jamieproctor.ca

The trail, much like the witness, was cold.
Like, really cold, like ice or something.
And it was getting colder.
Wait, what’s colder than ice? Nothing! Jesus, this detective work was a lot harder than the TV made it look. I missed TV. I’d been down here in the damp dark slurking around waiting for new evidence for ages and then all of a sudden this dead body turned up. It was a good thing my trusty sidekick ‘Johnny’ Doesmurders was down here with me – his finely-tuned senses had located the victim immediately.
“Whaddya reckon COD is here, ‘Johnny’?” I asked him.
‘Johnny’ frowned and thumbed his chin with the barrel of his still-smoking pistol as he considered the corpse lying directly in front of him. “Big hole in the back of his head,” he noted. “Musta gotten blown away. Could’ve been a gun or an icepick or a jackhammer or a narwhal or something.”
“Where would a mug get a narwhal around here?” I demanded.
“The zoo.”
“You kidding me? They don’t even let you ride the polar bear no more. Shit, I bet they keep the narwhals locked in a safe somewhere and the head keeper’s the only guy with a key. Nah, I think this was like, a gun. Or maybe something like that. I dunno, what do I look like?”
“A gumshoe,” said ‘Johnny.’
I checked my foot. Goddamnit, he was right. Someone really needed to clean these alleys.
Then I froze as the world settled into perfect, clear crystal.
‘Johnny,’ I said, carefully. “Look at my shoe. What do you see?”
‘Johnny’ peered into the murky depths of my sole. “Looks like mint or maybe spearmint,” he offered.
“No, not that. Look at it. Look closer.”
He squinted so hard his eyes crossed, then gave up.
“It’s a MAP, ‘Johnny,’” I told him. “And we’re going there now.”
“But where’s there?” he asked.
“I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Okay,” I said. “I don’t know where we are.”
We were fifteen miles from nowhere in a fourteen-pound sack, in some godforsaken fast food place behind a parking lot behind a suburb behind a hideous little townlette that had been swallowed whole by Big City. It was quiet – too quiet. The fryer bubbled to itself, overflowing with dirty little secrets. My hands smelled bad.
‘Johnny’ wandered over to the counter to scope the place out. Then there was a loud, overpowering noise like ‘bang’ or something, three times.
“Holy shit!” he yelled.
I ran over and was face to face with a corpse. Well, face to back of the face. It was some dead guy lying on top of the counter so his face was pointing at the counter, not me.
And right in the back of that head that I was face to face with instead of his face was a big, smoking hole.
“Aw fuck,” I said. “We’re too late.”
“So is he,” quipped ‘Johnny.’ “Because he’s like, dead.”
“Wow,” I said. “That makes no damned sense, ‘Johnny.’ Maybe you should look for clues instead of being weird, you ever thinka that?”
He scuffed his shoes and pouted, but went to check the fryer for evidence. Me, I cleared out a rack of freshly-prepped burgers and went over the birds-eye view of the case in my mind. This just wasn’t adding up.
For one thing, how the hell had the guy gotten hold of TWO narwhals? I was pretty sure the zoo only had one.
For another, why would the crook leave the delicious salty bounty of the building untouched? This motive was whacko.
For another after another, who the hell had left onions off these things? You couldn’t pay me to eat burgers like these. It was almost a crime.
Then I froze as the world settled into perfect, clear crystal.
“‘Johnny,’” I said, carefully, “ when you said this stiff was ‘too late,’ did you mean actually, physically late… or were you referring to how he was expired.”
‘Johnny’ looked at me with genuine amazement. “Wow,” he said. “Wasn’t thinking of that at all. That was like, an accident.”
I nodded, tapped my chin, squinted a little, and cleared my throat. “Or WAS it?” I said. Then I almost fell over.
“Geez!”
“Sorry. Tapped my chin too hard. Listen, I think I got a clue or a hunch or a lead or something like that. Follow me.”
“I’m the driver, boss.”
“Well then follow YOU,” I said, pissed off now. “Jeez. Do I gotta do everything around here?”
“No,” he said.
“Right. Just most of it. C’mon.”

