Designing Effective Websites

The class stared at the teacher as though she had just admitted to murder, which is exactly what she had just done.

Continuing adult education is less homogenous than standard schooling. Eight students had signed up for this class, “Designing Effective Websites,” and five were present today: the disheveled mother, the ambitious kid, the hippy, the interested grandfather, and the hulking biker named Calvin.

“You serious?” growled Calvin.

“Entirely,” said the teacher. She clicked the slideshow to her next slide, How Success Impacts Design. “Once I’d cut his hamstring, he couldn't run. I let blood loss weaken him. Then he couldn't fight when I opened his jugular.”

Everything was still. Calvin felt like the sole living thing in a still life, looking from face to still face, each pretending the stillness meant nothing.

“Good web design does not exist in a vacuum,” she resumed. Calvin rose, his chair falling backward, and walked out. His notes spilled onto the floor as he passed. The teacher continued.

Twenty-five minutes later, the police took her for questioning, and Calvin collected his notes. None of the other students met his eyes as they shuffled out to their cars, and he silently hated them all.

A Highway up to There

It began as a civil engineering error, until someone noticed it. A raised highway, crossing over local roads, was going up and up and not coming back down.

The foreman noticed first. He stared at it for a few minutes. He sat in his on-site office for a while. He spent a few hours taking measurements and calculating. Then he carefully said nothing, making the mistake into a dream.

Workers mentioned it, and the foreman said, “It keeps going up.” They shrugged. They were still getting paid.

After two months, the Assistant Director of Public Works started calling. Then the Director. Then the governor. “Where is it going?” they asked. “Don’t worry,” said the foreman, “it’s going where it needs to.” He didn’t say, “Up, and only up.” After the fifth month, they cut off the money.

The foreman stood at the unattached top of the highway and looked down to the ground below. He was up. It was as up as the highway was going to get. He smiled.

No one ever saw him come down. When they went up to find him, he wasn’t there.

Eventually, when justification of money was tight, they made it a public park.

Cost of Doing Business

Had we left the enchanter alive, he would have ruined us. Rather than risk prison, I needed him discreetly eliminated.

It cost five hundred to meet with the first potential hire. I’m not accustomed to paying for the privilege of interviewing someone, and it soured my mood. If I’d seemed a more welcoming employer, perhaps he’d not have laughed when I mentioned the enchanter’s name. He left me with the name of someone “crazy-skilled and just plain crazy” enough to consider the task.

That interview cost five thousand, and the woman was professional. When I named the target, she didn’t laugh. She wrote down a number and walked out. She seemed perfectly sane to me; five thousand for doing nothing is brilliant business.

The number reached an anonymous message service. Leaving a message produced a response; the response, an interview. The interview, surprisingly enough, was gratis. I gave him the name. “Anybody can be assassinated,” he said. Then he quoted a number. Had my glass of wine been more than decor, I would have choked on it. Instead, I took a deep breath and considered. Money was useless to me dead. I agreed.

Houdini would regret interfering in our business.

Slumber

“Sleep!” intoned Richard over his son, who fell instantly asleep. The sorcerous command faded away, and Richard’s wife Janelle looked over their three-year-old with a quiet smile. “He’s adorable when he’s asleep, isn’t he?” she said. “I know, right?” said Richard. “Sleep tight, little guy,” and he tucked the child in. They each kissed him, then the parents walked upstairs to their living room. “Gahhh,” he said, stretching, “I love putting him to bed this way. No whining, no passive resistance, no wanna-glass-of-water. So easy!” He sat down on the couch. “Whaddaya want to watch?”

Browsing Netflix, Janelle said, “Yeah, learning that magic command has really paid off. Still, since you started using it, I feel kinda weird. Like we’re losing control of something... maybe it’s just me...” she shook her head. “Nevermind. How about that Matthew McConaughey--Julia Stiles romance? Kara said it was really sweet.”

“I’m feeling like a comedy,” said Richard. “Something Steve Carell, or a Jackie Chan classic.”

“She said it’s really funny, too. You picked the last movie. I’m sure you’ll enjoy--”

“Sleep!” intoned Richard, and Janelle slumped over on the couch. “G’night, sweetie,” he said, picking up the remote.

New Flavors

It was tall, and thin, and looked like a man wearing a severe black suit. Despite this, it did not belong to the masculine pronoun. It was sitting in a Starbucks, staring into a $3 drip coffee, black. It did not drink coffee. It did not drink, period.

It wanted to worry, but this was also something it did not do. Of course, it also did not fail in its tasks. This one had not been any harder than any other, at first. A young woman, a book, a theft. Simple. It couldn’t see where things had turned.

She had begun intimidated, nervous. It was inherently unnerving. But then she demanded answers of it in the middle of a full mall food court. And then it had entered a room through the secret ways that connect all dark corners, only to be faced with a streaming webcam and a live mic.

If it could fail, perhaps it could drink coffee. It took a sip. Hot. Bitter. Burned. The stuff tasted wrong in all the right ways. It took another sip.

That’s when it tried worrying for the first time, and found it didn’t like the flavor of that at all.

Hostage

“Sir, don’t do anything rash. Just put, the penis, down.” “Never!” He kept his penis firmly in hand and pointed at the woman’s temple. “I’m on the edge! I could blow my top at any time! You meet my demands, or you’ll be responsible for what happens!”

“What do you need?” The negotiator took a sip of water. This wasn’t her first time at the rodeo.

“One hundred thousand dollars in unmarked bills, a car, and a police escort to the border. Once I cross the border, I’ll let her go! Make the car an Escalade!”

A lieutenant whispered in the negotiator’s ear. “Compensating for something?” She shushed him, just as the criminal looked down and shouted, “And some lube! Lube now!”

“All right,” she called back. “I’m sending someone for lube. But we have to talk about the rest!” To the lieutenant, she whispered, “Go get lube, but don’t show up with it until I radio. With any luck, he’ll dry out and have to stop.”

“But what if the increased friction makes him--” The hostage screamed. “Oh. Oh, no,” said the lieutenant, face white.

The negotiator steeled her face. “It never gets any easier when we lose one.”

Thrift Shop

The thrift store manager appeared promptly. All 5’4 of her was pleasant, warm, and prepared to be unyielding. “What’s the problem, sir?” I placed a DVD case on the counter. Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan looked up at us from the cover. “This had the, uh, wrong... DVD.”

“Of course you can return it.” She pulled the case across the counter. “Tamika can check you out when you’re ready.”

I pulled the DVD back to my side of the counter. “I don’t want to return it.”

“Then you’re here to...”

“I need to know who brought it in.”

Her face closed up, tight lips and suspicious eyes. “We don’t track that information. Why?”

“The DVD that’s in here--”

“We can--”

“I don’t want--” I calmed my rising voice. “It’s all video of me. Leaving for work, jogging with my dog, reading at home. There’s a soundtrack. It’s like a montage. Makes it seem... magical.”

A dozen heartbeats later, she spoke, voice thick with sympathetic fear. “Do you want to... call the police, or something?”

I shook my head. “I just want to find the person. I think--” I looked away and blinked at tears. “I’m a little in love.”