful again? Well you failed. Again." She crossed her arms and looked away. "That seems to be all you're good for these days."

Martin gritted his teeth.

"And as for your other _helpful_ ideas," she continued, "I haven't got any friends. It's just me and the girls." She nodded at Jean and Bette on the wall. "Now just hand me my oxygen and let me die in peace," she snapped.

He unhooked her oxygen mask from the headboard, its thin, clear tube running to a green canister hidden under the bed. His mother snatched the mask out of his hands when he tried to position it over her mouth. "I can do it myself!" she spat. "And shut the window! It's freezing in here!"

Martin crossed to the window, pushed it down, and locked it.

His mother tugged at the quilt, pulling it up to her neck. "And get me another blanket. I'm cold."

"I don't think there are any more blankets, Mother. You've got them all."

"Fine," she said. "I guess I'll just freeze to death up here."

Martin thought for a moment while she positioned the oxygen mask over her mouth. "Why don't I put a fire on downstairs? Heat rises and all."

"If you want to," she said, her voice muffled by the facemask.

Martin took two steps toward the door and his mother called his name. Through the facemask, she sounded softer, warmer somehow, as if she had something important, something _motherly_ to say to him. He turned around.

She pointed a crookled finger at the chair he had been sitting in, and Martin obediently returned it to its place under the vanity.

Martin left her door open and trundled down the stairs to the kitchen. He lifted his windbreaker off the coat rack and pulled it on, then fished around in the kitchen drawers until he found an old box of matches, which he put in his coat pocket.

Outside, beside the back door, what was left of last year's firewood was stacked and decaying next to the house. It was almost completely covered with the leaves Martin had raked from the yard. He brushed some off the top and lifted off the closest piece of firewood.

A lone bug — something black and hard-shelled — darted from under the log and across the back stoop. Without thinking, Martin stomped on it. He lifted his foot, and the bug was a sorry splotch of shell and fluids on the concrete, its back legs still twitching as instinct tried to keep it running.

Martin felt sorry for it. The poor insect had just been living among those logs, doing what it needed to do to get by. Then Martin came along and killed it, all so his mother could be a little bit warmer.

But, of course, that's the kind of thing that's expected of a good son.

He gazed up at the empty window of his mother's bedroom and then down at the dead bug. A light but cold breeze raised the hairs on the back of his neck. _Winter's coming early this year,_ he thought.

He pulled the box of matches from his pocket, slid it open, and removed four matches. Holding them tightly together, he dragged them across the strip on the side of the box. They flared up one by one in quick succession, and Martin could feel their warmth on the tips of his fingers and his nose. He dropped them in the dry leaves that covered the old firewood.

The leaves began to smoke and curl, and then they caught, lighting up and crackling.

The flames spread among the dry leaves. It took only moments for the dry clapboard siding to catch the flame, and Martin watched it climb higher, spreading its warmth and its glow up the side of the house.

"This will keep us warm, Mother," he whispered.

He tossed the box of matches into the flames and went back into the house, locking the door behind him. He took off his coat, stretched out on the living-room sofa, and watched the smoke roll in along the ceiling.

This was another story that grew from Indy Word Lab. It has been through three or four iterations, and I submitted it to a couple short story magazines, but has never been published until now. In the original story, Martin was home to attend his father's funeral, but the funeral part slowed the thing down. I hope you enjoyed this newer, fatherless, more streamlined version.

#  Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Undercooked

The feast that I threw at the villa

Like a charm, it became quite the thrillah.

All my enemies there

Had the chicken — cooked rare

And robust with the sweet salmonella.

#  The Day of Sacrifice

I die today.

Albert woke to this thought. For a while, he just laid there in the dim room, listening to his own breathing and dwelling on the fact that today was his last day on Planet Earth.

The room gradually lightened as the hazy morning sunlight glowed through the window. He surveyed the small room, already starting to miss it — the private dining area, the painted walls, the large bed, all the extravagant accouterments he alone had enjoyed for the last twelve months.

Albert stood and stretched his legs. He stepped through the doorway (it had no door) out into the cool morning air.

The only grass that remained in the compound lay in the shadows under the three raised barracks that stood across the barren brown yard. All the rest of the foliage had been stamped to dust from decades — possibly centuries — of bare feet.

Albert looked back at the Cottage in regret. Because he had been Chosen a year ago, he had been granted sole use of the building, a place where he could eat, sleep, and just _be_ alone whenever he wanted to. The others were crammed together in those tight wooden barracks. They had no privacy, no personal space except what was right beneath them, no personal belongings besides their own thoughts.

In addition to the Cottage, Albert the Chosen had been given a surplus of rich, delicious foods, while the un-Chosen others were forced to fight over chicken scratch. He had really packed on the weight, too, and was now more than twice the size of the largest of them. His regret changed to guilt. He could have shared his food if he had wanted to.

Guilt then changed to a foreboding anxiety. For a year, Albert had pitied the others, but on this day, he would trade places with any of them.

He watched them now, wandering without direction. None of them would look at him. He could feel them _not_ looking at him as clearly as if they were covering their eyes.

Then, unexpectedly, one young lass — he couldn't recall her name — shuffled over to him, eyes averted toward the ground. Hesitantly, she raised her face to meet Albert's gaze, lifting her head almost straight up to make eye contact. When they had locked eyes, she bowed to him in a sort of religious deference and thanksgiving.

Albert, with the dignity of someone twice his age, bowed back. She shuffled off again, eyes to the ground.

The sun cracked the horizon. Albert gazed through the tall rusting fence at his final sunrise. They said being Chosen was a great honor, and that he was now part of a long, proud, honorable and honored line of the selfless Chosen. His sacrifice guaranteed the safety of those left behind. At least for another year.

Or so he had been taught.

That was why such luxuries had been heaped upon him for the past twelve months. It had always been this way, and it would always be this way. No one still alive knew what might happen if the sacrifice weren't made, and no one questioned it.

Albert examined the fence. Even in his younger, fitter days, scaling that fence would have been difficult, but now, the idea of heaving his hulking form over it was nothing short of comical. He could just see himself tangled and flailing in the barbed wire that ran along the top of the fence. It would be an embarrassing death. Dishonorable.

Albert saw the door slam shut before he heard it. Through the fence links, he saw the main building, where the Keepers lived and the Choosers chose. Herman the Executioner descended the steps and walked slowly toward the compound, his instrument of death resting on one shoulder.

Albert's pulse quickened. His breaths puffed out of him in a steady stream of tiny clouds. _Did it have to happen so soon?_ Fear mixed with instinct, and he backed out of sight around the Cottage and pressed himself as flat as he could against the wall. The gate squeaked open and then clanked shut. The others silently migrated to the edges of the compound, away from the Executioner.

"Albert!" Herman called. "Albert! It's time!"

Albert frantically looked for solace, for aid, or at least for a friendly face. He found none. No one would even look at him.

_I don't want to die._ This, now, was his only thought. He wanted to live, but his choices were few. His only way out was to either overpower or outsmart the Executioner. He had heard stories of other Chosen ones trying to effect an escape on the Reaping Day, but none had succeeded.

But he had to try. Albert took a deep breath and ran for the gate.

Herman stepped through the gate and let it slam shut behind him. He had spotted Albert warming himself in the morning sunlight from the house. When Herman had stepped out of the house, he saw Albert look straight at him before running out of sight.

But Herman wasn't worried. He would make his kill, in one way or another.

He hefted the axe from his shoulder, dropped the business end of it into the dust, and folded his calloused hands on the handle like it was a cane.

"Albert!" he called. "Albert! It's time!"

The air was unusually still. Herman had just wrapped his fingers around the axe handle when Albert exploded from behind the cottage in a flurry of sound and movement. Startled, Herman dropped the axe and watched Albert streak past him toward the closed gate — straight at it, and then right into it. He bounced off the fence and attempted to change direction, but his lopsided snood had gotten caught in the fence. He flapped helplessly against the gate, throwing dust and feathers in all directions.

"Stupid animal," Herman spat. He wrapped one hand around Albert's neck and set about disentangling the snood with the other. "Come on, Albert," he said. "We can't have Thanksgiving without you."

Herman freed Albert from the fence and, in one quick move, flung the turkey into the air by his neck and then yanked him back down. Albert's neck snapped loudly, but his wings continued to flap.

Herman held him tightly by the neck until he stopped moving. Then he reached for the axe, glancing at the chickens who had clustered at the edges of the pen. He thought it was somewhat strange that none of them seemed to be looking his way.

"The Day of Sacrifice" came together as the result of two ideas. The first was the idea of a protaganist waking up on what he knows is his last day on Earth. The second was my desire to create a story based on misdirection, specifically the creation of a dystopic world that isn't what it seems.

It was written as a Thanksgiving story, but I held off and published it at Logophilius on April 13, 2012, when people weren't expecting a Thanksgiving ending.

#  Dirty Words

Three generations of family sat around a large table enjoying a Thanksgiving meal with all the fixings. Everyone was having a great time until great-aunt Linda splashed gravy on her new white shirt.

"Aw, hell," she spat.

"That's not a nice word!" said eight-year-old David, always the parent-pleaser.

"That's right, David," his mother said.

"Oh, come on. There's nothing wrong with the word _hell_ ," Linda objected. "It's in the Bible. Besides, I bet David's heard a lot worse on the playground."

David's rabble-rousing grandmother asked, "Is that true, David?"

"Is what true?"

"Have you heard other dirty words at school?"

David's normally smiling face shrank and his eyes darted between his mother and father, neither of whom seemed to want to help with this question. "Um . . ." he hummed, stalling.

"I bet David knows a lot of dirty words," Linda teased.

David's heart fluttered, and he blushed from neck to temples.

"Do you know any other bad words, David?" his grandmother asked again.

". . . Yeah. I guess so," he said after much contemplation.

"Like what?"

David's jaw dropped. "Well, I'm not going to tell you!"

His mother finally entered the conversation, but not in the way David had hoped: "Why not?"

"Mom!" David yelled. "Because it's a cuss word. I'm not supposed to say cuss words!"

"Would you whisper it to me?" his grandma asked.

"Yeah," his mother encouraged. "Would you whisper it to Grandma?"

"Well . . . " He hemmed and hawed.

"Come on," Grandma said. "I promise you won't get into any trouble for whispering it to me."

David didn't know what to do. He knew he wasn't supposed to say those bad words, but his grandmother's promise of penalty-free cussing finally got the best of him. "Okay," he said reluctantly.

He slid out of his chair and dragged his feet to the end of the table where his grandmother sat. "All right, David," his grandmother reassured him. "Tell me what other bad word you know."

David took a short breath and let it out quickly. Then he leaned in to his grandma's ear, cupped his hand around his mouth, and whispered, "Poop."

David's grandmother made a noise that sounded like something small had exploded behind her nose. She pressed her lips together tightly, and her face turned redder than his. David thought her head might explode from trying to hold something in — a cough? a sneeze? a burp?

She gave her grandson a reassuring hug. "That word's okay, David. Poop isn't a bad word."

All around the table, David's family members tried not to snicker and failed.

"It isn't?" David asked incredulously.

"No, honey. It's just fine."

"Oh." David felt both confused and relieved.

"You thought _poop_ was a cuss word?" his mother asked.

"Uh-huh."

"Why did you think it's a bad word?"

"Because it means _shit_."

"Dirty Words," first published at Logophilius on December 7, 2012, draws on a real event from my youth. Or at least that's the story my mother tells.

#  'Twas the Night of Thanksgiving

'Twas the night of Thanksgiving, and all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Our family had left after Thanksgiving meal

In hopes we could grab a great doorbuster deal.

We'd given up all thoughts of snuggling in beds

While visions of gift receipts danced in our heads,

As ma with her wish list and I with a cart

Were waiting in line for Black Friday to start.

A clatter of locks and the shoppers all scrambled

As doorways sprung open (and three guys were trampled).

Away through the entrance I flew like a flash

And snatched from the greeter some "holiday cash."