“Woah!” said ‘Johnny’. There was a bang, and then another bang, and then a big fat wet hairy thud.
I spun around, then spun around again because I’d overspun the first time. By the time I was done spinning I felt terrible and threw up all over the place.
“Auuuururghghtlltltllpppth,” I said.
“Aw NO,” said ‘Johnny’.
“Huurururururullllk. HRRRRMMMMPLTH!”
“Dangit!”
“blort”
“Wow.”
I stopped throwing up and pulled out my gun. “Nobody move!” I shouted in an incredibly authoritative voice.
I’ll give this creep his dues: he didn’t move an inch. He was cool as a cucumber. Lying there on the floor, spread-eagled and covered in vomit, he acted like he was standing upright, in a lotus pose and covered in refreshingly chilled Hawaiian punch.
My eyes twitched. My hand crawled across the trigger, dragging a finger after it.
“Last chance, scumbag,” I growled.
I flinched, and put a round in his forehead.
“Damnit!”
“It’s okay, boss. I saw everything.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Yeah I didn’t see anything.”
I walked over and conducted a crime scene investigation, snapping my gloves on and off again and tasting the various substances around the victim for chemical evidence.
“Suspect was a person, aged adult, and had three holes in her on account of being blown away.” Damnit, how many narwhals did this guy HAVE? Were we dealing with a smuggling ring? I hoped not. Squares were so much easier. “Looks like she threw up a lot all over the place. It’s possible the perp is a really bad cook or that the victim had a real delicate stomach.”
“That was you,” said ‘Johnny.’
“I’m not putting up with your insubordinate shenanigans for one more second, Doesmurders,” I snapped at him.
Then I froze as the world settled into perfect, clear crystal.
“‘Johnny,’” I said, carefully, “pass me the garbage can. I’m not done throwing up yet.”
When I was done throwing up we searched the joint bottom to top. Don’t know why anyone does it the other way; too many staircases.
“We’re overthinking this,” I said. “Let’s just go find that guy who saw the first murder and ask him what happened.”
“Yeah,” said ‘Johnny.’ “Jeez, I bet he knows lots. He sure was in a hurry to show off about it. ‘Oooh, lookit meee, I’m a WIIIT-nesss. Don’t you wanna question me? C’mon, question me!’ Showoff little punk.”
“Stay frosty, ‘Johnny,’” I told him. “Keep your cool. Don’t freeze up. Be chill.”
“Okay okay okay okay okay,” he said.

The witness’s house was a tall glass of bricks, three stories high and one story wide. I knew for sure we’d find out what kind of person lived here the moment we found him.
The doorbell didn’t work, so we let ourselves in. Door didn’t work either. We ended up using the window.
Then I froze as the world settled into perfect, clear crystal.
“‘Johnny,’” I said, carefully, “can you get tetanus from broken glass?”
“Nah.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I stepped over the perfect, clear crystal and ignored the ouchies. I’d put bandaids on ‘em later. For now, I just needed the truth.
“Hi,” said the witness. “Why’d you break my window?”
“Damnit I’m asking the questions here!” I shouted.
“Click,” said ‘Johnny.’
“Me, not you, ‘Johnny.’”
“Yeah. Sorry. Out of bullets.”
“Listen,” said the witness. “There’s something I’ve got to tell you. These murders this night… were done by the murderkiller.”
I wanted to freeze as the world settled into perfect, clear crystal but instead all I did was say ‘holy fuck.’
“Holy fuck!” I said.
“Yes!” said the witness. “The murderkiller! The fiend who has killed so many murders over the years, so many of them so close to you! The elusive monster! The man who has killed your parents and your siblings and your pals and your buds and your first through second wives!”
“Wow!” I said.
“And your dog and your cat and your fish and your pet rock and your car and your apartment and your super and your goldfish crackers and your bike and your lawn and your hopes and your dreams and”
“This is getting boring,” I said. “I’m bored.”
“and that guy tonight and that other guy and that girl”
“Hey, can I borrow your gun?” asked ‘Johnny.’
“Sure, here.”
“Thanks,” said ‘Johnny.’ Then he pointed it at the witness and blew him away.
Wait a minute. That was the fourth witness we’d found dead. What if he’d blown away the others? Who else liked blowing away witnesses?
“Holy SHIT,” I said. “’Johnny’ Doesmurders is the murderkiller!”
“No,” said ‘Johnny.’
“Oh,” I said. “Shit. That was my best lead.”
“It happens, boss,” he said. “Hey, let’s forget this scene and go wrap up the case with some burritos. My treat.”
“Sounds great,” I said. “This trail is stone cold and boring as flip. Where we heading?”
“Big Pete’s,” he said. “I hear that place is… to DIE for.”

