The Devil's Quill

The Devil came to a farmer and told him that one of his geese had a magical pinion which, made into a quill, would make whatever it wrote become true. But if the farmer took the wrong feather, the Devil would take his soul. This farmer was clever and called all his geese to dinner. When the last one came, the farmer scooped it up. Indeed, the feather's magic had made it slow, and the farmer sharpened it into a quill.

He wrote that he was a lord, and bore those duties for a week. Then he wrote that he should be duke, commanding many lords. Once three days had passed, he wrote that he should be king, who rules dukes and lords alike. After one day as king, he wished to be archbishop, who crowns the king. A single night as archbishop, and he took his quill and wrote that he should be greater than God.

In that moment, the Devil appeared and took the man's form, and the farmer took the Devil's form, for only the Devil desires to surpass God. The new Devil tried to claim his predecessor's soul, but could not because the Devil had repented.

Through the Beholder's Eye

"You like the looks of him, eh?" Gillian blushed and looked away. "You can look. It's more fun to know who attracts you than it is to be jealous." "Yeah? Then, yeah, he's pretty cute." She gave Rick a crooked smile. "So, who're you looking at?"

He looked around the busy street from his seat at the corner cafe. "Ooh, there." He gestured to a woman with a cleft lip, crossed eyes, and a pronounced overbite.

"Um, really?"

"Oh, yeah. Or there." He nodded to a woman passing with marked vitiligo marking her face in blotches of light and dark.

"Uh...."

"Ooh, see that woman crossing the street?" He gestured with his eyes, and she followed his gaze to a prune-faced old woman with a hump, ninety if she was a day.

"Yeah..." Gillian's hand unconsciously rubbed the back of her neck.

"Or, um, see that woman sitting three tables behind me? Alone, in the blue coat?" His girlfriend spotted a woman with burn scars on half her face. "Yeah, she's hot."

"I, uh..." she picked up her spoon, the nearest reflective surface, and looked at her own face.

"Hey, sexy," Rick said suggestively. "Wanna go back to your place?"

High-Occupancy Vehicle

"Sir, do you realize you were driving in the HOV lane?" The cop looked down at him through her dark shades, her cruiser's lights painting the snowy night. "Yes sir, uh, officer. I know that." With both his hands on the wheel, the driver looked more confused than nervous. He kept looking at the empty passenger seat.

"And you know that HOV stands for high-occupancy vehicle?"

"Uh, yeah?" Another look at the passenger seat.

"I'm writing you a ticket for violating the occupancy requirements. You can sign it and get a fine and a point on your license, or contest it and get more points when we prove it."

"But... I'm not alone."

The officer peered into the car, empty but for the driver. "Is there someone in the trunk, sir? Because that's a separate violation."

"No, officer, see... it's my wife. Ever since the accident, she's insisted on traveling with me when I drive."

"What accident?"

"The collision that killed her."

The copy looked at him for a long moment. "I'm sorry for your loss, sir. For future reference, ghosts do not qualify you to drive in the HOV lane. Do you understand?"

"Yes, officer."

"You drive safe, now."

Diverging Parallel Lines

Sitting on the toilet, he adjusted the small rug for the thousandth time. It looked square, but no matter how he set it against the bathroom tile, one of its edges always diverged from the lines of the square tiles. Fed up, he dragged the rug out of the bathroom and measured it with a T-square. It confirmed what his eyes said: The rug, with its stiff edges, was truly square. Now questioning, he took the T-square into the bathroom. The tile also measured as square.

Back in the bathroom, he measured rug and tile against the T-square again, with the same results. But lined up against each other, the edges diverged. Squinting, he leaned in close and looked close at the space between two diverging parallel lines. He saw distance, some manner of perspective that shouldn't be there, shouldn't be in a sliver of tile two inches from his face.

He probed it with his fingers. His fingers, then his hand, kept reaching into that crack that shouldn't exist. Excited, he pushed the rug out of the way. And he screamed as the interaction between rug and tile that opened that unreal geometry vanished, and with it his hand.

This is Page 14

Val stood on a beam on the 30th floor of an unfinished building. The breeze whistled in her ears and she had some gun-looking thing in her hand. It had a hose connected to a tank. Welding gas? Pressurized air for driving rivets? She had no idea. "Hey, Beckstein! Yer falling behind!" Val looked at the foreman, unsure what to do with equipment she didn't recognize. Wind tugged at her reflective safety vest.

A high-pitched blast signaled lunch. Unfamiliar workers put down their gear and headed for the elevator. "Not you, Beckstein! You work through lunch!"

Flushing, Val lifted her gun-thing and set it against a beam. A rivet appeared in the beam with a deafening ker-chunk, recoil throwing her back just as a gust of wind yanked her off balance. Clinging to the beam, she watched her hard hat tumble down thirty stories. A moment later, she followed it, plummeting to the ground... and through.

If Val plunges into an underground cavern of alien technology, turn to page 61.

If she starts awake sitting at her desk on the on the second floor, turn to page 22.

If she dies and reincarnates into another body, go to page 54.

The Impossible Ream

"Why won't my thing print? Can anyone figure out this damn printer?" "It's out of paper," came the yell from downstairs.

He looked closer. "Nevermind, hon, it's out of paper."

"Where's that printer paper?" he muttered, rooting through the dusty cupboard on his knees. "Here we go." He opened the printer tray, ripped open the ream of paper, and froze.

Single-spaced print covered the top sheet of paper. It looked like a story. He looked closer. A biography, starting when the subject was an infant. Skimming the first few paragraphs, he saw the baby was born in the same town he'd grown up in, and an itch ran down his spine.

He looked at the next page. Also covered in print, this one related some story he vaguely recalled his mother telling of his childhood. He cut deep into the stack and flipped through pages up and down, each covered with the same print. Digging deeper, looking for an end, for the present, he looked faster and faster until he came to the last page, where he saw text still appearing, one character at a time.

On the last line, he read, "And his final act was to realize that"

That Creepy Stuff

"Damn, how does he look so fucking good? I mean, have you been in his place? He doesn't even have a mirror." "Magic, probably. You know, that creepy stuff where he sacrifices a kid under the full moon or something."

"Nah, that shit doesn't work."

"Of course it doesn't—"

"Tried it once, didn't do a thing. Complete bullshit."

All he could do was stare as his friend continued.

"Yeah, all I got was a hell of a cleaning bill, you know?"

"No, I don't fucking know. Are you serious about this?"

"Well, sure. I tried it. Just once. I mean, since it didn't work, and all."

"Oh, and if it'd worked, you'd have done it again?"

"Man, I don't know, probably. Depends on how the magic works, right? If it wears off or something."

"You're serious."

"Well, it was a weird time. College, right?" He shrugged, as if that excused it.

"You don't just kill. A. Kid. I can't believe — whose kid was it?"

"What? Mine, I bought it."

"Bought it? From who, a homeless person?"

"From a farm, idiot."

He paused. "You're talking about a goat."

"Duh. A kid goat."

"That's still fucking gross."

"No argument there, dude."