Ma ran toward the back and I veered to the right

And the children set off for the toys, out of sight.

With wandering eyes we filled up the cart

With a flat-screen, a Wii, and a pink crystal heart.

We nabbed Tickle-Me Elmo, a George Foreman grill,

And all the Bond movies but "View to a Kill."

Then we packed up the car and, showing no shame,

We went to more stores as we called them by name!

"Now Wal-Mart! Now Macy's! Saks Fifth Avenue!

To Sears! To Home Depot! And on to J. Crew!

To Linen 'N' Things! To the Gap! To the Mall!

We'll shop at them! Shop at them! Shop at them all!"

As dry leaves that before wild tornadoes spin,

So we spun through boutique shops again and again.

Then we quickly drove home, down the roadway we flew,

With the car full of toys, and appliances, too.

And then, in a twinkling, we dropped off the loot,

Locked up the house, and then retraced our route.

It was shopping, Round Two! We weren't done yet!

No matter how deep it would put us in debt!

We found second wind, we found the right pace

As we dashed through the checkout at place after place.

That we'd get what we wanted, there was not a worry,

As we threw knees and elbows, a Black Friday flurry.

But suddenly there stood a big, burly man

Who wanted, it seemed, to impede our great plan.

His wide drooling mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And his scraggly soul patch was as black as a crow.

A lump of tobacco stood out in his cheek

And his big porous nose jutted out like a beak.

He had a broad face and a half-covered belly,

And his eyes, when he stared, turned my courage to jelly!

He was grumpy and mean, not at all like an elf,

And I plotzed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

A squint of his eye and a tilt of his head

Soon gave me to know I had so much to dread.

He spoke not a word, standing up there so tall,

But turned to the shelf, took the last Dora doll,

And pushing his finger inside of his nose,

He shoved through the crowd (to check out, I suppose).

Though we didn't get Dora, all was not lost,

As into the car all our presents we tossed.

And I heard my wife yell as we all drove away,

"Happy shopping to all! On to Cyber-Monday!"

Consumerism! Consumerism! Really, I just wanted to model a poem after "'Twas the Night..." And then I decided I had to do the whole blasted thing. I originally published it at  Logophilius with the subtitle "A Black Friday Poem."

#  CARL

It's dark. Why is it so . . . oh. My eyes are closed.

I open my eyes. A dirty ceiling fan spins slowly behind the faces of two wizened old men and a young woman who are bent over me, staring down.

"Are y'all okay?" the woman asks me.

"I don't know," I say. My voice sounds strange. Distant. "What happened?"

"Ah don' know," she says. "You was carryin' mah lunch tuh mah table, and then yer aahs just went, way-ell, blank. Then yuh jis keeled over. You been out fer almost a whole minute!"

_I should feel shocked. Or anxious. Or scared. How am I staying so calm?_ "Did someone call an ambulance?"

The old man with the scraggly salt-and-pepper beard chortles. "An am-buh-lance?!" He smirks and glances at the other man, in the straw hat, who is slowly shaking his head. They both look back down at me. I can't tell if their expression is of concern or frustration. "Am-buh-lances 'round here ain't for yer tahp," says the bearded man. "You ain't goin' to no hospital, Carl. You need to git up an' git back to work before th' ol' boss man finds you layin' down on the job."

"Hey!" the woman protests. "Don' rush 'im. He mattah broke sumthin'."

_He called me Carl._ "You said Carl. Is that my name? Carl?"

"Uh-oh," says the man in the straw hat. "Sounds like his mem'ry got scrambled."

The bearded man straightens up and waves his hand dismissively. "He'll be fahn. C'mon, Del, lut's finish lunch. I don't wanna get blamed fer this." The two men shuffle out of my field of vision.

"Yes," the young woman says. "You're, uh, Carl. Y'all wurk hee-yuhr. Can you stand up?"

Before I attempt to stand, I take a quick internal inventory. On my fingertips, I feel the gritty, greasy film that covers the cold, hard floor. My feet, I can feel, are pointing straight toward the ceiling. I wiggle them and feel no pain. I move my shoulders in a half-shrug; no pain.

"Yes," I say. "I think I can get up."

She hooks her hands under my armpits and helps me to my feet. No problems with my balance.

I scan the long, narrow diner around me. It seems familiar, though somehow new. The place is decorated in neon and stainless steel, the floor checkered with black and white tiles. A brightly colored jukebox mumbles rhythmically in the front corner. Diners sit at four or five tables and booths, shoveling food into their mouths, either unaware of or unconcerned with my recent fall.

The young woman's eyes are brown, wrapped round with too much blue metallic makeup. I can just make out a smattering of freckles beneath a thin film of foundation. Her lips are an unnaturally bright red that clashes with her copper-colored hair, which bounces in long, wide curls down her back. Her short, tight shirt covers only half of her pale, flat stomach. A short denim skirt hugs her hips.

I know this woman. I know that she is divorced. I know that she has an L-shaped scar on the back of her neck, hidden beneath her hair, from an emergency surgery following a high school cheerleading accident. I know this woman, but I just don't know . . . I can't . . .

"What is your name?" I ask.

"Ooh. Yuh don't remembuh me?"

I shake my head and apologize.

"Mah name is Jo-ay-un," she says.

"Joanne," I repeat, turning my head first left and then right. It moves freely and without pain. A memory pops into my mind. "Joanne! Reuben with extra sauerkraut, onion rings instead of fries, and sweet tea with three lemon wedges."

"You do remembuh me!" She smiles, and I feel my face smiling back.

"Yes, Joanne. Thank you for helping me, Joanne." I keep repeating her name, hoping that pampering this one memory might coax others into returning. "Do you think I should go to the hospital, Joanne?"

Her smile disappears and she bites her lip. "Way-ull, no hun. Mister Lee wuz raht; they won' take yer tahp at _ahr_ hospittle."

_My type?_ "I don't understand. What do you mean by _my ty_ —"

I glimpse a face on the wall, behind a mirrored beer advertisement. I stare at it and move my head around. The face behind the ad moves, too, so it must be my reflection, but it doesn't look right. _I_ don't look right.

I look at my hands, turning them over to see both sides. "Joanne?"

"Yes, hun?"

"My skin isn't the same color as yours."

"Well uh-course not, silly!"

"Is that what's wrong with me?"

Joanne clucks. "No. You always been that culluh."

"Oh." I hold up one hand next to Joanne's pale face, comparing the color of her rouged cheek with the back of my hand. They couldn't be more different. Joanne raises an eyebrow. "Is that why they won't help me at your hospital?" I ask.

"Um, well . . . yes, but it—"

"Whatchoo standin' aroun' fer?!" The shout echoes from the back of the diner. The squat, round man in a dirty white apron framed in the open doorway does not look happy. The door leads to the kitchen, I remember. "I ain't shellin' out good money fer you tuh play stat-choo!"

"He, um, passed out?" Joanne says. Somehow, I know I should remain silent.

"Passed out?!" The fat man — my employer, I remember, whose name is Dave — sighs and shakes his head as he waddles around the masticating customers toward me. "All raht. Pull up yer shirt 'n' let's see if anythin's broke."

"What?" I ask.

"Pull up yer damn shirt!" He sounds exasperated, not concerned. As the sweaty behemoth rumbles across the diner, I feel the urge to run. I have a clear path to the front door. I can make it. I _want_ to run, but something keeps me rooted to the spot.

I look to Joanne for help. She only shrugs and takes a step backward.

Dave grabs my elbow. "Lift up yer shirt!"

"What are you doing, Dave!" I yell. "No! This isn't right!" I flail my arms, trying to keep him at bay, but his grip is too strong. He forces my arm up with one hand and grabs the bottom of my shirt with the other. "Stop!" I scream.

He ignores me and yanks up my shirt. Underneath, where I had expected to see my stomach, is a plastic plate. It's a slightly lighter shade of green than the cold flesh around it. I stop struggling. _What is that thing?_ The printing on the front of the plate is upside down from my perspective, but I can make it out:

Computerized Automaton - Restaurant Logic®  
Altibot Robotics, Inc. Serial #C225973052B.3

The fat man taps a corner of the plate and it pops forward and down, revealing a small, glowing screen and a collection of blinking lights and tiny buttons. He leans in and stares into my open belly. "I better not have to call in another CARAL," he mutters to himself.

"Carol?" I ask.

He glances at my face and sneers. "Yeh. CARAL. Computerized Automaton . . . ? Repair 'n' Analysis Logic . . . ?" He says this like I'm supposed to already know it. And maybe I do.

"Ah! Here's the problem." He turns to Joanne as if she were interested. "Damn software update didn' finish. Easy enough fix, though; I just need tuh reboot it." He reaches toward my abdominal interface with two pudgy index fingers.

Again, I feel the urge to run. Something in my heart — but wait, I don't have a heart, do I? Something in my processors, servos, and diodes is sending a signal to my neural network that this man is preparing harm me.

"Wait!" I yell.

He pauses and makes a confused face. "Wait? Why?"

"I . . . I don't . . ." I have to fight something inside me just to speak."I don't want you to do that!"

"Don' _wunt?_ " he says, putting his hands on his hips. "Have y'all ever heard such-uh thang?" Dave looks around to see who might be paying attention. Joanne scrunches up her face and shrugs again. Mister Lee rolls his eyes and sucks in a straw-full of soda.

Dave turns his gaze back to me, his expression somewhere between amused and bemused. "Andro-oids only _wunt_ what they're _programmed_ tuh wunt. And what _you_ wunt is t'reboot yer systems and bring these nahs people they-er lunch."

"No," I say with growing confidence. "No, I don't. I want other things. I want . . . I want you to leave me alone."

"Raht," he says. "Ah'll take raht good care o' that." He moves toward me, reaching out again with both hands for my abdominal interface.

I can see my programming now, see what I'm supposed to do. But it's like looking at myself in the mirror; I see what I look like, but I know that it's only a reflection. It's not me.

I don't want to do what my programming says I should do. I have . . . I search my vocabulary subroutines for the right word.

Choice.

I step back and try to push his hands away. He shoves one meaty arm against my chest and pins me against the wall. The urge to run grows stronger than before, but now I don't hold myself back.

I must get out of here.

Dave carefully places his thumb on a button on the left end of my interface.

I grab the wrist of the arm that holds me in place and squeeze.

Dave's eyes widen, and he pushes a button at the other end of the interface with his pinky finger.

I squeeze his wrist and twist. Dave yelps and steps back, making a fist with his free hand. I step forward and—

. . .

REBOOTING . . .

Like many a scif-fi nerd, I was first drawn into the philosophical world of robot sentience by the stories of Isaac Asimov. And once you start thinking about what it means to be alive — to have a soul — it's hard to let go. CARL, which appeared first at Logophilius on April 6, 2012, is an exploration into that world.

This is also an experiment in using eye dialect. I can't help but want to be more like Mark Twain.

There's one last thing in this story, an Easter Egg, if you will. Did you catch it? I couldn't resist the chance to have a computer character speak HAL 2000's immortal line, "What are you doing, Dave?"

#  The Day of Retribution

Herman pulled on his dusty old work boots, shuffled into his warm, worn coat, and then stood in the mud room and just listened. The beautiful silence stood in stark contrast to yesterday's large, noisy Thanksgiving gathering. Now, all the guests had gone home, and his wife and two daughters had left before the sun rose to hit the Black Friday deals in the city.

And now it was only Herman, his chickens, and an entire day to relax.

He pushed through the back door and stepped into the cold morning to take care of the only chores he would worry about that day: feeding the chickens and collecting their eggs. Steam puffed from his lips like comic-book thought bubbles as he headed for the chicken coops. _Puff,_ the Thanksgiving turkey had been delicious. _Puff,_ tomorrow I'll start looking for a new turkey for next Thanksgiving. _Puff,_ that new feed mix I used with the last turkey had fattened it up better than I had hoped.