“Heh,” I said. “I get it.”
‘Johnny’ Doesmurders squinted at me over a mountain of sour cream. “Get what?”
“Dunno,” I said. “Hey, quit hogging that.”

Christmas is over, and so is the tension, bad music, and inevitable disappointment. But don’t worry, our retrospective will soon have all those memories flooding back! Join us now, as we review

THE BEST GIFTS OF 2018

Murder That Guy
Perhaps the most excruciatingly deep experience ever programmed, Murder That Guy allows you to encounter a literally infinite number of guys thanks to ground-breaking procedural generation, with unique faces, hopes, dreams, and boring conversational topics, and all of whom you will murder in the same room with one of four functionally-identical guns. Great for bored people.

Aaaaugh
If at any point you feel like you’re not tense enough, crack this bad boy open. Available in eReader formats, .pdfs, or even boring ol’ dead trees, Aaaaugh is a concise and thoughtful catalogue of all the bad news from the past decade, compiled with an eye to instilling maximal dread and hopelessness. As a thoughtful touch, this second addition comes with a customized epilogue – physical books get a short essay on the wood pulping process, digital copies come with an explanation on the atrophying effects of social media on attention spans.

Freeze!
A board game – hey, remember when we had those as kids? Well, here’s one again. One player runs the bank, collects the money, and sometimes yells ‘freeze!’ and then their appointed deputy can shoot as many of the other players as they like. Comes with working kid-sized taser. Pretty good fun for all ages so long as at least two people are knowledgeable about CPR.

DaileeGrind
A cool app for your phone that records your job all day and then creates minigames based around it for you to play after! Be careful – if you start skipping shifts, it fires you. Recommended for anyone who really needs more chores in their life.

lol
A fifty-GB box set of America’s finest comedy, selected from everything from stand-up comics to animated shows. Revel in a selection of humour aimed at everyone that isn’t like you. Cherish the most funny message of all: that everything is bad, but especially anything new, and caring too much about anything is really dumb. You can buy more of this stuff if you want to feel more funny with the 200-GB box set.

Chunk o’ Coral
Hey, remember the Great Barrier Reef dying? Better put a stop to that! With this tiny sample of it in a tiny tank, you can preserve a piece of what was once the world’s largest organism! Better not forget to clean the tank because otherwise it’ll be awkward when we try and put the pieces back together and your chunk looks all grody and/or dead.

Greatest Hits
This is just a link to an endless playlist YouTube generates based on your search history, but I’m told it’s good. Cheap, too.

Im Very Smart
If you’ve ever wanted success – in business, in your love life, in your local homeowner’s association meetings – then look no further than to this thoughtful tome, which will explain to you how you can fix all of your problems by acting more like a rhinoceros beetle because biology is basically all the same and people are just stupid meat robots. You will not BELIEVE how many things will be solved by you headbutting people and flipping them over with your horns. Females will love you, males will avoid you (if you’re female and considering buying this book, don’t bother, the foreword assures us you can’t read). Real fans can follow up with the sequels: Womn Are Stupd and IQ is Xtremlly Real And Larg.

Food
Everyone loves this, right? And we keep getting these headlines screaming about crop failure and ocean primary productivity loss and something about aquifiers. So buy your friends food and buy it fast, because they could probably use it soon.

Suicide Kit
Inspired by the humble and humanitarian efforts of Dr. Kervorkian yet intent on building upon them with an eye to market supply and demand, this more sophisticated mass-produced corporate model is a small butter knife and a two-page manual explaining you need to insert the dowel into the socket and jiggle the handle for best performance. For the coward’s way out, a simple lobotomy is also described. No refunds.

Small, Fragile Animal
Take care of this incredibly tiny meeping thing and get an extra thrill out of your life as you realize that if you ever screw up it will almost certainly perish. Inedible. Sustainably milled.

