Demonstration of Expertise

"So you see, Ms. Colm, I'm afraid we won't be able to offer you a loan." The bank officer set down his pen. "Ms. Colm?" She held her fingers in front of her face and pinched them together, making a squelching noise with her mouth. "What are you doing?" "Squishing your head." She returned to the process of squishing his head.

"Well, fine. But that doesn't—"

"Bew, bew." Ms. Colm pointed her fingers at him, then opened her hands wide. "Boosh! I just blew you up with lasers," she said.

"Please stop that," he said, but Ms. Colm changed to airplane noises and the rat-a-tat of an old biplane.

"He's going down in flames," she muttered. "Eject, eject! Oh, the humanity!" She leaned over the desk between them. "You failed to eject in time and burned to death in the wreckage."

"I see." The banker typed on his computer for a minute while she made distressing faces at him. Printing out a form, he slid it across the desk. "Ms. Colm, based on a demonstration of expertise, I've reevaluated your loan request. You are approved." She held up the paper triumphantly. "Good luck with Making People Uncomfortable, Inc.," he said.

This All Ends at Midnight

While the girl danced the night away at the ball, the footmen — formerly lizards — and the coachman — formerly a goose — waited with the coach. One footman looked thoughtful. "What was it she said? About midnight?"

"What, the fairy lady?" asked the other footman.

"Right."

"Said this all ends at midnight."

"The party?" He shook his head. "The magic? So... we'll be lizards again?"

"I was a goose," threw in the coachman.

"Right. But I spent every day skittering around looking for insects, terrified of every passing shadow."

"I was a goose," said the coachman.

"Yes, fine! But really, we lose all this?"

"All what?" the other footman demanded.

"I'm human! I can think, and gaze at the stars, and probably eat food other than bugs."

"I like bugs," said the other.

"That's..." The footman pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's not the point. For the first time, I want more. For the first time I know there's more to want! And it'll all disappear! The knowing, the wanting, gone in an hour? Every minute is... it's unimaginably precious." He stared into the distance with dread.

"I was a goose."

The footman couldn't muster a response.

You Cannot Own Them

"Which is my 'best side?' That is what you call it, correct?" The translator never took his eyes off the alien potentate, seven feet tall and a mass of blue tentacles. Sweat shone on the translator's face as another alien, also a column of writhing blue, translated the Danish into alienese. "I don't believe in a person's best side." The painter looked over her easel at her subject. "I paint truth, not flattery."

The alien shivered and twitched, and the translator said, "For this, you are considered your people's greatest living artist." The translator's cheek twitched.

"Your people, now," the painter said as she painted. "You conquered us."

"True. You are my people. Just remember that I am not yours."

She shrugged. "Are you familiar with performance art?"

"Transient events as artistic statement, yes. They are worthless. You cannot own them."

"Makes this even better." She turned the painting around, revealing blue tentacles looming over Earth. Layers of paint caught the overhead lighting, casting the alien as angelic. She flicked a lighter to life. The oils caught immediately, and what had been heavenly turned demonic when lit from the flames below.

The translator fainted as the potentate shook with rage.

Mary's Choice

"So, who're you gonna shoot?" Mary pointed the big, fuck-off gun at the midpoint between her two choices of target. She stood between them and the door, and of the three people in the room, she was the only one who looked unique. The other two were perfect facsimiles of each other.

To be precise, one was the facsimile of the other. A demon of the old world, forgotten by cultures grown skeptical of such terrors, released by her brother's stupidity.

"C'mon, sis," whined her brother or the brother-thing. "If you don't shoot it, it'll destroy the world. Shooooot iiiiiit."

"I'm not the it," said the other. "I can prove it. Remember when I read your diary when I was eight? Well—"

"Of course you remember," the first sneered. "You stole my memories with my body, you monster."

"I'm not the monster, you are! Please, Mare, it's him. Shoot it. Please?"

Mary looked at each for a long moment, unable to to find even the smallest discrepancy. "You're forgetting something." Both canted their heads in the same confused way. "I never liked my brother. Besides, the needs of the many, and all that." Their eyes widened at the same time.

First Alley Left

Baby shower, first alley left. He barely caught the words as he drove past the hand-scrawled sign, but he looped around the block to look again. It hadn't changed, so he parked and went to see. Looking down the alley in question, confetti lay in scattered bunches leading between the dingy walls, back doors, and waste bins. He followed the trail to a cluster of sickly, half-deflated balloons hanging from a corner strung with soiled streamers. Stepping around the corner, he saw her. Sitting at a child's table, she was slight with stringy, dirty blond hair, a faded and torn dress, and a belly near to bursting.

"I didn't think anyone would come!" She threw her arms around him. He almost pulled away, but she seemed so earnest. "Please sit! We have Oreos!" She gestured him to a child-sized seat across from hers.

Part of him screamed to run and leave the crazy far behind him. He stayed. The woman was sweet and intelligent and promised to name the child after him. He promised to visit, and meant it.

A girl named Rupert would be strange, but she would never have been ordinary. He was looking forward to meeting her.

This Is What Happens

Larry reached the height of the pass and pulled down his scarf to feel the cold air on his face. His breath condensed as he stood in the snow and looked across Europe, laid out before him like an ancient map. Smiling, he pulled his scarf back up and kept walking. When he sat for lunch, he found someone else coming up a different trail. They got to talking and shared their food and drink, including a drop of whiskey from one to the other and a spot of rum in the other direction. Without ever discussing the matter, they walked on together. They traveled sometimes in silence, other times talking about family, work, retirement, love, life, and travel. Now and then their discussions turned into arguments, debates over various matters of political philosophy or practice. Each enjoyed the companionship immensely.

They traveled together for the remaining three days of the journey, and when their paths diverged in Zermatt, Larry said, "I don't think I'll ever forget this, Walt."

Walt agreed. "You see what happens, Larry?" Larry raised an eyebrow. "This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps." They hugged and parted, never to meet again.

This story is inspired by this clip.

What Just Happened?

"Okay," said the giraffe, "what just happened?" She was standing with three other giraffes in the Target parking lot. "I have no fucking god-damn clue," said another.

"Jason?" said the first giraffe, incredulous.

"What?" snapped the second.

"If that's you, then..." She looked at a third giraffe. "Wilson?"

"WIIIIIILLLSSSOOOOOOONN!" mock-yelled Jason.

"Oh, give me a break," said the third giraffe.

"It's him," Jason said.

"Which means you're Tara?" She looked at the fourth giraffe.

"Yup," Tara said. "Now what, Padma?"

"I dunno. This is crazy. Any ideas? Wilson?"

"WIIIIIILLLSSSOOOOOOONN!" echoed Jason.

"Dammit, would you cut. It. OUT!" A bright red beam shot from Wilson's horn-like protuberances at Jason. Jason flinched, but his protuberances shimmered and the beam bent away from him.

"What the hell," murmured Tara. She looked at the line the beam had drawn through — not in, through — the Target.

"So," Padma said, "we have turned into super-powered giraffes. Now what?"

"We find whoever did this and make them turn us back," Jason said.

"Okay, so... hey. Was that castle there this morning?" Padmam gestured with her head at a gothic structure looming above the skyline in the distance.

"Sure wasn't," Wilson said.

"Let's check it out."