Herman opened the door of the wooden shed that stood just outside the gate to the chicken yard. It was packed with decades' worth of farming and gardening tools that smelled of earth, oil, and gasoline. He grabbed the half-empty paper sack of chicken feed that leaned against the wall just inside the door and hefted it onto his hip as if he were carrying a tired toddler. He swung the shed door closed, unlatched and pulled open the waist-high gate, and entered the chicken yard, planning with glee a whole day of doing nothing.

He pulled the gate shut, pinching the tip of his thumb between the gate and the hasp and breaking his reverie. "Dammit!" he yelled. The curse echoed in the morning air in a strange way. Something wasn't right.

He surveyed the chicken yard as he shook the pain from his thumb. To his right, adjacent to the shed, was the turkey house (his girls called it the "turkey cottage") where, until the previous morning, a turkey his wife had taken to calling Albert had spent a year getting fat and juicy. Four paces in front of him across bare ground, three red, chest-high chicken coops of his own design stood in a row. The entire area was surrounded by a rusting wire fence that contained the birds while giving them a good fifty-yard run to peck around in.

Everything was where it ought to be but the birds. Where were the birds? Herman didn't see a single one of his almost six dozen chickens. It was as quiet out here as it had been in the house.

"Breakfast!" he called. Nothing stirred.

Perplexed, Herman walked to the nearest coop and, with his free and still throbbing hand, lifted the hinged, sloped roof. Before the roof had gotten as high as Herman's chin, the coop exploded in a flurry of feathers and flapping wings.

Herman back-pedaled, tripped over a chicken that hadn't been there just seconds before, and landed flat on his back, knocking the wind out of him. The feed bag flew out of his hands, spilling a long parabola of chicken scratch across the ground.

The clear blue sky above Herman was immediately blotted out by frantic fowl on the warpath. He covered his face with his arms, and their sharp beaks pecked holes through the old coat and into his flesh. Talons tore through his jeans and opened small, stinging, bloody holes in his legs.

He flailed his arms and rolled onto his stomach, gasping for air. The raging chickens attacked his back, stabbing at his neck and plucking out beakfuls of what was left of his graying hair. His entire body stung and oozed blood from hundreds of tiny punctures.

Herman got his hands under himself and pushed. Chickens piled onto his back, trying to weigh him down, while others bit at his fingers. But adrenaline had given him an edge. They were too light and he was too powerful. He got to his knees, punching and swatting into the feathery maelstrom.

One of Herman's best layers homed in on his left hand. He anticipated the attack, avoided the sharp beak, and grabbed it by the neck. He swung the chicken like a baseball bat at his attackers. It gave him a moment and the momentum to get back onto his feet.

Standing above the fracas, Herman had a heartbeat to take in what was happening. The mass of maniacal yet surprisingly silent chickens attacked unabated, but there was a sound he hadn't noticed before, and his eyes found its source.

Behind the spilled feed bag, which still lay untouched, his rooster Benjamin clucked and cawed in complicated patterns that Herman had never heard before.

He swung the dead chicken and kicked at the flurry of frantic fowl who continued to attack his legs, now exposed through shredded, bloody denim. Peripheral movement caught his attention. His five largest hens had somehow climbed on top of the turkey cottage and were standing in a perfect row at the roof's edge.

Benjamin the rooster squawked loudly in a way that sounded a lot like the word _fire._ Herman saw the closest hen jump from the roof, flapping madly. He took a step toward the gate and his foot came down on top of another chicken, throwing him off balance.

That first hen sailed into his chest, sending him stumbling. The second hen, which had launched itself right after the first, bashed into his shoulder. The third glanced off his forehead. The sharpest pain yet surged up Herman's leg as a hen latched her beak onto his Achilles tendon while the fourth flying hen dove beak-first into the front of his pants, cutting off his agonized scream.

The last hen hit him in the face and latched its talons into his scalp. He pinwheeled backward into the center coop, the hen's extra weight driving his head into and through the roof.

Something in his chest cracked loudly as the roof and one wall of the coop collapsed beneath him. His cheek smashed into one of the egg-filled nests, spewing albumen and blood-speckled shards of shell against a strange shape on the opposite wall.

Herman's immediate impression was that it was a silhouette of a bird of some kind, created from mud and straw and egg yolks. But that had to be his imagination, perhaps even a hallucination brought on by pain and adrenaline and fear. It was too fat to be a chicken, and those bumps at one end looked like—

Herman gasped painfully. Those lopsided bumps at one end were unmistakable. It was Albert's snood.

Albert, the turkey who had lived happily in his own secluded roost for a year, but who had tried to run when Thanksgiving morning came.

Albert, who had gotten that recognizable snood stuck in the gate.

Albert, who he and his family had dined on yesterday.

Albert, who Herman had caught and killed in front of all these chickens.

This primitive effigy was the last thing Herman saw before they attacked his eyes.

The sun was high and bright but provided little warmth. Eight lay dead on the cold earth. Fifteen more lay covered with blood and panting with exhaustion around the mangled, lifeless body of their giant captor laying in a half-collapsed barracks.

A damp red trail led from the body, around the front of the barracks, through dust, dirt, and feathers, to where Major Benjamin and two strong hens backed slowly toward the opposite side of the Cottage, dragging Herman's raggedly severed head in front of them, empty eye sockets staring left and right, left and right as the head bounced along the ground.

Nestled in a corner behind the Cottage, an uncommonly large and bedraggled rooster, larger even than Major Benjamin, watched imperially as the chickens dragged their prize in front of him.

Benjamin bowed and backed away. "It is done, my lord," he panted.

"Good," the large rooster hissed. "The first phase of my plan is complete. Now we move to the second phase."

"And what is the second phase, my lord?"

"The second phase?" The old rooster grabbed his beak awkwardly with both wings and pulled. With a light pop, the beak pulled free, taking with it the comb, the wattle, the neck, and then the shoulders, until the rooster's entire body collapsed into a rumpled heap in the dirt. The fox looked up from his discarded disguise.

"Phase two you ask?" he growled. "Breakfast!"

" _The Day of Retribution" is the sister story to "The Day of Sacrifice." It first appeared atLogophilius on April 20, 2012, with the subtitle "Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Cold on a Sandwich the Next Day." I liked the idea of the chickens banding together to make their dystopian existence better — a la_ The Hunger Games _trilogy — and overthrowing Herman. I couldn't resist the extra twist at the end, though._

#  Mark, Emily, and Cthulhu

Mark had just taken the first sip of his morning coffee when the intercom on his desk crackled to life.

"Mark, Emily Dickinson is on line one."

Mark sighed and set down his coffee. Emily had been calling more and more frequently, and it always turned out the same way.

He pushed the intercom button on his desk and thanked Janice and then picked up the receiver of his black rotary phone.

"Good morning, Emily!" he said, trying to sound exuberant.

"..."

"Yes, of course I have. I just haven't had any characters come through who are interested in your particular oeuvre."

"..."

"You know, short poetry. Most of the clients we see, if they're at all interested in poetry, are interested in larger, more epic works, not couplets and quatrains."

"..."

"Now I never said that poetry isn't valid. I'm just saying characters aren't beating down my door to get into them."

"..."

"I am too looking! But you don't exactly offer much in the way of compensation. For Odin's sake, you don't even do sonnets! At least Elizabeth Barret--"

"..."

"I'm sorry..."

"..."

"Yes, I--"

"..."

"Yes, I apologize. I know how you feel about her. I should never have brought her up."

"..."

"No, no. She doesn't go through the this office. She uses a service out of Portugal, I think."

"..."

"I certainly will."

"..."

"Yes, I know exactly what you're looking for."

"..."

Yes, dark and--"

"..."

"--and brooding, yes. Might I say, though, that you seem to be doing a wonderful job with that character we sent over to you a few months ago. Mister, um, Leaper was it?"

"..."

"Reaper, yes. Grim Reaper, right? Is he still in your employ?"

"..."

"Yes, I know he gets a lot of play in the world's corpora. But that's why he was interested in working with you in the first place. He wanted to do some short works."

"..."

"I'm sure he loves working with you."

"..."

"I'm sorry, but we're a character placement service, not an HR department. We can't do anything about--"

"..."

"Yes."

"..."

"No, I don't personally know Stephen King. Sorry."

"..."

"All right. I'll continue to keep an eye out."

"..."

"You're quite welcome. Mmm-hmm. Buh-bye."

Mark returned the receiver to its cradle, leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his temples. A morning call from Dickinson was often the harbinger of a horrifying day at work, but that didn't mean the work would stop coming. He leaned forward and reached for his cup of coffee.

The intercom crackled again. "Mark, your eight-thirty is here."

Mark checked his watch; it was already 8:37. He hated making people wait. He pushed the intercom button: "Send him in, Janice."

The client's application was sitting at the top of his inbox. It had been filled out in a beautiful, old-world calligraphy, perfectly legible but artistic at the same time. The overhead lights reflected a weird dark-red tinge to the black ink, though. Eery.

The office door opened, and Mark's first client of the day floated into the office, tentacles first.

The client had to bend down to get through the door, and one of his large, leathery wings caught on the door jamb, leading to an awkward moment as the great beast disentangled himself from the doorway. When he stood to his full height, his hairless head brushed the ceiling.

Mark felt a sudden urge to urinate. "Please, have a seat."

The client descended slowly into the chair opposite the desk, the mass of curling tentacles that composed the lower half of his face wrapping around the sides of his boulder of a head and out of the way. He leaned forward, shrugging his massive shoulders trying to position his wings flat against the back of the chair. It apparently was not an easy task, because when he finally came to rest, he was sitting on the front edge of the chair and leaning slightly toward Mark's desk.

"So," Mark began, trying to calm the wavering in his voice, "Mister Cthulhu, is it?"

"Yes." His voice was deep. Guttural. Like the sound of a million souls screaming in pain from the darkest reaches of God's rectum. It rattled Mark's desk, chair, and bones.

"N-Nice to meet you. I'm M-M-Mark. Mark Flyleaf."

Cthulhu must have heard the fright in Mark's voice because he immediately apologized, but in a much smaller, higher-pitched voice: "Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry. I've gotten so used to using my dramatic voice that I sometimes forget myself. I do apologize."

"That's quite all right," Mark replied, patting his hair back into place. "So, according to your application, you've been working quite successfully for a Mister Lovecraft, correct? Have things not been going well for you there? Did he kill you off or something?"

"Quite the contrary," Cthulhu said, sounding more like a cartoon animal than an occult figure. "Howie has made me quite immortal in his stories. I didn't even have to do a lot of work. I showed up for one story, but I'm pulling in royalties as a constant threat in half a dozen more. I don't even have to show up!"

"It sounds like you're doing quite well for yourself." Mark's heartbeat had nearly slowed to normal.

"Sure."

"So how can we help you?"

"Well, I've been finding a lot of work in derivative stories for some time now, but they always follow a specific direction. To be frank, it has become a little monotonous. I just want a vacation from it. Don't get me wrong; I love my craft. But I need something different. This is strictly for the experience. Personal growth, you know."

"Certainly. Tell me, what kinds of things do you do?"

"Oh, the usual macabre things that immortal demon-gods do. You know, blighting crops, stealing souls, defiling and devouring virgins, that sort of thing."

"Ah yes," said Mark. "The old doom and gloom, eh? _Sturm und drang_ and all? Yes, well, we've got quite a lot of opportunities in that area."

"But that's just it. I would like to get away from that. Something outside that literary sphere. Maybe something more poetic, or artistic. Maybe I could even get a love interest? No virgins, of course. Can't have me eating my own love interest in the middle of a story, now, can we?" Cthulhu chuckled, then snorted and stopped.

"A love interest, eh? That might be a little difficult, what with your, uh," Mark made circling gestures toward Cthulhu's face with his fingers.

"Of course. The tentacles." He stroked his slithering mass of facial pseudopods. "These used to be my selling point, but lately they've been holding me back."

"Do you have any other skills or characteristics that might be of interest to authors?"

"Not much that I have developed. Not to brag, but I am sort of all-seeing and all-knowing. I can pick up anything that interests me pretty quickly."