BANG BANG BANG
A simple game with simple controls. Pushing, pressing, or failing to press anything will make your gun fire. Watch for as long as you like. If you’re cheap, just go watch other people play it on YouTube. I heard the reaction videos are good. Remember to like and subscribe!

An Online Friend
Contains a simple machine learning program that will simulate having conversations with you on IM like you were 14 again. Commiserate with it, laugh with it, reminisce with it, realize you have grown old before your time, fall into an endless pit of nostalgia in a desperate attempt to escape the present through the re-experience of outdated corporate fodder. Comes with a shirt.

Bacon
The internet told us everyone loves this unless they’re vegetarian vegan or religious. So this is a picture of some bacon. You can still make memes with it and it’s cheaper than the real thing.

Motivation
These pills don’t do anything. Great gag though.

As below, so above – an ecological survey of extraplanar ecology using modern methods

Grace Kim, Peter C. Brothers, Manuel Souza

November 32nd, 1988

Abstract
Most examinations of extraplanar activities have historically been anthropocentric in nature, principally focused on understanding those demons and angels that express interest in human activity. This research is the first documented scientific examination of the ecological makeup of heaven and hell. Results include the discovery of an ectological ecology of undescribed species, which show many intriguing parallels to earth’s own biotic communities as well as its impending environmental crises.

Figures
All figures produced are unintelligible within a dimension of Real or more. To view the figures for this paper, ascend to Unreal(2) or greater for maximum clarity and look at the dots below with your third eye.

Table 1
*

Table 2
*

Fig. 1
*

Table 3
*

Fig. 2
*

Table 4
*

Introduction
The ecological makeup of heaven and hell is a ghostly topic. Undirected and uncoordinated interest in it has existed in the past, but not within the scientific community – which up until this paper’s publication has been principally concerned with the anthropocentric inhabitants of the extraplanar realms [1]. Although the utility of this research has been obvious and fascinating [2], we felt that there was a real lack of research and insight into the more fundamental structure of extraplanar life. In order to correct this, we conducted a multi-stage ecological survey of heaven and hell using the Borgman apparatus and several innovative chants. Our primary objective was to fill this research gap; our secondary objective, to show its relevance to human interests.

Materials and methods
Informed permission for this study was obtained from both the study area’s resident Throne and the local Duc of Flies. Samples were collected using an ecto core mounted on the Borgman apparatus from thirty locations each from Unreal(1-4). All samples were placed in spiritually sealed tanks and sieved with the Kim (alpha) chant for maximum clarity and resolution in acquisition of specimens [3]. All specimens were then itemized, tagged, and reascended. Tags were operable for ten months before the echoes faded. All results were collated and examined with an open third eye at Unreal(3) or greater.

Results
In a surprising turn of events, samples from all four layers of Unreal show a diversity of minor and non-anthropocentric ectological life (Table 1). Ectological analogues of both trophic structure and guild appear to be in play, with primary producers feeding not on solar energy but on belief – confirming several of our hunches. Species abundance was greatest in Unreal(1-2) and tapered sharply into Unreal(4) (Table 2), which was largely dominated by small foraging creatures (SFCs) (Fig. 1). Gut contents and small, dim haloes suggest the SFCs are opportunistic scavengers and are likely fed by the many leavings and after-chants of the principle angels and demons of Unreal(4). They are nowhere near as common or large in the other layers, suggesting that Unreal(4) possesses only relictual fauna (Table 3). Moreover, this discrepancy between the SFC populations appears to have been relatively recent, as the SFCs of all three layers are nigh-identical and appear to be interfertile. This suggests that the pauperization of the Unreal(4) ecosystem may be historic. Causes could include the dietary predilections of Dominions, which are known to hunger ceaselessly [2].
No large predators were found, and only one large secondary consumer, whose gut contents; eight massive jaws with the teeth of oxen, horses, and sheep; and multichambered stomach imply a generalist forager (Fig. 2). All traces and specimens were located in disturbed communities. In relation to this, disturbed communities in early stages of succession dominated the sample sites to an unlikely degree, especially given the controlled randomization of site selection (Table 4). It is possible (and in our opinion, probable) that this is a result of the hellish ‘sprawl’ of the nineteenth century termed ‘the tenth circle’ [1].

