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Modern Arranged Marriage

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I looked around the office, trying to control the anxiety building up inside my chest. Just breathe, Jake, I told myself. You’re just here to find out how it works. You haven’t signed anything, haven’t agreed to anything yet.

Whoever designed the office, at least, had been well aware of the anxiety that its visitors might feel. Most of the walls were paneled in dark wood, and a large fountain in the middle of the room sent a small waterfall cascading down amid lush green vegetation. I felt more like I’d accidentally stepped into a spa, or perhaps an upscale massage parlor, rather than a dating service.

“Jake Hoffman?”

I glanced up at my name, and saw a tall, efficient-looking brunette in a tightly tailored navy suit looking back at me. “Yeah,” I said, rising up from the low bench where I’d been sitting and gazing blearily into the stream of falling water. “That’s me.”

She smiled at me, an efficient and businesslike smile that she’d probably practiced a thousand times in the mirror. “Right this way, Mr. Hoffman.” Continue reading →

God Discovers the Platypus.

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Almost no one thinks about the knees of an angel.

No one really sees them, under the toga. Nobody ever stops to consider whether angels have knobbly knees, the kind of knees usually seen on scrawny fourteen-year-old boys who’ve only just barely managed to survive their first real dose of hormones. Of all the exalted, perfect qualities of angels, knees are fairly low on the list.

Quiniel looked down and frowned at his knees as they knocked together nervously. Like everyone else, he’d never stopped to consider his knees until now, and he found himself thoroughly annoyed with them, especially as they bounced together and added another level of anxiety to his already-flustered state. Continue reading →

The World Below, or, On the Stupidity of Fish

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Even when all things are considered, fish are fairly stupid creatures.

Admittedly, there’s no real reason for them to be smart. The buoyancy of water means that they can build up much more muscle and fat mass, and although they need some complex three-dimensional trigonometric calculations for determining optimal paths through an environment where height is more than just the “the empty space above my head”, there’s not a lot of real intelligence in a fish.

Perhaps, at some point in history, a short-lived branch off of the evolutionary tree showed some signs of real intellect. Maybe, at one or more times, a fish blinked, looked around at its fellows swimming through the water all around him, and thought to himself, “Hey, I wonder who created this maze where we all hang out!”

That fish was probably the first to be eaten by a dolphin, because instead of swimming away like his fellows, he stopped and tried to negotiate with the dolphin. Continue reading →

Filmed before a live studio audience!

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“And we’re back in five, four, three…”

For just a moment, Azistopheles glared at the producer. Why did the damned soul never say the last two numbers? The whole point of counting down was to reach zero. He never seemed to make it there, always stopping with a couple numbers to go.

An instant later, however, the devil’s expression brightened, and he beamed into the camera. “Welcome back to ‘Who Wants To Be A Torture Victim?’!” he announced happily. “If you’re just tuning in, which you shouldn’t be since you’re all in Hell, we’re about to bring down our next contestant!” Continue reading →

Jawing Around at Poker Night

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“So as I see it, the big problem is the bell curve, y’know?”

Riley focused on dealing out the cards, watching their blue-and-white backs slide away from him across the smooth wood of the table. He wished that his deft fingers were sensitive enough to feel the patterns of ink printed on the reverse, to know their identities without flipping them over. Karsten’s chatter was little more than background.

Across the table, Hale grunted. “Bell curve? Karsten, what’re you talking about?”

“Society!” Karsten responded instantly. “C’mon, you can’t deny that the whole thing’s a crock of shit, just goin’ to more shit, isn’t it? Go on, put your hand on your heart and tell me that things aren’t worse than before.” Continue reading →

Seaport

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The smell of rotting fish and plankton rankled at Ethry’s nostrils as he scrambled over the wet planks, dodging between the lumbering dockworkers. A couple men shouted angrily as the urchin ran between their tree trunk legs, but Ethry was always gone by the time they could try and make a grab at him.

All around him, he heard the buzz of commerce, of industry at work. Crates were in constant motion; some descended down gangplanks and were lowered by cranes onto the ships, ready to go to the far corners of the Empire. Other crates came off the ships, hauled by cranes or on the shoulders of burly dockworkers, deposited in stacks on the wharf and smelling of exotic locations that Ethry could only imagine.

Up ahead of him, a heavy-set man with a large beard cursed in half a dozen languages as his foot caught at a raised plank in the dock. He tripped, and the crate on his shoulder sent oval, pink fruits scattering across the salt-warped boards.

Ethry didn’t pause to help pick up the fruits. His good deed, he knew, would at best be rewarded with a grunt of thanks, and nothing more. More likely, he’d earn himself a kick or a cuff about the ear, along with some more curse words to add to his vocabulary.

Instead, he hurried by without pausing. Only after he’d ducked down into a narrow alley between two buildings, away from the scene, did he grin and remove the two pink fruits from his jacket that he’d snagged off the ground as he passed. Continue reading →

The General’s Request

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The whole thing happened, when we get down to it, because of a vanilla frappuccino.

Why the general requested a vanilla frappuccino, no one knows. Maybe he felt especially parched that day, as he stood in the dusty, hot command tent and shouted orders at his inferiors. Maybe a couple neurons got crossed in his brain, and he had a momentary flashback to a conversation with his teenage daughter, who was going through that particularly disagreeable phase in her life when she felt as if she ought to be completely independent, despite still needing her parents to provide her with everything.

In any case, when the unfortunate lieutenant who pulled that week’s “drinks bitch” duty sidled up to the general and asked if he’d like something to drink, the general spun to glare at him from beneath stormy, overgrown eyebrows, a pair of gray caterpillars writhing across his face.

“Vanilla frappuccino!” he snapped at the hapless lieutenant. “And make sure it’s cold!” Continue reading →

Welcome to my Evil Lair!

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I fought against the bonds that pinned my wrists and ankles to the examination table, struggling helplessly. “Release me, foul doctor!” I shouted out into the darkness.

“What- oh, is someone there?” drifted back a response.

I paused. “Hello? Yes, please, I have been captured and need your assistance!” I called out next, pitching my voice a bit lower. Perhaps this was a janitor, not understanding that he cleaned an evil lair, or maybe a beautiful daughter that I could seduce to earn my freedom-

“Give me a minute,” the other voice called out, and I heard someone shuffling about, muttering to himself. Probably not a daughter, then, but I pinned my hopes on the janitor theory. Continue reading →

Flintholm

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He walked up the path, his eyes hazy with clouded memories.

The weeds and grass had overgrown everything, but he still could see the lay of the land, recognize landmarks from when he shrieked and climbed and ran over every inch of the property. That was back before his knees hurt, before the War, before the bombs, before everything changed and his innocence fled, never to return.

The grass beneath his feet shifted, and he looked down at the cobblestone path that lay beneath. Many of the stones were cracked and broken. He’d found a snail, once, crawling along slowly between two stones, and he spent an entire afternoon building a shelter for the little creature out of sticks and leaves. Continue reading →

Pestilence’s Retirement

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“Are you sure that we can’t convince you to reconsider?”

On the other side of the cracked laminate table, Pestilence shook his head. “Afraid not,” he repeated. “Look, you’ve all seen the writing on the wall for a while. I’m just not useful any longer.”

Pestilence’s three companions all shuffled their feet, or lower appendages, rather uncomfortably. That silence was enough to confirm Pestilence’s suspicions, although he held his tongue out of respect for their shared history.

“It just won’t be the same without you, buddy,” grunted the very large man wedged into the booth on the other side, shaking his massive head sadly. “We’ve had a hell of a run together.” Continue reading →