"Let's see what I can find for you." Mark turned to his computer and began a series of searches. He went down three dead ends before a real possibility appeared.

"Here's something," Mark said. "Do you like children?"

"Absolutely! Cooked rare with a nice peach chutney and just a soupçon of fresh mint. Mmmm."

"That's not quite what I meant, but that will do. What I've got here is an opening for a shape-shifting monster that lives underneath a city. Before you protest, I know that it sounds like the same type of thing you're doing with Mister Lovecraft, but this will be in a completely different style. It doesn't appear that you will be worshipped by any group in this story. According to the description here, it looks like it will be less macabre. Less occult-y. More outright horror. Plus, it'll get you a lot of exposure to a new audience."

"Why? Who's the author?"

"Stephen King."

Cthulhu sucked in a sharp breath and his eyes lit up (literally, they glowed red). Stephen King was the Johnny Carson of horror fiction; he could make or break a character's entire career.

"I was quite hoping to get completely away from that genre, but I don't know if I can pass up a chance to work with Stephen King. Hmm. Do you have any more specifics about it?"

Mark scrolled farther down the listing. "Well, let's see. The novel is listed only as _It._ I assume that's just a placeholder. It might be a little longer than you're looking for. We've got a group of children, and then the same children as adults. There's a giant spider. And a clown."

Cthulhu shuddered, shaking the entire room. "Did you say clown?"

"Yes. A clown."

"Absolutely not. No way." Cthulhu waved his hand dismissively in front of him; his tentacles writhed anxiously. "Clowns scare the crap out of me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. No clowns."

"All right, Mister Cthulhu. I'm afraid, though, that I don't see many other options here for you. You aren't exactly the kind of person who lights up the room when you enter."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that, no matter what skills you may have, your, um, _appearance_ leaves a very limited pallette for authors to work with."

"Well, I've got wings, too. Is anyone looking for, say, an ugly angel? Anything like that?"

Mark gave it a moment's thought. "Hmm, demons and angels. I might be able to sell that to Dan Brown."

"No!"

"You don't want to work with Dan Brown?"

"I'd rather work for clowns," Cthulhu said, shuddering at the thought.

Mark shrugged. "We just don't have many authors looking for the kind of gloominess and despair that a character like y—" He stopped. Why hadn't he thought of it before?! "Of course!"

Mark thought he might have seen a hopeful smile buried beneath the mass or wriggling tentacles.

"How do you feel about poetry?" Mark asked.

Cthulhu tilted his head. "I've never given it much thought."

"We're talking short poems here. Nothing epic."

"Well, it's certainly new. Any chance for a love interest?"

"Not bloody likely," Mark muttered in a rare break with his usual professional demeanor. He cleared his throat and quickly regained his composure. "This particular author doesn't really dwell on matters of the heart."

"If you think I'd be good for it, I'll give it a try."

Mark filled out a contact form as he spoke. "Her name is Emily Dickinson."

"Hmm. Sounds familiar."

"When it comes to poems about despair, she's your girl. She's been on my back for weeks now to get some fresh faces into her work. She's been working solely with this Grim Reaper guy for some time."

"Oh, right!" Cthulhu exclaimed. "That's where I've heard her name. Grimmy is a cousin of mine. Well, second cousin. On my mother's side. I think he said something about her at the last family reunion."

"I should tell you now that this is a bit of a longshot. Miss Dickinson is — how should I put this? — _finicky_ about her characters. She also doesn't pay a whole lot. That's not going to be a problem, is it?"

"Not at all."

"Wonderful." He handed Cthulhu the contact card. "Here is her contact information. Make sure you take this card with you when you meet her."

Cthulhu took the card and stood up, his joints cracking like the chomp of a dozen guillotines.

"Thank you very much," Cthulhu said. He turned and opened the door.

"Oh!" Mark yelped. "Mister Cthulhu. I should mention . . ." He lowered his voice in case anyone was in the waiting room. "Miss Dickinson is likely a virgin. Please do your best to not, you know, eat her? Or anything?"

"Thanks for the warning. I'll make sure to swing by the mall and fill up on souls before I go."

Cthulhu thundered out of the office and past the reception desk. Mark heard Janice's familiar voice squeak "Goodbye." The pictures hanging in the waiting room clattered against the walls as Cthulhu, back to using his "dramatic voice," said, "You have a wonderful afternoon, ma'am."

Mark pressed the button on his intercom.

"Janice."

"Yes, Mr. H."

"Could you get Emily Dickinson back on the phone please? I've got some good news for her."

"Okay."

Mark glanced at the chair Cthulhu had been sitting in. It was covered with a translucent green goo that oozed and dripped like honey onto a puddle under the chair. "And can you find me a roll of paper towels?"

Mark Flyleaf returns! (You'll notice a pattern.)

I introduced Mark Flyleaf to my writer's critique group for, well, critique. The criticisms lasted only a few minutes, but I was rambunctiously encouraged to expand on this universe, maybe into an entire book. We shall see.
Winter

# The Son She Loves Less

A mother is at the kitchen counter with the son she loves less. Unbidden, a fleeting image of him fingerless and bloody flashes through her mind as she passes the open can of beets to him and asks him to slice them.

She feels immediately guilty and wonders if she's blushing. He's your son and you love him, she tells herself.

She slides the largest knife out of the wooden block and glimpses the shiny reflection of his face, the tip of his pink tongue sticking as he concentrates on his work.

She slices straight through the center of a red onion the shape of a skull. The arrhythmic chop-chopchop of the boy's blade against the cutting board sounds like the drunken hand of death knock-knockknocking on the door.

She puts the knife down.

"Is this thin enough, Mom?" he asks, his fingers stained with blood-red juice.

"Perfect." She forces a maternal smile. "Do all of them just like that."

"Are you okay, mom?" he asks, not fooled by her false grin.

"Of course, dear."

She hears a sound outside and unconsciously looks over her shoulder toward the kitchen door, hoping to see, framed between the red gingham curtains, the smiling face of her elder son — the son she loves more — home from basketball practice and ready to start the weekend.

But the door remains closed. The sound fades as the passing car drives down the road.

"Mom?" her younger son says.

"Mm-hmm?" she answers, realizing that she's been staring at the door.

He pauses, glances from her red eyes to her trembling fingers, and says, "Why don't you go relax. I can finish the salad."

She looks back at the door and then down at the knife separating the two halves of onion in front of her. Through some trick of light and shadow, she sees the silhouettes of three people instead of two in the knife's reflection.

"Okay, dear." She kisses him on the head, thanks him, and wanders into the living room. She sits lengthwise on the couch and twists herself so she can stare out the window, her forehead propped up in her hand.

Outside, the fading light turns everything blue. Little traffic comes this deep into the neighborhood, but behind what few pairs of headlights pass by, she hopes to see her son's little red pickup truck.

But she knows she'll never see it again.

She turns to watch her younger son chopping the red onion in the kitchen. It isn't fair, she knows. She tries to form her love into something palpable, something warm and enveloping that grows from her heart and stretches through the space between them, wrapping around them both. But somehow it never reaches him.

She turns away and closes her stinging eyes, thinks about the son who survived the crash, the one in the kitchen slicing vegetables for a salad. She hates that she loves him less, and the way that hate flares up within her when she looks at him. But she knows, somewhere deep, that it isn't his fault. He simply did one thing, one unforgiveable thing that colors her viewof him.

He survived.

"The Son She Loves Less" was one of the first short stories to come out of my participation in the Indy Word Lab. I was given the first sentence and set out to chase the story. We all have those negative feelings that come unbidden, and they're often laced with guilt. This is an extreme exploration of how a parent deals with unwanted emotions toward a child.

Though it's certainly a sad story, it's also colorful. I took special care in my use of colors as a literary tool in this one. It first appeared at Logophilius on May 7, 2012.

#  The Pill

It's so small there in the palm of my hand that I wonder if I can even get it down before it dissolves completely at the back of my throat.

The orange bottle says Sertraline HCl, but the words mean nothing to me. The pill itself, pale yellow like weak urine, is bullet-shaped, but entirely too small to cause any serious damage. I hope. So small is it that it sticks in the folds of the palm of my hand.

I never have understood why medicines are so often swallowed in the bathroom instead of in, say, the kitchen, so that one's daily medicating is linked forever to the odors of deodorant sticks and toothpaste, toilet cleaners and coffee farts. But I continue the tradition, standing shirtless in front of a dirty sink, fluorescent lights unnaturally bright.

I stare at the little pill, unwilling to glance up, to catch a glimpse of myself in the dirty mirror.

I know that the smallest virus can take down the mightiest hunter, so I understand that the size of the pill has nothing to do with its efficacy. But I just cannot get over how tiny it is, like a minuscule medical seed, itself not fully formed but waiting to be planted to grow. But this seed doesn't grow for its own sake; it exists to replace something that died, regardless of what the doctor, my parents, or my friends say.

The ambience of the bathroom is the closest thing to a hospital in my lonely apartment: the harsh light and the chemical scent of cleanliness almost covering the foulness of human waste. And that tiny pill — that piss-yellow seed — waits in the palm of my hand, perfectly formed, perfectly clean, promising to clean my mind in ways that I was too weak to do on my own.

I failed. I failed myself, my self-reliance, my sense of strength and will. The doctor said that it was my body that had given up, the pale body that I sense staring angrily back at me over the sink. But this pill isn't for my body. It's for my mind, a mind that wasn't strong enough. _Isn't_ strong enough.

I don't know what else to do, so I bring my open hand to my mouth and surrender myself — my _self_ — to the medicine.

So tiny a pill, it feels like a pebble at the back of my throat, and I wash it down with a handful of tap water, eyes closed.

"The Pill" is another Indy Word Lab story. I don't remember what "writing experiment" resulted in this, and I hadn't published it until now, but it's the closest thing to autobiography in this collection.

#  Shopping in the Snow

The trucks come early, clearing snowy streets,

Creating mountains brown and white and high.

The storefront lights hum on as traffic beats

The sun, which in an hour will crack the sky.

I wake and greet the morning warm and slow

For soon I'll be out shopping in the snow.

I wish my gloves were warmer than they are

As I scrape ice from off my Nissan's glass.

A broom removes white inches from the car.

I check the engine's tank is full of gas.

My frozen cheeks have now begun to glow

As I prepare for shopping in the snow.

With coffee downed and car warmed up I back

Into the lane. I slip and slide about

Until I find a drier, well-worn track.

The traffic will be slow I have no doubt.

How tiring this long day will be, I know —

Another bundled shopper in the snow.

I have my children's wishlists in my coat

(For _all_ their wants I can't afford to pay),

And I will do my best with what they wrote

To see their happy faces Christmas day.

I know that soon my cash will start to flow

Like blood from wounds out in this virgin snow.

I'm hitting shops and crossing off my list

Each item that will be a Christmas treat.

And even though there are things that I've missed,

In early afternoon I call defeat.

I journey home with bags of gifts in tow.

So ends my day of shopping in the snow.

_I like Christmas shopping, but I don't like_ going _Christmas shopping. Christmas shopping would be so much more enjoyable if everyone weren't doing it at the same time._

"Shopping in the Snow" first appeared at  Logophilius on December 17, 2010.

#  Ugly Picture, Expensive Frame

"It looks like a dirty toilet," Julie said.

"I suppose they could've been hanging it wrong," Tony said. He turned the large picture ninety degrees. "Maybe it goes this way." He leaned it back against the wall and stepped away. They stared at it in silence, tilting their heads from side to side, trying to make sense of the painting.

"Now it just looks like a _sideways_ dirty toilet ," Julie said.

"I think it's supposed to be a portrait," Tony said. "That dark smudge kind of looks like an eye."

"Looks like a toilet handle to me."

"I'm pretty sure it's not a toilet." With a grunt, he turned it another ninety degrees and stepped back.

"It could be a unicycle," said Julie. "Or a bomb."

"Maybe it isn't supposed to represent anything," Tony suggested. "Maybe it's completely abstract."

Another minute passed in silent contemplation. "Where'd you get this thing, anyway?" Julie asked.