Discussion
Although this is the first ecological survey of the Unreal, already we are tempted to draw alarming conclusions. Rather than the pristine ‘high wilderness’ spoken of in public belief both historical and modern, we see instead a mirror of our own world’s bruised ecology. It appears that complex society, on heaven as it is in earth, cannot exist without an ecological footprint, and a large one at that. Although it is beyond the bounds of both this study and our field of expertise, we strongly advise that contact be made with the governing bodies of heaven and hell for more information on these crises and to explore a possible collaboration on cataloguing problems and devising solutions to prevent further environmental degradation. As we do below, so they do above.

References
[1] Liu SQ, Zhang CC, Jacob P, Zhang L. Angelic and demonic governance. Outer Spheres 1977; 10 (1): 122-163.

[2] Edith KW and Jules B. Human and extrahuman contact. Word 1980; 101 (12): 1302-1360.

[3] Grace K. Three new chants and their potential uses. Outer Spheres 1985; 7 (4): 415-431.

“I see a snow angel.”
“That’s nice,” said dad.
And that was probably all I was getting. He concentrated when he was driving – he’d never get annoyed, but he would sink into a soft, cloudy sort of voice that told you he wasn’t home.
I tried anyway. “Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“How high can snow angels fly?”
“I don’t know, honey,” he said. “Go ask one and find out.”
“Okay.”
I figured it was worth a try. It had been very low – just skimming the roof of our neighbour’s garage – and maybe it needed help.

First I had to have lunch though. And because I begged a little hard I got hot chocolate before I went out, instead of after, and I didn’t quite finish my mug, which meant when I snuck over to the neighbour’s backyard I had something to give the snow angel.
It was bigger than I thought it’d be. All eyes and wheels and steaming, rippling. The air around it smelled sharp and made my nose tingle.
“I brought you a drink,” I told it.
“Thank you.” Its voice came from somewhere inside it, not from one of its mouths. It sounded soft and light, like powder. “Put it down here and I’ll have it later.”
“Are you hurt? You looked like you were hurt. Did you hit the garage? We’re not allowed to go up there. It’s too high.”
Then I remembered.
“How high can you fly?”
“I’m hurt, but only a little. If you can help me, I should be fine very soon. I didn’t hit the garage roof, don’t worry. And I can fly very high, very high.”
“All the way to the moon?”
The snow angel laughed. It was polite, but I could tell it was still laughing at me. Just like grandpa.
“Even higher.”

“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Where do we keep the amunya?”
“The what?”
“The amunya.”
“Ammonia? Like bleach?”
“Yeah, that’s what it is.”
That got me a lecture on why I should never touch the cleaning supplies. But when he was done I knew where they were and so I went and got some and was very careful not to open the cap.

“Ahhh.”
“Dad said not to drink it. It’s bad for you.”
“It’s good for snow angels. Thank you very much. I feel better already.”
And it looked better, too. There was a glow inside it, like a nightlight but stronger. And its breath smelled like a swimming pool.
“Now, there is something else I could use, if you’re clever enough to get it for me.”
“What?”

“Honey?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s four glasses of water in ten minutes. Did you eat something weird?”
“No.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah.”
“Pinky swear?”
“Yeah.”
“Good enough. Remember to go to the bathroom soon.”

The snow angel was bigger now. Bits of it had grown and woven themselves; it looked like it was a lacy napkin the size of a house. When its wings moved, they tinkled like windchimes.
“Better,” it sighed. Its voice was the same soft powder as before, and it seemed funny now. “So much better now. And all thanks to you, small person.”
“You’re welcome.”
“There is one last thing. One very last, very little thing. I think you can help me with it, and then it will all be fine again and I can go home and see my friends.”
“Okay.”
“Give this to your family. It’s a gift.”
“A present?”
The angel laughed again. Very, very politely. “Yes. A present. It’s a surprise present. Put it under where your family sleeps.”

“Hey honey?”
“Yeah?”
“You look a little worried. Is it the water?”
“No.”
“I told you not to drink too much. You feel okay?”
“No. Yes.”
“Which is it?”
“Daaaaaaad.”
“Do you need something?”
I thought about it.
“Yes.”

