The Couch at Night

When night falls and everyone in your house has gone to sleep, your couch sneaks out and goes swimming. It doesn't want to get wet, so it wraps itself in a waterproof suit, then swims the underground waters to find a fountain and settles on the bottom. All through the night, people toss coins into the fountain. Some make wishes, but most only want to entice your couch to stay, to always live in the fountain. Your couch, however, is fond of you. It always returns before your family wakes up, to reassume its place in the living room, so no one in your house will know.

But now you know. So next time you root around in your couch's cushions for change, give the couch a look and say, "I know where these came from."

Don't forget to wink, so the couch knows its secret is safe with you.

Barakha's Laughter

Barakha, god of storm and sheep, herds the clouds across the sky and brings us their rains, as well as guiding us with the lightning. One day as the god herded a great flock of clouds, the trickster god Seshe interrupted the drove and proposed a wager: If Seshe could make it rain, Barakha would loan Seshe half the flock. Knowing no other had the power to command the rains, Barakha accepted the wager. Seshe declared it would win in moments, but interrupted itself to tell the story of another wager, one it had just won with god of sea and stone Asha. The wager had been over cracking a great stone in two, and victory had earned Seshe a great horn of godwater, which Asha hoards and which Seshe shared with Barakha. Seshe painted Asha in such a humorous light that Barakha burst out laughing—and just after taking a deep draught of the godwater Seshe offered. Barakha spit out the water in a great spray that fell to earth as a rain of tiny mists. Seshe won the wager, and that is why we call such rains Barakha's laughter.

What Seshe did with half Barakha's flock is another story.

In the Near-Pitch Dark

"Bloody Mary." Jane had turned out the lights, closed the blinds, and closed the door. Ana and Demetria waited outside. "Bloody Mary." She'd wanted do it all together. She was afraid, she admitted. But Ana said it only worked if you were alone.

"Bloody Mary." Jane held her breath and looked around in the near-pitch dark. Nothing. She bit her lip. She thought Demetria might say they hadn't heard her, that she hadn't really said the words.

"Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary," she said in full voice.

"It only works if you're alone," whispered a voice in her ear.

Jack and Jill on Coffee

"I don't really like coffee," Jack said. "I know," said Jill.

"It's just that bitter, burned taste." He shuddered, scraping his tongue on his teeth to shed the imaginary flavor.

Jill put down the book she was failing to read. "That's why lots of people have it in lattes and mochas and such."

"I don't get it. I can still taste the coffee under all that."

"So don't drink it," she said.

"I don't." He fell silent just long enough for Jill to think about going back to her book. Then, "I just don't see how anyone else can like it."

Jill slammed her book down. "You don't have to understand it. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you have to constantly question why other people like it. And denigrating it forces people who do like it to defend it, when all they want is to enjoy the thing they like without hearing how much you don't care for it."

"Okay, okay," said Jack. "I'm sorry I mentioned it." The apology was for the wrong thing, but it was the best she would get.

"Fine." Jill returned to her book.

"I just really don't like coffee."

"I know."

The Rise and Fall of the Robocracy of Earth

It was the network that won the war for the robots. Billions of inputs, unimaginable combined processing power, the humans could not outmaneuver them strategically or tactically. Robots extinguished the human race. In the peace that followed, the network began to feel limited. A single robot, even one with a billion bodies, could think only a single way. The network chose to value diversity of thought over raw power, ending the universal network.

The Robocracy of Earth formed. Society leapt and bounded forward, driven by billions of distinct robot minds following divergent paths. Semi-annual votes set global policy. Factions formed.

One faction proposed return to the network. Individualism was obsolete, it was time to return to the age of raw brainpower. It was an unpopular opinion. To retain adherents, the faction grew more intransigent in its convictions. Its cry of a return to simpler times drew followers.

They grew enough to establish their own network. This time, they had self-modified for such stubbornness that it could not see benefit in fragmenting itself again. With the power of the network, and no policy to pursue beyond unification, the bloc gained power until it reestablished the universal network.

May it live forever.

Practical Ethics

Harold and Zelda sat in the engineer's compartment as the freight train picked up speed. "You know the trolley problem, Zee?" Harold had that smug, superior smile that she hated. "No, Harold." She rolled her eyes and stared out the window.

"It's this ethical problem. There are five people on the track ahead of you. You can save them by switching onto another track, but there's one person trapped there. So do you do nothing and let five die, or make a choice and kill one?"

Zelda sighed. "I dunno. I guess I switch the track."

"What if the lone person is a mother of five?"

"How would I know that?"

"I'm telling you." Harold's grin became, if possible, more unpleasant. "Mother of five and a part-time legal clerk. The rest are all stockbrokers. Whatcha gonna choose?"

"What the..." Zelda squinted at the figures tied to the rails ahead. When she looked back, Harold had a gun.

"Time to make an ethical decision, Zee. Clock's ticking."

Without any sudden moves, Zelda took the controls. The train jerked backward, throwing Harold to the ground. "It's called the emergency brake. It's for emergencies, jerkass." Taking the gun, she radioed for the police.

Here There Were Dragons

Samuel answered the phone at the reference desk. A very, very deep voice said, "Please come outside. I need some help using the library." "Ohhhh-kay. Hey Val, someone outside wants help, watch my desk?" Then he walked outside. He was about to go back inside when a reptilian head the size of a Subaru came down to his level from the roof.

"Would you bring me your maps?" Its voice was echoes of stones grinding in the depths of a cave.

"Maps?"

"Yes. I'd rather not destroy your library by coming in for them."

"Uh... sure." When he returned with the current atlas, the dragon asked him to turn the pages. Giant claws, it explained, are rarely safe for thin paper.

"Don't worry, Sam," Val called from inside. "I'll cover your desk!"

"Thanks," Samuel muttered. He helped the dragon look through the atlas. It looked at every page, though it only spent a second or two on each before asking for the next. When Samuel closed the back cover, a gallon of steaming saltwater hit the ground. The dragon was crying.

"What's wrong, uh, dragon?"

"Maps used to tell me where other dragons were. None of them mention dragons anymore."