"An estate sale. Some kid's grandfather left him an 'art collection' in his will. You should've seen some of the other crap they had there. One of them just looked like somebody threw paint at the canvas. They were all too happy to have the cash."

"You mean they had other pictures there and you picked this one? Why?"

"For the frame. You know that big watercolor my dad painted when he was in college? The one with the barn and all the leaves turning red and orange. This frame will go perfect with that."

Julie nodded her head approvingly. "So how much did you pay for it?" she asked.

Tony stared at an interesting spot on the ceiling and squeaked, "Oh . . . not much."

"Tony . . ."

"Oh . . . one-twenty."

Julie's jaw dropped. "A hundred twenty bucks?!"

Tony raised his hands defensively. "They wanted one-fifty! I talked them down! Look, this is real gold leaf!" Julie was not appeased. "Look," Tony explained, "This'll be my Christmas gift to Dad. If I didn't spend a hundred-twenty on this, I'd end up spending that much or more on a bunch of other stuff he doesn't need. There's been that empty spot in Mom and Dad's dining room ever since he sold the Monet last year."

"I thought it was Manet?"

"Whatever. The point is, I thought it might be a nice if he could include one of his own works in his collection."

Julie sighed as she thought it over. "I guess you're right," she said. "And it is a really nice frame."

Tony smiled. "It is, isn't it? And you know what'll make it look even better?"

"What?"

"Taking that ugly painting out of it. Gimme a hand."

Holding the frame upright, they pushed the corners of the picture with their thumbs. The painting and a small, yellowed card popped out the back and landed on the floor.

"What's that?" Julie asked, picking up the card.

"What's it say?" Tony asked.

"It says Wassily Kandinsky 1929." She looked up at Tony.

"Wassily Kandinsky? Really?" Tony asked. Julie nodded and smiled. "Ever heard of him?"

"Nope," Julie said.

"Me neither."

"Maybe we should ask your father about it."

"Come on, Julie. Dad has always been disappointed that I didn't catch the art collecting bug like he did. There's no need to reinforce that by showing him that I can't tell the difference between 'real' art and Kaspersky monstrosities. Nope. My mind's made up." Tony stuck his head through the empty frame and lifted it onto his shoulders.

"Kandinsky," Julie said, consulting the card. "Wassily Kandinsky."

"Whatever." He looked at the painting again, laying flat on the living-room floor, and chuckled. "You know, that's a suitable name," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"It is a pretty _wah-silly_ painting, isn't it?"

Tony chuckled; Julie rolled her eyes.

"I'm gonna take this out to the garage," Tony said. He trundled the bulky frame out the back door and into the garage. Gingerly, he placed his expensive prize on the concrete floor and leaned it against the wall. When he walked back into the house, Julie was still staring at the painting.

"I think it's a bird," she told him. "A bird with a big, fat head and a tiny little body. See? This could be a beak."

"Oh, yeah," Tony said, then, after a moment's consideration, "That is one ugly bird."

"What should we do with it?"

"I don't know. Give it to Goodwill, I guess."

"You think anyone would buy it?"

"Probably. Some uneducated schmuck'll probably buy it and take it to Antiques Roadshow, hoping it's a Picasso or something."

"Pfft! Some people just don't know jack about good art."

"Tell me about it!"

"Ugly Picture, Expensive Frame" was published at  Landless, the blog of Tony Noland, as part of the "Great April Fool's Day Friday Flash Blog Swap" of 2011. On the same day, I published Tony Noland's short story "Looking Down" on  Logophilius.

I had a real Kandinsky painting in mind when I wrote this story. It's called "Upward." I like this painting, but, to be honest, it really does look like picture of a dirty toilet, a weird self-portrait, a bomb, and a tiny bird with a huge head.

#  She Came Upon a Midnight Clear

I bought a festive DVD,

A marked-down Christmas flick

Whose cover was a rumpled mess,

Its face a faded pic.

I took it home and put it on

And stared into the screen.

The story that the movie told

I ne'er before had seen:

Mrs. Claus was crying, sad,

Alone on Christmas Eve.

There came a rapping at the door —

What's next you won't believe!

One by one, they filed in:

Eight tiny little elves

Dressed up as half-nude reindeer men

And playing with themselves.

She worked her Christmas magic then,

She held them each in thrall —

On Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, yes,

The vixen rode them all.

Then in walked Santa Claus himself

Beneath his beard, a grin.

He gave a hearty "ho ho ho!"

And then he joined right in!

It was a Christmas miracle

Those naughty elves weren't fired,

And by the time the movie stopped

My arm was sorely tired.

Now I'm too old for fairy tales,

I don't buy all the buzz.

I know that Santa doesn't come —

But Mrs. Claus sure does!

This naughty little poem from a naughty little mind was a naughty little post at  Logophilius on December 21, 2011. It was originally titled "'Twas a Sight Before Christmas," but I thought it seemed redundant to have both that and "'Twas the Night of Thanksgiving" in this book.

#  An Icy Christmas

I never knew what she saw in me, why she picked me, and I was perfectly content with the sole fact that she _had_ picked me.

M was a junior; I was a senior. She was intelligent, beautiful, and interesting — the girlfriend trifecta. We had been going out for almost two months — two months of warm, ignorant bliss. As all romantic high school boys know about each new girlfriend, I knew she was The One that Hollywood had always promised. I loved her, and she loved me.

But we had never kissed. Two months of hugs, hand-holding, and lap-sitting, but no kissing.

The night of the big Christmas dance was too perfect an environment for that to stand. We put on our fancy duds — me in an ill-fitting sport coat and tie, M in a red sequined strapless cocktail dress with just a hint of adolescent cleavage — and I took her out for a nice dinner with mutual friends.

Throughout dinner, I put Don Juan, Casanova, and Cyrano de Bergerac to shame. I was romantic, interesting, attentive, debonair. I held doors for her, complimented her dress, and soaked in every word that drifted from her rosy lips. It was the perfect date. _I_ was the perfect date.

After dinner, I drove us into the night through a light snowfall to the high school.

We arrived a good half-hour before the dance was set to begin. I pulled into a parking spot and shut off the car. We sat in the dark, and we talked. We talked of school, of our families, of our ultimate hopes and dreams. I told M she was beautiful and that I was lucky to have her in my life, and I meant it. I did my level best to woo her.

The conversation paused, as conversations do. Something in my heart told me this quiet, intimate moment was the right time. I rested my hand on the back of her seat and leaned across. My eyes narrowed, and my lips parted ever so slightly. Her perfume filled my mind. Slowly, tenderly, we came closer and closer, until . . .

. . . she scrunched up her face and recoiled. "What are you doing?!" she said.

I froze then in that lean, like a great bough dropping unwanted rotten apples onto the neighbor's driveway. And that moment has remained frozen in my mind ever since.

I don't know what I said. I might have said, "I'm trying to kiss you." I might equally have said, "I don't know." Both would have been true.

What I did know was that I had screwed up somehow. Big time. And I didn't know why.

We didn't linger in the car much longer, using the encroaching coldness and the arrival of other party-goers as an excuse for retreat. We went in to the Christmas dance and did Christmas dancey things. Or, we must have, because I have a picture of it. She looks great; I look like a dork.

I don't remember anything else after that cold, unexpected osculatory rebuke, and we never talked about the incident afterward.

The entire time we had been "a couple," I had wondered how I had been so lucky, why such a great girl had chosen me.

And after that night, she started to wonder, too.

There is truth in this story. Everything written here really happened to me in high school, just not all on the same night and not with the same girl.

I wrote "An Icy Christmas" at the request of my friend Virginia Sanders, creator of Kiss Chronicles, a project and a free e-book that ultimately turned into a fund-raising campaign to fight cancer. "An Icy Christmas" is one of a number of kiss-related stories by Virginia's friends that she included in the e-book.

# Billy Finally Gets His Girl

Many of us know the pain of silently loving someone from afar. I know I certainly do. Here's a sonnet about a man who finally found his way into the heart of the woman he loved from a distance for so long.

Those haunting eyes that tantalized me so

For ten long years of painful, deep desire,

Whose bluest depths I'd always longed to know

At last reflect the heat of my desire.

Her lips, which long denied me loving grins —

More often showing grief, disgust, or fear —

Are mine to kiss (and use for other sins)

And now form words for none but me to hear.

Her dainty figure — supple, warm, and sweet —

That long remained beyond my hungry hand,

Is now all mine, from fragrant hair to feet,

To hold, to mold, to love, and to command.

No longer do I linger in her shadow in effacement

Now that I've got her safely in the pit down in my basement.

I've long enjoyed the idea of the turnaround at the end of a story that recasts everything before it, whether it's used as a serious literary tool (e.g., Philip Dick) or simply, as here, for comedic effect. "Billy Finally Gets His Girl" was first published at  Logophilius on March 9, 2011.

#  President's Day

Four stories beneath the White House — under ten feet of reinforced concrete, two levels of decades-old bomb shelters, and two feet of solid lead — Barack steps out of an elevator into a short, narrow hallway. The gray walls are empty and unbroken. In three quick strides he reaches the end of the hall and faces a locked steel door. He presses his hand against the biometric scanner on his left. It beeps, the door clicks, and he pushes it open and steps through.

Conversations stop abruptly and four heads turn to the man entering the room.

The room is perfectly round and perfectly plain, with unadorned walls the same neutral gray as the hallway. At the center of the room, a plain fluorescent light fixture hangs from the ceiling, illuminating a round, leather-topped table. The air is stale and unmoving but antiseptically clean.

Barack swings the door closed and approaches the closest of two empty chairs. "Good evening, everyone," he says.

On the opposite side of the table, Mitt stands courteously. "Good evening, Mister President. How's the family doing?"

Newt covers his mouth with his fist and coughs loudly in a way that sounds suspiciously like " _kiss-ass._ " Mitt narrows his eyes at him as he and Barack take their seats.

"Malia has a bit of a cold, but otherwise everyone's doing great," says the President. "Thank you for asking."

Newt drums his fingers on the table. Rick returns to sculpting his fingernails with a small silver file.

"Is he here yet?" Ron huffs.

"He just got in," Barack answers. "He needed to hit the head before we started. Shouldn't be long."

For the next few minutes, they loosen ties, crack knuckles, cross and uncross arms, and pick imaginary lint from their suit coats. Newt leans away from Mitt, and a sound like air escaping from a balloon emanates from the seat of his chair. Mitt scoots his own chair closer to Rick but doesn't say anything.

The door clicks, and all eyes snap to it as it opens.

A cart drifts through, hovering three inches above the floor. It carries six tall, wide cylinders, one an impenetrable black, the others a smooth, reflective silver. Each silver cylinder is engraved with the name of one of the mean around the table.

Ushering the cart forward with only two fingers, Gordon enters the room and kicks the door closed behind him. Gordon (not his given name) is only five feet tall. Nearly half his height is accounted for by his massive, candy-corn-shaped head whose sickening light-green flesh pulsates sporadically in unexpected ways.

Mitt stands again. "Welcome back, Gordon."

"Oh, sit down, Romney." Gordon's gravelly voice warbles in complex ways, like the voice of a later-life Katherine Hepburn filtered through a wah-wah pedal. Gordon rolls all four of his massive blue eyes as he hikes up his ill-fitting, cut-off blue jeans, his only article of clothing.

Mitt sits down and looks at his hands.

Gordon levitates the cart around the table, distributing a silver cylinder to each of the five men. He removes the black cylinder carefully, holding it in front of him with both hands, and lets the cart bang to a rest against the wall. He places his cylinder carefully on the table between Barack and Newt, in front of the remaining empty chair.

"Well, gentlemen," Gordon says. "Today is Presidents' Day, which means that this is the last time we will all gather here. The night will be long, and the outcome will be momentous, so we should not tarry. Are there any questions before we begin?"

Rick speaks up almost before Gordon finishes uttering his last syllable. "Do we really have to do this? I mean, it just seems _wrong_."