The window was blowing when I went back outdoors in the twilight. White flakes in purple light, streaming.
The snow angel was taller than the trees now. It was eating the snowflakes like a whale eating fish.
“Oh, thank you,” it told me. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful. I can go home now, and I’ve got a surprise for you there too.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me too. Want it?”
Laugh, laugh, laugh. This one was real. It was big, it was loud, it sounded like ice cracking, and the air smelled like a broken battery. It wasn’t polite at all.
“Yes, please. I’d love your surprise.”
“Hot chocolate,” I said. And I threw it at the snow angel’s middle.
The splash was small, but the scream was much, much, much bigger.

“Dad?”
“Yeah honey?”
“Do you know how to make snow angels?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t make any more. They’re creepy.”
“Uh-“
“Pinky swear. Please.”

And he did.
I never saw one again all winter, so I guess it worked.

Josh Whoomer was a simple, ordinary person.
He ate junk food, he bummed around, and he spent his money and himself on nerdy things.
You know. Nerdy things.
Star Wars backpacks and Batman pens and entire Worlds of Warcraft and video cards. As he grew, so too did his interests, and he shrank to meet them – especially once the scoliosis set in.
But it was not anywhere in Josh Whoomer’s life that his finest hour came, but rather, after the fact. Specifically, three minutes after he very factually tripped over his shoelaces picking up an Amazon package and broke his neck.

He waited there, Josh Whoomer did. Held in place by awe and superstitious terror and relief, pinned like a bug. And when one of those mountainous intents spoke aloud, he was swallowed up entire by its words.
“All that he is, is ours,” intoned the first mountain. Its slopes were coated with explosions and SFX, rippling endlessly from denouement to opening credits. “Did he not marvel at Harry Potter and Batman? Has he not always considered them his favourites since childhood? He belongs to Warner Media ™. Let none dispute this.”
“We dispute this,” spoke the second mountain. It too was bedecked with a flowing cape of moving pictures. “All that he is, is ours. He may still feel you in his heart, but his mind is filled with our works. No greater thing lies within his brain than Star Wars. He is property of The Walt Disney Corporation ™, and no word may contradict this.”
“You are mistaken,” said the third mountain. This one shook in place, vibrating with the force of its own superheated, churning guts. Things were under pressure so great that it leaked at the pores, jets of piercingly bright violence by gun and magic wand. “Mind or matter, soul or spirit, all that he is ours. Time is space is money, and no one has claimed more of it than Activision-Blizzard ™. Years pure years – are ours. Who can match this sacrifice? He is ours, no matter what.”
“No matter what the method he used?” asked the fourth mountain. This one was cold and stark and stretched endlessly, a being that ate the horizon and shrank it. “All that he did for you, was through our paths. All roads lead to and from me, and we are them. We are Microsoft Corporation ™, and his world existed because we provided it. All that he is, is ours. Indisputably.”
There was a drawn-out and grim silence. Josh tried to quote Star Trek, but found that his throat was quite dry.
“Perhaps, our fellow omnipotents,” purred the great bell-kitten voice of Warner Media ™, “there is a time to reason among ourselves. Let us not forget our place. There is a Law here, and its rule is absolute, and should be abided.”
“Maximize profit, minimize cost?” asked Activision Blizzard ™.
“The copyright must flow ever farther back?” said The Walt Disney Company ™
“No,” said Warner Media ™. “Those are good laws and true, but the law we speak of is much older, much truer. Fellow omnipotents, is there any law which lies above this?”
And here it quoted, and quoted true, with a heat and power that scorched away mere marks.
Shareholder Value Must Be Maximized At All Costs
“And our fellow omnipotents,” said Warner Media ™, “what are we, if not those?”
“It is just,” said The Walt Disney Company ™.
“It is just,” said Activision Blizzard ™.
“It is just,” said Microsoft Corporation ™.
“It is just,” said Warner Media ™. “I call dibs.”
And so they set upon the form of Josh Whoomer and divided him amongst themselves in a fair and equitable manner.
“Got the credit,” said Warner Media ™.
“Got the watch,” said The Walt Disney Company ™.
“Got the shoes,” said Microsoft Corporation ™.
“Got the phone,” said Activision Blizzard ™.
“Got the wallet,” said Microsoft Corporation ™.
With those words they turned their backs and distanced themselves from Josh, who suddenly felt very alone.
“Uh. Are you taking my soul?” he asked, just loudly enough to be sure he’d said it, but just quietly enough that he could plausibly pretend he hadn’t.
“Nah,” came the faint reply, echoing up from the ever-billowing corporate fog. “No profit in that.”

