To Shoot a Man in Reno

He whistled as he walked down the dark alley. When someone stepped out from behind a dumpster with a pistol, he acted surprised. "Gimme yer wallet," said the mugger.

He stroked his chin in thought. "Mmmmm, nope."

The mugger's posture changed. He couldn't be sure, but it looked like surprise. "Whatcha mean, nope?"

"I mean," he said, "I'm not in danger."

"Not in danger?" The mugger waved the gun. "Whyinell not?"

"We're in Reno," said the man.

"So?"

"Shooting someone in Reno? Like that Johnny Cash song? Way too cliché."

The mugger looked around, then at the other end of the alley. "Just... gimme the wallet."

"No one shoots anyone in Reno anymore," he continued. "Too embarrassing. Look, you don't want to be cliché, do you?"

"Not... really."

"So you're not going to shoot me, so my wallet is safe. Simple as that. Want to walk through the alley with me? I'm on my way to a party. Hey," he exclaimed, "you should come! Probably ditch the gun, though."

The gunshot echoed through the alley. He squeaked, and fell down.

"The line's 'shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.' Me, I need the money. Way less clichéd."

Ilyich's Binding

"For your betrayal, you must keep us safe." The whispered words echoed in Ilyich's ears as the blackness receded. His bleary eyes blinked open, showing him the smooth, translucent deck of one of the great Arks. He pushed himself to his feet, standing against the dizziness. The great, smooth deck swept out before him, dotted with low structures grown of the same pale material. He could feel the gentle swell of the water holding him aloft.

He couldn't walk. Looking down, he saw the flexible material of the deck grown over his feet. Following it, he saw he had no covering but the elegant feathers of the keepers of the Arks. He was the ship.

People boarded him. They made their homes in the Ark's structures and below decks, and ate from the gardens that grew there. They tried to befriend their keeper, who would protect them on the waters. He would only mutter or yell, "I was a man."

On the day of departure, they asked where he would take them. "Nowhere," he answered. He flexed his new muscles, his deck and halls. He forced them out, and sailed away. "Better to go mad in solitude than serve you."

Leftover Cucumbers

He wondered about his leftovers as he pulled them out of the company fridge. The carrots looked a little dry, which didn't bother him because he wasn't picky, and he was too lazy to get more. But the week-old cucumber slices looked a bit shiny in a way that made him nervous. He at them anyway. Chances are, he thought, they're fine. As they hit his tongue, he wondered if they tasted wrong. What do too-old cucumber slices taste like, anyway? As he played his lunchtime board game, he wondered if they were actually more slimy than he remembered, or was he making it up? Was this queasy feeling in his stomach psychosomatic?

He felt dizzy. Obviously he was just making it up. It's his imagination playing tricks on him. He has an active imagination, after all. Remember that one time in college when you were able to make your vision spin just by standing there? You weren't sick then. It's the same thing here. You're fine. You're doing great. You're--

You're better off going to the bathroom.

He walked, then ran, and still only made it to the drinking fountain.

He never knew if the custodian accepted his apology.

From the Moment of Sensation

"Stop!" she cried as I tossed the pills in my mouth with a swallow of water. I spit them out. "What? Are they the wrong pills?" I checked the bottle. "Or are they expired?" I looked closer. "Okay, I don't get it. What's wrong?"

"That's the thing," she said, "they're the right pills. My research has discovered that even minor emotions and sensations create intangible thinking creatures, spirits of a sort."

"Spirits?" I said. "That's--"

"Crazy, I know," she said. "There's really no better term for them, but they're real, provably real. And your taking painkillers would've, well, killed dozens or hundreds of pain spirits. It would've been mass murder."

"Well," I said, "accepting your hypothesis for now, I'm taking the pills as an antiinflammatory, not for any pain. Is that okay?"

She visibly relaxed. "Oh, yeah, that's fine."

I took some new pills and cleaned up the mess the old ones had become. "Hey, what about the pain I don't feel now but won't feel in the future because I've taken these?"

"Oh, that's not murder. That's like, I dunno, contraception," she said. "It's fine."

I felt the blood drain from my face. "What's wrong?" she said.

"I'm Catholic."

The Monsters and the Ghost

Fire Monster and Vampire were walking through the dark forest when they heard a spooky noise: "WhoooOOOooo!" The monsters stopped. "See what it is," said Fire Monster.

"You see what it is," said Vampire.

They both looked around and saw nothing. When they turned back, a ghost floated between them.

"Ahhhh!" said the monsters together. "Get it!"

Fire Monster breathed fire from her mouth and threw fire from her toes, but the fire went right through the ghost and set a tree on fire. Vampire leapt upon the ghost and tried to suck out its blood, but Vampire passed through the ghost without touching it and bit the ground.

"Oh," said the monsters. Vampire spit out dirt.

"WhoooOOOooo," said the ghost.

"Maybe," said Fire Monster, "we should find out why it's here?" She turned to the ghost and said, "Uh, hi. How are you?"

"OoooOOOoookay," said the ghost. "I'm loooOOOoooking for newoooOOOooo friends."

"We don't need any new friends," said Fire Monster.

"Wait," said Vampire. "Maybe we can start a new club for monsters. We each have a friend, but we don't have a club."

"OK," said Fire Monster.

"OoooOOOoookay," said Ghost.

And that was the beginning of Monster Club.

The Final Years of Rupert Murdoch

"I've decided to spend the rest of my life in the shower." If anyone else had said it, he would've been laughed out of the room. But no one laughed at Rupert Murdoch. He renovated his home, installing the world's largest on-demand water heating system. They added multiple showerheads, installed waterproof furniture, added televisions and a state-of-the-art sound system to the bathroom, and purchased waterproof tablet computers to manage everything in the house.

After a month in the shower, Rupert told his staff, "I'd like to go to the kitchen," but refused the offered towels and robes.

He tiled half the mansion, expanded the heating system by an order of magnitude, added showerheads everywhere, and installed a system of motion sensors to keep the showers on him wherever he went.

The following interview with GQ asked him why, and Rupert said, "I've always loved showers. At this point in my life, I have so much money I couldn't possibly spend all of it. Why not spend the rest of my life where I'm happiest?"

After Rupert's death three years later (he slipped in the shower), more than one of his obituaries read, "He died as he lived: In the shower."

The Wrong People

I suddenly realized I'd invited the wrong people. Everyone I'd slept with and everyone I'd killed sat at the table with me, waiting for appetizers. I tried to start some small talk, but for some reason everyone was angry with me. The main course arrived on a covered silver tray: a great big suckling pig, complete with the apple in its mouth. But with my face. I poked it to make sure it was real.

Chance turned to me from my left, blood flaking from a crusted wound where I'd cut him from ear to ear. "This isn't hell," he said, "whatever you might think."

Spider put a hand on my thigh from my right, giving me an erection. "This isn't a dream, whatever you might hope."

I laughed. "Obviously it's—"

"Not a hallucination," chorused the other side of the table. "Not brain damage," chanted six at the end. "You have not been kidnapped by the future for shits and giggles," said six more from the other end.

I looked at the assortment of fatally wounded and arousing memories. I thought about killing the living ones and fucking the dead ones.

I grinned. Might as well have a good time.