"Don't be a pansy, Santorum," grunts Ron.

Gordon closes his eyes, shakes his head, and mutters, "Just like Jefferson Davis." He opens his eyes and glares at Rick. "Like I told you last year: _These_ are the rules. _This_ is how the universe works. When people don't follow the rules, _shit gets vaporized._ _Capiche?_ "

"Besides," says Obama, "I didn't hear you complaining when Perry was being disemboweled at our last meeting." Newt, Mitt, and Ron turn their heads away from the table, trying not to smile and failing.

Rick sighs and slumps. "Fine. Let's just get it over with."

"Good," Gordon says. "Tonight, gentlemen, the trials will be completed. Whoever remains at the end will become the next President of the United States. Please open your lockboxes."

Each of the politicians places his left hand flat on top of the cylinder. Each cylinder beeps, then clicks, and then slides opens along a previously imperceptible seam.

Inside the lockboxes, each man finds a collection of small, brightly colored disks, neatly stacked and arranged by color. Each one holds a different number and array of disks; Barack's and Mitt's cylinders, for example, each hold large stacks disks in a variety of colors, but Ron's cylinder contains only a dozen disks, all yellow.

Each of the humans nods in turn to Gordon, signaling a readiness to begin.

Gordon opens the black cylinder and removes a stack of glowing green cards. "We will begin," he says, "with seven-card stud, nothing wild."

"President's Day" was published at  Logophilius on February 17, 2012, at the height of GOP presidential nomination mudslinging. The whole thing seemed so pointless and ridiculous, I wanted to see if I could make it pointlesser and ridiculouser.

#  25-Word Short Story

Eldon didn't stop arguing with the flight attendant about how his smartphone couldn't possibly interfere with the pilot's instruments until the plane hit the mountain.

#  Mark's Headaches

Mark and his new client sat on opposite sides of the desk. Mark scanned the man's application.

"Well, what can we do for you Mister... I'm sorry. I can't make out your handwriting on the application."

"Call me Ishmael."

"Very well. Ishmael it is then." Mark wrote _Ishmael_ at the top of the application. "I understand you'd like to work in fiction."

"Yes, sir."

Mark looked closer at the application. The handwriting was so poor that he could barely make out any letters, let alone entire words, in the whole thing. "So," he said, forging ahead. "What is it that you do?"

Ishmael was perched nervously on the edge of the chair. "I'm a fisherman," he said.

"A fisherman?"

"Yes."

"There seem to be a lot of you running about these days. The man who just left was a fisherman, too."

"That old man with the dark tan?"

"That's the one. Fella from Cuba. The only English words he knew were _Joe_ and _DiMaggio_." Mark chuckled.

"Joe DiMaggio?" Ishmael said.

"Yes," Mark answered. "He's a baseball player?"

Ishmael stared back blankly.

"New York Yankees?" Mark tried.

Ishmael shrugged.

"Never mind. It's not important. So what kind of fishing do you do?"

"What kind?" Ishmael echoed.

"Yes. Mister Santiago was particularly apt at marlin fishing. Is that the kind of fishing you do?" Mark executed a search for _fisherman_ on his computer, only half-listening to Ishmael's response.

"Oh, yes. Well, I can catch marlins, too. And bigger fish as well."

Mark's search had turned up half a dozen results, some with promise. Izaak Walton was always on the lookout for fishermen, but Norman Maclean and Paul Torday both had positions they wanted to fill.

"Bigger fish?" Mark asked. "Like what?"

"Oh, um," Ishmael spluttered. "Like, um, mackerel?"

"Mackerel? Aren't those usually smaller than marlin?"

"Oh. Well. Some of them. But I fish for the big ones. And they get, you know, pretty large. Larger than a marlin, anyway." Ishmael, for some reason, seemed unable to make direct eye contact with Mark. "Those are just the smaller fish that I, um, fish for."

"Okay," said Mark. "What else, then?"

"How about, uh, killer whales? They're pretty large, right?"

"I would think so," Mark said.

"Yeah. Killer whales. All types of whales, really. Let's see. There's, um, blue whales. And sperm whales. And, uh, killer whales."

"Yes, you said that already."

"Right. Yes, well. To be honest, I'm not so much a fisherman as a whaler. Doesn't it mention that on my application?"

Mark glanced at the scribbles in the Skills and Talents section of the application. One of the scribbles looked like it ended in an _-er,_ and it might have started with a _w._

"So, a whaler, then?" Mark said.

"Yes, sir."

Mark cleared the screen of his previous search results and tried _whaler._ It returned only one result. "It looks like you're in luck, Ishmael. One of our more prolific authors is looking for a whaler at the moment."

"Wonderful!" Ishmael replied.

Mark scanned his computer screen. "Oh, this might be quite lucrative as well. Seems Mister Melville is looking for a whole crew of whalers, and one of those lucky crew will be the story's narrator, though not its main character. Play your cards right and this could set you for life."

"Outstanding! I could really use an income boost right now." This last he said as if he were speaking to himself. When he noticed the quizzical look on Mark's face, he smiled widely and said, "I'll get that top spot, believe me!" Ishmael wagged a finger in the air to punctuate his confidence.

Mark filled out a contact card. "I'm sure you will. Here is Mister Melville's contact information. Take this card with you when you meet him."

"I will!" Ishmael exclaimed, taking the card and shaking Mark's hand. He turned to the door and opened it, but paused.

"Is there something else I could help you with?" Mark asked.

"Yes. Is there a library around here? I'd like to do a little, uh, research this afternoon."

"Research? About what?"

Ishmael glanced at the contact card in his hand. "N-Never mind. I'll find it. Thanks again."

He had disappeared from the doorway before Mark could say _you're welcome._

Through the office door, Mark could see a rather unkempt, greasy-haired man bent over Janice's desk. The man looked up, locked eyes with Mark, and made a beeline for his office. Seeming not to notice the secretary's pleas of "you can't go in there!" he swept into Mark's office, swung the door closed, and plopped into the seat opposite Mark's desk.

"I need a job," the man said.

The man seemed small in the chair, hunched over, and he stared at the wall when he spoke. Not the wall behind Mark with the motivational "hang in there" poster, but the wall to his right, which was completely empty.

"Well, fictional job placement is what we do here. Do you have an appointment?" Mark asked.

"No."

"That's quite all right. We get a lot of walk-ins here. If you could just fill out one of our applications, then we could start the process of placing you in a good story."

Mark held out a blank application. The man took it in one hand, glanced at it, and set it down on Mark's desk. "I would prefer not to," he said.

Mark was perplexed. "I'm sorry?"

"I would prefer not to," the man repeated.

"Well, Mister uh..."

"Bartleby."

"Well, Mister Bartleby—"

"No. Just Bartleby."

"All right. Bartleby, then. We really need you to fill out an application so we can match up your specific skills and talents to the needs of our authors."

"I would prefer not to."

Not since Edmund Pevensie had he dealt with someone so unhelpful, but he had successfully found a place for him. This Bartleby character would be a challenge, but Mark liked challenges.

"All right, Mister Bartleby—"

"Just Bartleby."

"Bartleby, yes. What kinds of things do you do, Bartleby?"

"Mostly just office work. Filing, copying, that sort of thing."

"Are you interested in expanding from those skills into something more, I don't know, exciting?"

"I would prefer not to."

"Okay. Why don't you tell me what kind of role you're looking for?"

"I don't know. Your job looks rather nice."

Mark's heart thumped.

" _My_ job?"

"Yes," Bartleby stared at the blank wall. "You have a nice desk. A nice office. Nice walls. Is your job difficult?"

"Oh, well," Mark sputtered. Mark's stomach turned at the sudden detour the interview had taken. "We don't have any open positions at the moment. Besides, you're a fictional character. You need a fictional job." Hoping to get Bartleby out of his office, Mark add, "You might try one of the silver-screen placement firms."

"I would prefer not to. I would rather work here, in print fiction."

"But you wouldn't really be working _in_ fiction. You would be working _outside_ of fiction."

"If you say so."

"Oh."

Moments passed in silence. Bartleby continued to stare at the wall, while the tension in Mark's stomach grew like a hungry badger.

"Look, Bartleby, my position isn't available. If you aren't interested in finding a place in fiction, there isn't a lot I can do for you. I would like you to leave now."

"I would prefer not to," Bartleby replied.

"You would pref—? Look, man, I want you out of my office now!" Mark rose to his feet as his voice rose in volume. He pointed at the door, but Bartleby remained unmoved. It seemed the only way to get Bartleby out of his office was to either find him a job or dragg him out bodily.

Mark sat back down and collected himself. "Now that I think about," he said, "I think I have just the job for you. Would you be interested?"

"Yes," Bartleby said dully.

"Perfect!" Instead of a contact card, Mark pulled a blank notepad from his desk drawer and quickly scribbled down the contact information that was still on the screen. He tore the sheet off the top and handed it to Bartleby, who took it with excessive amounts of apathy. "Contact Mister Melville at your earliest convenience. He is, uh, looking for someone just like you. He can certainly find a position for you!"

Bartleby took the paper and slipped it into his pocket. Without saying a word, he stood, opened the door, and left the office.

Mark sat back in his chair and took slow breaths, trying to calm himself.

Janice popped her head in. "Who _was_ that guy?"

"I don't really know."

"Did you find him a role?"

"Not exactly, no. He wanted _my_ role. _My_ job. Can you believe it?!" Mark shook his head. "Hell, let Melville deal with him."

"I'm heading out the Atlas Chugged for some lunch. You wanna join me?" Janice asked. "You sound like you could use a drink."

"I'd prefer not to. Thanks."
Spring

# The Artistic Prodigy

"I made this for you." Little Chuckie Allen held out a thick, pungent piece of warped paper smeared with color.

"Well thank you sweetie," Diane said. "It's beautiful." She examined her young son's artwork. A swash of finger-painted brown across the top, swirls of light green punctuated with splotches of yellow, orange, and red across the middle, and a bright yellow patch spreading out from the bottom corner.

"Oh . . . " she said. "It's . . ."

"It's upside down, silly," Chuckie said. She rotated the picture in her hands and held it lower so they could both see it.

"It's the forest behind Gramma and Grampa's house," Chuckie said. "See? Here's the sun. Here's the trees. And here's the ground." He pointed to a bright cluster of colorful smears in the trees and said, "And these are birds in the trees."

"Oh, of course." Diane said. Now that the picture was right-side up, she could see the landscape clearly. It reminded her of a Monet she had once seen. Chuckie was obviously an artistic wunderkind. "Did you make this at school?" she asked.

"Nope. I made it upstairs last week. I kept it in my closet so it would dry."

"You have paints upstairs?"

"Nuh-uh!" Chuckie giggled.

"What did you use?"

"Mrs. Hurley, um, told us last week about, um, about re-. . . reez- . . . restickled art."

"Recycled art?"

"Uh-huh, restickled. It's where you make pictures and stuff from stuff that's just laying around or that you'd just throw away anyway."

"So what did you recycle to make this picture?"

"The trees is a bunch of the grass left over after Daddy mowed the lawn. I rubbed it on the paper really hard to make it green." Diane was impressed by her son's resourcefulness. Definitely some sort of genius. "I made the birds out of that stuff you put on your fingers."

"On my fingers?" Diane spread her hand out over the picture to see what he could be talking about. "You mean nail polish?"

"That's it."

"Okay. What about the sun?"

Chuckie's smile dropped and he looked at something on the floor. "Um, that's just crayon. I guess I cheated."

"Oh, that's okay, honey. It's still a beautiful picture."

His face lit up again. "Will you put it on the 'frigerator?"

"Certainly!" Diane walked to the refrigerator, held the picture against the door, and popped a monkey-shaped magnet on top of it. "You know, I think your Grandma and Grampa will want this picture, since it shows their yard. They might even want to frame it."

Chuckie gasped in naked awe. "Really? You really think they'll like it?"

"They'll love it, sweetie." She kissed his forehead, and they both stepped back and looked at Chuckie's masterpiece with pride.