Nothing was there now. Nothing but grey. Endless, eternal grey.
“Damnit,” thought Josh. “How will I afford Transformers figurines now?”
And then he saw the light. It was warm and soft and beckoning and it glimmered so very enticingly that his eyes couldn’t leave it.
He had to have it.
Josh walked, he crawled, he ran, he sprinted, he stumbled head over heel, he did all of those things without a body. Very impressive. And at the end of the endless mists he found a soft pulsing heat which grabbed him and turned him inside out three times over until he stopped vomiting.
“Hi,” said a soft and bored voice. “Please check the box to indicate you understand.”
Josh looked up with what most certainly weren’t his eyes and saw a hideous and unnameable thing. It looked like a soft and tired middle-manager, but it felt like every bad day he’d ever heard of.
“The box is in the bottom right corner,” it told him helpfully.
Josh tore his eyes away from the worst thing he’d ever seen just in time for it to become second place. He’d never seen such a capacious sheaf of paper before, or a print so small-boned and fine. It could’ve graced an opthamologist’s office, probably with a placard reading ‘advanced.’
He checked the little box in the bottom right corner.
“Thankyoovalyoodcustomurr,” said the devil. “Now pick up your shovel (lvl 1) and go mine some dirty rocks (lvl 0).”
“Sorry?”
“Each rock is worth 10 bobs. For a thousand bobs you get a shovel (lvl 2) and can mine smudged rocks (lvl 0.5). Have fun.”

And you know what? He really did.

It was the time!
THAT time!
The good time! The best time! Or at least the most exciting time!
The cold rain was coming in!
So many things to be done before that. So many chores turned into games of do-it-the-fastest. So many pets to be bid fare-thee-well-forever to. So many vistas to be gazed at, filled with the subtle understanding that they would never more be seen. So many names to be screamed with such force and urgency.
What a hoot!
And my hoot was loudest of all, because it was getting pretty late on and everyone else had crammed themselves into the tiny squished place.
“GAAAAALEEEEEEE. HEEEEEEEEY GAAAAALLLLEEEEE. GEDDOVERHEEEEEEREEEEE GAAAAAAALEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
And on and on and on like that, until I tripped over something, which was Gale.
“Ooops.”
“Ow.”
“Sorry bout that.”
“You hit my leg.”
“Real sorry.”
“It’s gonna bruise.”
“Aw, I’m super sorry.”
“What do you care so loud about today anyhow?”
I stared at Gale, checking just to be sure she hadn’t been replaced by someone dumber in the night. “Because the cold rain’s coming in,” I told her very carefully, “and it’s time to go into the tiny squished place.”
“Oh, that,” she said. “No.”
“Right,” I said. “C’mon along and we can maybe find a nice spot to what the hell in a hot sauce are you talking about.”
“I’m not going,” said Gale. “I’m going to escape.”
“That’s crazy,” I said.
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is! Where’re you gonna go, huh? North? It’s flat and dead. South? It’s rocky and dead. West? Nothing but the big empty sea. And east, of course, is filled with giant angry monsters. You’re going to get smooshed into ooze. Come on back and I bet I can elbow us a nice spot at the entrance, where we can watch the cold rain fall and very nearly not die. Will that make you happy?”
“No,” said Gale. “I’m going to leave. You can stay here and dodge the cold rain forever and ever if you’d like to, but I’m going to go east, over the hills, and find a place where the cold rain never falls. It sure beats this. See you late, or never, or whenever.”
And she was gone. Well, functionally. It’d take her another good while to run up over those first hills and out of sight, but as far as all of us were concerned she was gone.
I watched Gale be gone for another precious little minute or so, just out of surprise. Then I turned tail and ass, hauled both down to the tiny squished place like they were on fire, and just barely fit my entire self into the opening before the first angry drops came hammering down.
That was one of the worst nights I’d had, and I’d made a few of them for myself. Hours and hours of my backside being six blips from eradication, and chilly to boot. It didn’t endear me a lot to Gale’s memory.
Memory, not Gale herself. Gale herself had undoubtedly been beaten to bony bits by now on some ugly and empty slope. I thought so, and so did the other six or seven people who were crammed up against my face that I asked about this sort of thing, who all seemed very confident of it.
“Seen it happen a dozen times before,” said Eddy, the widest man. “Someone turns quiet-crazy and says ‘I can change everything!’ and then hey, they get themselves whacked. Best to know when you’re trying to do something impossible.”
“What happened to the other dozen people?” I asked Eddy.
“Dunno,” he said. “Never found ‘em again.”
“Do you think any of them made it?”
“Aw, not you too.”
And that was that.