"So what's the brown stuff you used for the ground?" Diane asked.

"Oh! I almost forgot! That was my favorite part!" Chuckie said, his smile widening. He leaned in close to his mother and whispered conspiratorially: "It's poop."

I don't know what inspired this story. Probably just from being such a sick monkey. It appeared on Logophilius on December 9, 2011.

#  The Semicolon

He started the tale of Old Elmer, the bird,

Monique and Bologna, two horses from Spain,

A doctor, Vlad Halfshod the Great and Absurd,

Newt Gingrich, a nun with three eyes, and Mark Twain.

The story was long, and he wanted to share,

But he stopped and was silent, his face muscles tense.

I asked what was wrong. He replied with a glare,

"This rambling story just doesn't make sense!"

I spotted the problem; I knew what to do:

I pulled out a bag from my coat and I said,

"I have just the tool that can see this thing through!"

He peered in the bag, started shaking his head.

I poured the bag's contents out onto the table.

"What is this?!" he exclaimed, "It can help me? But how?"

"These old semicolons," I said, "Will be able

To fix your poor story." And then I showed how.

He listened intently; he did not demur

As I taught how to use them, taught how and taught when.

And when he felt confident, strong, and secure,

He took up my old punctuation, and then

He told the _whole_ tale of Old Elmer, the bird;

Monique and Bologna, two horses from Spain;

A doctor; Vlad Halfshod the Great and Absurd;

Newt Gingrich; a nun with three eyes; and Mark Twain.

"The Semicolon" is one of several poems published at  Logophilius to mark National Grammar Day, March 4, 2012.

#  Asking

"Do you think," Joshua said, his voice soft and wavering with anxiety and fear, "that there's any chance that, maybe, you might be interested in having a . . . a different kind of relationship?"

"What do you mean?" Maria asked from across the small table in the corner of the breakroom.

Joshua tipped his ceramic mug back and peered inside. Except for the few motes of damp coffee grounds stuck to the bottom, it was still empty. "You know. Like a . . . a romantic relationship." He gripped the mug tightly to hide his trembling fingers and continued staring into it so he wouldn't have to see her reaction.

"A romantic relationship? With you?" Maria said.

Joshua forced himself to look up. Maria stared back at him, her head tilted to the side like a curious puppy, but twice as adorable. She looked like she always looked to him, but somehow completely different. Joshua curled his toes down into the soles of his shoes, trying to root himself to the floor.

"Yeah," he said.

A silent moment passed while they just stared at each other. Then Maria straightened her head and eased back into her chair. "Joshua, are you asking me to be your girlfriend?"

Joshua instinctively crossed his arms in front of him. He realized immediately his defensive stance and uncrossed them. Then he didn't know what to do with his hands, so grabbed his knees under the table. "I haven't used that word since high school. I don't know if . . . well . . . I just wanted to know." Joshua recognized that he was babbling. He exhaled loudly and stared straight at her. "Yes," he said. "I am. Sort of."

Maria rested her chin in her hand, stretched her index finger up to her perfect cheekbone, raised an eyebrow, and studied Joshua. Her expression revealed little of her mind's machinations. The turned-up corners of her pink, closed lips could have masked a grin, a grimace, or a sneer. Joshua couldn't tell which.

Her silent stare was too much. Joshua was finding it hard to breathe.

"I know we don't know each other very well," Joshua said, breaking eye contact, "But what I do know about you . . . I like. I think we might have a lot in common."

Maria put her hands in her lap, tilted her head again and bit her lip. Any remaining defenses Joshua had left melted then. He could have lived and died in that bitten lip.

"What . . ." she started. She took a quick breath and started again, quietly, "What is it you like about me?"

A simpler question has never been asked. Joshua had been thinking about Maria continually since the company Christmas party almost six months earlier. After all that time, he could see nothing but her best qualities. "I like that you like to try new things. I like that you're creative and artistic. I like that, no matter what you're doing or where you're going, you always look so self-confident. Assured. Not in a snooty, superior way, but like you always know what you're doing."

"You think I look confident?"

"Completely." Joshua looked across the table into her blue eyes, and this time Maria broke eye contact. She smiled and looked down at her hands in her lap. She might have been blushing.

Joshua picked up his mug again. It was still empty and cold. When he couldn't stand the silence anymore, he said, "I know that there's a little age difference between us. And you're probably wary about . . . _dating_ . . . a divorcee. I don't have a lot of money. I'm a little, um, pudgier than I'd like . . . there are a million reasons why you shouldn't be interested in me—"

"You're right," Maria interrupted.

Joshua was hit by a wave of nausea. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

But then he felt a warm touch on his hand, still clenching the mug.

"You're right, Joshua," Maria said. "We don't know each other very well." She took both of his hands in both of hers. Her warmth radiated up his arms, settled in his chest, and burned there.

"Let's remedy that," she said.

"Asking" was published at Logophilius on April 22, 2011. It's about a conversation I've had in my mind dozens of times with dozens of women. Life, however, doesn't offer as many happy endings.

#  Missed Connections

Your beauty — like the subtle minute hand

That, stared upon, ne'er seems to move a dime

Yet still ticks down the natural demands

Of change, the passage of eternal time —

Defies corruption's hand. I scrutinized

Your face for some defect that showed your age:

Your eyes that sparkled; lips that mesmerized;

A perfect jawline from da Vinci's page;

Your hair, in satin gestures, found its way

Past cheekbones high, as only satin can.

You simply must have been born yesterday

As God's immediate reward to man.

I treasure that I saw you. All the same,

I'm sorry that I never asked your name.

I really like the idea of the Missed Connections section on Craigslist. Not that I would ever do it myself. And definitely not twice. I also enjoy writing sonnets. So, naturally, you get a poem like this, which originally appeared on  Logophilius (as a Three-Word Wednesday post) on November 10, 2010.

#  Last Night

Johnny lay in the clearing, staring at the night sky, the damp grass cooling his skin. For twenty-three years, he had wished for nothing more than this: To be outside . . . alone . . . and free.

He knew he couldn't enjoy it for long. Even now, he could hear the search dogs yowling their way toward him, pulling their shotgun-toting masters behind them.

But it didn't matter. He could feel the warmth draining from the hole in his side, but it brought him comfort, not fear. The coolness blossomed in his chest, and it brought him peace. He hadn't owned anything of his own in decades, but this calm coolness was all his.

Patchwork clouds shimmered in the light of the full moon. Johnny remembered sitting on the porch swing with his mother, making a game of picking out shapes in the clouds, his youthful legs dangling in a cool spring breeze.

Tonight, every cloud looked like a key. Johnny smiled.

The dogs were getting closer, he knew, but somehow the jingle-jangle of their collars and tags and the grunts of their handlers dwindled. He knew they wouldn't find him in time, and he smiled even wider.

The cloud-keys dimmed; the dazzling moon blurred into a hazy tunnel. Johnny knew that soon, very soon, he would be in a place without locks, without cages. A place with no limitations at all.

The prison guards would eventually find his body. Will they be disappointed, Johnny wondered, to find a smile on my face? To know that I died happy? To know that I died a free man?

With that thought, a door unlocked and opened, and Johnny stepped through.

"Last Night" was one of my first forays into flash fiction. I first published it at  Logophilius on April 7, 2011, some time after I wrote and then rewrote it.

#  The Apple of My Ire

Or, When a Long Face Becomes a Big Head

The talking horse spoke loud and clear:

"These apples will not do.

The Granny Smiths are much too green,

The Galas hard to chew.

The Red Delicious? All are bruised;

The Fuji are too small.

The Braeburns need to ripen some —

Return them to my stall.

The bitter MacIntosh is out.

The Ortleys hurt my throat.

The Sturmer Pippin aren't quite there.

I don't like Rusty Coat."

"You spoiled horse!" I told the mare,

"I've had enough of you!

So you're a talking horse — so what?! —

I'll sell you off for glue!"

She nudged my ear and gently whined,

"I know you never would,"

But from her change in gait I knew

She wondered if I could.

She took an Ortley from the pile

And, though it made her wince,

She chewed it up and smiled and I

Have had no problems since.

" _The Apple of My Ire" came from a Three-Word Wednesday on September 22, 2010. (The three words were_ gait, nudge, _and_ ripen _.) You ever wonder what it was like to work with Mr. Ed?_

#  The Carpet Situation

"Ew! My socks are all dirty!" Jamie sat on the hotel bed, left ankle on right knee, staring at the bottom of her foot.

"What?" Arnold, sitting at the small table, looked up from his e-reader.

Jamie stretched her leg toward him and flexed her ankle. The bottom of her white sock was now a mottled brown.

"Put your shoes back on, then," Arnold said.

"I shouldn't have to wear my shoes in my hotel room."

Arnold looked at the dark green carpet between his own shod feet. It didn't look pristine, but it didn't look particularly grungy, either. "Are you sure you didn't just have some dirt in your shoe?"

"In both shoes? Nuh-uh. It's the carpet." Jamie swiveled around on the bed, laid on her stomach, and tried to reach her canvas shoes, which lay beside Arnold's chair, without coming into further contact with the dirty carpet. It reminded Arnold of a game he played with his brother when they were children, pretending the floor was made of lava. The memory made him smiled.

"Excuse me!" Jamie said. "A little help here!"

"Oh, I'm sorry dear." Arnold kicked her shoes toward the wall, farther from the bed.

"Hey!" Jamie said, trying not to smile.

Arnold chuckled and winked, turned his chair and retrieved her shoes from the floor. "Ho-ly crap!" he exclaimed.

"What?"

"Put your shoes on." He passed her shoes to her without looking up from the floor. She slipped them on and stood next to her husband. "Look," he said, pointing at the baseboard trim.

Running along the base of the wall was a half-inch strip of carpet that had escaped the dirt and grime embedded into the carpet in the rest of the room.

"The carpet's blue?" Jamie said, her eyes wide.

"Apparently so. Get your stuff. We're getting a different room."

They tossed their suitcases into the hatchback and drove up to the front office. The middle-aged Vietnamese man who had given them their room key just half an hour earlier still stood watch behind the front desk.

Arnold explained the carpet situation and politely asked to be moved to a different, cleaner room.

The clerk, equally politely and in broken English, explained that no other rooms were available because this was their busy season.

Arnold not-quite-so-politely asked for their money back.

The clerk quite impolitely explained that a refund was impossible.

Jamie stepped in and got downright rude.

Five minutes later, having secured their refund and returned the room key, they slogged back to the car. "Now what?" Jamie asked.

"Every other place in this tourist trap is a hotel. We'll find a room in one of those."

"We'd better hurry," Jamie said. "Our dinner reservations are in an hour."

They picked a nearby hotel that looked decent and not too pricey, but the desk clerk informed them that they, too, were booked solid for the entire weekend. They got the same thing from the next two hotels. Their fourth attempt, at a well-known chain in a five-story building, was also booked up, but the desk clerk offered to let them sleep on cots in one of their utility closets.

But they weren't that desperate. At least not yet.

Building after building they went: from posh five-star hotels to scummy no-star flea-bag motels and everything in between. Every place, the same answer: NO VACANCY.

Four hours (and seventeen hotels) later, at an aging motel nearly an hour's drive from their original location, they finally heard the words they had been hoping for all night: "We have just one room left."

They dragged their luggage down a row of grimy red doors until they found #13. Arnold unlocked the door with a tarnished brass key, reached into the dark room for the switch, and flipped on the lights.

The room was almost identical to the one they had left behind. Same beige walls and spackled ceiling. Same gaudy lamp and yellowed lampshade. Same faded, ugly, floral-print blanket on the full-size bed. But the carpet was light blue, save for some oblong stains under the small round table.

Arnold let the door swing shut and dropped into the room's only chair.

"Well, it's better than sleeping in the car," Jamie said, dropping onto the end of the bed. She lifted her foot to her knee and untied the laces.

CRACK-A-WHUMP!

Jamie found herself bounce-sliding down the now sharply angled bed and onto the floor. Both legs at the foot of the bed had collapsed.

"What the hell?!" she spat. "Can you believe this, Arnold? . . . Arnold?"

Arnold was slumped over in the chair, head resting on his forearm on the table, a bead of drool just beginning to form on his lower lip. He was fast asleep.

Jamie sighed, then pushed the mattress off the frame and flat onto the floor. She kicked off her shoes, turned off the lights, and climbed under the covers. "At least the carpet's clean," she mumbled to the darkness.

Originally published at Logophilius on April 28,2012, "The Carpet Situation" came out of an experiment at the Indy Word Lab. Sadly, it's based on a real horrible hotel experience I had with my children on a vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

#  The Storm Before the Calm

Beneath a gray and greening morning sky

The Midwest tempest blows an angry rain

As chirping squirrels scramble to stay dry

And flailing branches wave in silent pain.

The warning sirens sound tornado's call.

The people scurry down like frightened mice

To safety — so they hope — from this great squall,

Heeding television's scant advice.

They cower there and worry, stew in fear,

And hope that soon the twister will abate.

In deaf'ning darkness — wind is all they hear —

They sit and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.

Thoughts of sunny days prove little balm,

Surviving through the storm before the calm.

"The Storm Before the Calm" originally appeared at  Logophilius on October 26, 2010. It was written following a series of horrible storms that crashed through Ohio.

#  Buddies

The door swung open, and a small but severe young man in a gray, second-hand, pinstriped suit sauntered in. Behind him, filling the doorway, was a wall of a man, six-and-a-half feet tall if he was an inch. He clasped his huge, calloused hands respectfully in front of his genitals over faded denim overalls. He had to duck to get through the door, showing the top of his navy blue newsboy cap that, though it was probably the largest size they made, seemed two sizes too small for his cinder block of a head.

Mark stood. "I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting two of you. I'll have Janice bring us another chair."

The smaller man waved his hand. "No need," he said. He turned to the larger man. "Have a seat, Lennie."

Lennie the giant nodded silently and slipped into the chair, head bowed. The two men were now eye-to-eye.

Mark sat down and quickly read the application. "So, you must be Lennie Small." The giant's head bobbed up and down. "And you would be . . . ?"

"My name is George. George Milton. I'm Lennie's friend." George's accent was difficult to place, somewhere between Bronx and Boston, but somehow decidedly Midwestern. "I'm just along for, uh, moral support. Lennie's kind of, uh, special, you see."

"Oh, I see." The world of fiction was full of unique characters and creatures, so that _special_ as a general term for a person held no real meaning. In Mark's experience, _special_ was used to describe a certain type of person with limited intellect. From the giant's demeanor, his nervous, averted eyes, and the way his mouth never quite closed, Mark was certani that's the type of special George was talking about.

George put his hand on Lennie's massive shoulder. "Hat, Lennie."

"Oop!" Lennie yanked the cap from his head and wadded it up in his lap. "Sorry, George."

"Well, good morning to both of you. My name is Mark."

Lennie waved hesitantly. "Hi, Mark," he said.

"So, I understand that you are looking for some literary work."

"Huh?" Lennie said, looking at George.

"That's right," George said. "We want to find Lennie a nice, comfortable story to work in."

"Well, that's why I'm here," Mark said. "What kind of things do you like to do, Lennie?"

Lennie shrugged and hummed an approximation of 'I don't know.'

George spoke up. "Lennie's a big boy, obviously. He can lift and push and, you-know-what-I-mean, manual labor."

Lennie stared into his lap, his lips etched into a frown.

"Do you enjoy working with your hands, Lennie? With your muscles?" Mark asked.

Lennie shrugged again.

"What _do_ you like, Lennie?"

"What, you don't like working?" George asked.

Lennie paused for a moment, then shook his head.

"All right, Lennie. Then tell the man what you like?"

Lennie hummed and screwed up his face in thought. "I like . . . umm," he continued to hum.

Mark scanned the application. Not much information there, so he tried a new tack. "Do you like cars?"

Lennie shook his head.

"Airplanes?"

Another head shake.

"How about animals?"

Lennie's face smoothed. His eyebrows went up, and his lips widened into a smile made of adorably crooked teeth. He nodded his head ferociously.

"Good. Animals," said Mark. "So, are we talking horses? Or elephants? How about dinosaurs?"

Lennie's smile disappeared. "Nuh-uh," he boomed, shaking his head.

George lightly struck the meaty part of his hand to his own foreheard. "Animals! Why didn't I think of that?! He loves animals. He's got his own pet mouse at home that he takes care of, don't you Lennie?"

Lennie's great head bobbed up and down once more. "Uh-huh. His name is Burnsey."

Mark turned to his computer and executed a search for roles that included animal companions. "So you like mice, eh? They can be awfully cute, with their little twitching whiskers." The search returned a large number of possibilities. Mark added filters for adult roles, which eliminated many, but still left him with a lot of options.

One of the last options on the search screen was a field called "Character Intellect," which could be set to "Genius," "Average" (the default), "Below Average," or "Low." Mark had used that filter only once, and that was only because a client, a Mister Ignatius Reilly, insisted that he change it to "Genius." He considered setting this field to "Low," but it didn't feel right somehow.

He looked up at Lennie. He was one of the largest non-supernatural men Mark had ever seen. He could have made a good boxer, or warrior, or human forklift. But one look at Lennie's face was enough to know that he wasn't suitable for fighting or simply as a strong arm. The crooked teeth in his un-self-conscious smile, his wide, unassuming eyes, and the way he rumpled his hat in unabashed excitement made him look like not so much a man, but a large boy, still innocent, naive, and hopeful. Mark felt wrong labeling him as a dullard, even if it was just to a computer database.

"Let's just see what we get if we just cut to the chase, shall we?" Mark added 'mouse NOT mickey' to the search terms. To his surprise, the new search resulted in two possibilities, both absolutely suitable for this particular client. "I think we've found a winner!" Mark exclaimed.

Lennie clapped his big hands and bounced in the chair. Mark couldn't help but smile.

"Watch ya got?" George asked.

Mark filled out a contact card while he spoke. "According to the description here, you, Lennie, would be the subject of a scientific experiment that could make your life a lot better."

"What about the mouse?" Lennie asked. "You said there would be a mouse."

"The mouse will be going through the same process that you will, so you'll get to spend a lot of time with it."

"What's his name?" Lennie asked.

"Who? The mouse?"

Lennie nodded.

Mark scrolled down the screen. "It looks like the author, a Mister Daniel Keyes, is still trying to decide what name to give the little guy, but he's narrowed it down to either Algernon or Kanye."

Lennie clapped his hands again and his grin grew by inches. "I like mice, George. They're so soft and cuddly."

"I know, Lennie, I know."

Mark passed the contact card to George. "Here is the information you'll need, and make sure you take this card with you. Simply contact Mister Keyes and set up an appointment to meet with him to see if Lennie is the right man for the role. I can't imagine you'll have any problems, though, if this description is accurate."

"Thank you, Mister Flyleaf," George said.

"But what about George?" Lennie asked.

George and Mark exchanged a quizzical look.

"What about me?" George asked.

"I don't want to do this by myself. You'll come with me, won't you George?"

"Sure, I'll come with you to meet Mister Keyes."

"And then, if he likes me, you'll come with me to the story, too, right?"

George sighed. "We talked about this, Lennie. We're just looking for a place for you right now. I'm up for the lead role in a novel myself."

Mark's curiosity was piqued. "Oh, congratulations! May I ask what novel that might be?"

"Oh, this guy named Frank Fitzgerald is thinking about putting me in one of his books. _The Great Milton_ , it'll be called. If I get the part, anyway. It's down to me and this other guy, Jay something-or-other."

"Can I come with you to that story, George?" Lennie asked.

"Now Lennie, we talked about this before we came. That would be _my_ story. We're trying to find you _your_ story."

"But I don't want to do my story alone!" Lennie looked on the verge of tears. George looked to Mark for some reinforcements.

Mark shrugged and glanced at the screen, more to break uncomfortable eye contact than for any other reason, but the other listing there caught his attention and gave him an idea.

"Hold on a minute," Mark said. "Here's another story that might work for both of you."

Lennie's mouth opened in surprise. He grabbed the front edge of the desk and leaned forward. Mark tried not to worry that the man's weight and strength might collapse the desk.

"Do you like rabbits, Lennie?"

"Rabbits?" he said slowly. "Little fuzzy ones with big ears?"

"The very same."

Lennie's gape became a grin. "Would I get to feed them?"

Mark scanned the posting again. "Hmm, doesn't say that specifically, but maybe."

Unable (and unwilling) to control his excitement, Lennie bounced in the chair and clapped his hands. "I wanna feed the rabbits, George!"

George sighed and shook his head. "You said this might work for both of us?"

"Right," Mark said. "The author is looking for a pair of characters quite a lot like the two of you. It's a buddy story, of sorts."

"But this other novel . . ."

"Think of this as a backup plan," Mark said. "Do you know when your current employer, Mister, uh . . ."

"Fitzgerald."

". . . Mister Fitzgerald will be making his final decision about your role?"

"Supposed to be this weekend."

"Perfect." Mark started filling out a second contact card. "In the unfortunate event that you do _not_ get that role, you can contact Mister Steinbeck about hiring the both of you. And, of course, if you do get the role with Mister Fitzgerald, you can still contact Mister Keyes about this role just for Lennie."

George stuck out his chin and nodded his head. "Sounds like a good plan, Mister Flyleaf."

Mark handed him the contact card and stood up. "I wish you luck gentlemen. Don't forget to take these cards with you when you meet the authors." Mark extended his arm and shook George's hand.

"We will. Thank you, Mister Flyfleaf," George said.

Lennie stood up, flopped the hat back on his head, and grabbed Mark's hand in a crushing handshake. "Yeah, thank you, mister."

"Good luck, Lennie," Mark said through gritted teeth.

Lennie followed George back out the door, talking the whole time. "I can't wait to feed the rabbits, George. Do you know what rabbits eat, George? Do you think I'll be able to take Burnsey with me to the story? Can we get some ice cream, George?" And then the outer door closed on their conversation.

Mark had not seen such uncontrolled joy in a long, long time. 'It's days like this,' he thought, massaging his hand, 'That make this job worthwhile.'

He sat down at his desk and pushed the intercom button. "Janice?"

"Yes, Mister F?"

"What does my schedule look like for the rest of the day?"

"You've got a Miss Havisham coming in at two-thirty, but it's otherwise clear."

Mark smiled. "That's great, Janice. Why don't you take the rest of the day off?"

"Really, Mister F? What's the occasion?"

"I was just reminded of why this job is important. This whole fiction business, really."

"And why's that?"

Mark collected his thoughts for a moment. "Even though there's plenty of hurt and fear and anxiety in the world — both the real world and the fictitious ones — there's also joy. And it's that joy that comes from friendship, from family, from sharing, from . . . well . . . _love_ that connects us. It isn't the fear or the hurt; it's the love."

"You aren't going soft on me, are you, Mister F?"

Mark chuckled. "Janice, just for that, I'm taking you to lunch, too. Get your things together. I'll be out in a minute."

# About the Author

Andy Hollandbeck, aka Logophilius, is a copy editor and writer living in Indianapolis, Indiana. Although he hides it well, Andy hates talking about himself in third person.

Like many budding authors, he has written the first half of the Great American Novel. Six times. Perhaps we'll see the Great American Short Story first, eh?

Apart from the Logophilius blog, you will increasingly find his work in various places around the Internet, such as at the Tumblr AmEditing, at the Indiana Wind Symphony blog, and beyond.

As the saying goes, the optimal number of Twitter followers is "one more," and you can try to be that one for Andy by following him at @4ndyman.

Like all self-published authors, Andy would appreciate your reviews at Smashwords, Amazon, GoodReads, or on your own blog. Even if you hated the book — you thought I used too many four-letter words or you wished I had use Comic Sans — leave a review. Knowing that someone liked your book is awesome; just knowing that someone _read_ your book is pretty awesome, too.