When the cold rain ended, I wandered pretty high and pretty low, looking for Gale. But not super hard, because I didn’t really want to see any bony bits. Guess I got my wish because I sure didn’t find anything.
That was the disappointment, for sure. I didn’t find anything. And that made me worry.
It made me worry all day long digging up the good roots.
It made me worry all evening long brewing down the jellies.
It made me worry through a week solid as we went rockhunting through the Old Crumbles, and found some pretty good rocks to whack things with.
It even made me worry all through the Big Catch Day, which was dangerous because that was when the fresh jellies came in from the Net Guys On The Sea and if you don’t pay attention when you’re untangling those they sting the bejeezus out of you. As it was I lost my bejeezus three times to inattention.
But I couldn’t stop worrying, because I was worried that Gale was right. She’d had a habit of that, sometimes, when she could be bothered, and if it cropped up again boy would I be pissed off. It’d be just like her, to be right like that and then rub it in my face by never mentioning it. Just infuriating. Enraging. Damnit I hated when she did that, and now every day was filled with it.
So the next time the weathervane screeched I hollered my dues, waved bye to everything, and ran for the hills.

It was a spur of the moment thing. The problem with that kind of thing is that once you’re off the moment it just seems stupid.
I ignored that and concentrated on running. There was plenty to be done there.
The rocks weren’t my friends. The rocks were nobody’s friends, ever. But they seemed cooperative enough for the moment for me to live in, running full-tilt uphill and trying to guess what shade of green the clouds were and where exactly I’d seen her run, where she’d run to, and how fast.
Maybe it was here, just above here, that was where Gale had sheltered overnight. Maybe it was there, right there, in that hollow. Maybe it was “Aww, mince,” I said.
The skeleton was in pretty rough shape. The cold rain had beaten its limbs to bits and cracked even the big solid skull and pelvis. But yeah, that looked Gale-shaped to me.
“I DID warn you,” I told her.
She didn’t listen. Well, sometimes things don’t change.
The sky was starting to hiss. Somewhere behind me, the cold rain was starting. The sea was getting smashed to sloppy chunks.
I ran again. Hell, why not?

I didn’t have a plan as to WHERE, mind you. And never you mind why, or what.
But boy did I run.
Behind me, the cold rain came down. Spiked, thorned, thicker than a fist, faster than mother’s forearm. Cracking into stone and sending up little geysers of dirt.
I won’t lie to you. I felt pretty dumb right about then.
I wished I’d never listened to Gale, or at least put more than a half-second’s worth of thought into any of her arguments.
I wished I’d paid more attention to anyone else, who knew anything.
I wished I’d spent more time running so I could run faster right this minute.
It’s just that in the meantime, I couldn’t do any of those things.
So I ran.

Boy, did I run!

In the early morning of the first day of the third year of her tutelage under the philosopher of garbage, the student Surk was rolled out of her bed, into her coat, and out the door, which was immediately locked behind her.
This was, by now, very normal.
“Come back when you have an answer to my question,” said the philosopher of garbage.
“What question?” asked the student Surk.
And she took her answer and went to the first place she could think of.

The fry shop was packed tight with people picking up coffee and donuts. The student Surk’s elbows were bruised from the ribs of her opponents by the time she reached the counter, and the less said about where her knee had been the better.
“Order up, order up, order up, order up,” yelled the fry cook into her face in incoherent despair and utmost professionalism.
“What is the nature of humanity?” asked the student Surk.
The fry cook blinked seven times in half a second and replied: “To consume endlessly and never be satisfied. Get out of here or I’m shoving this spatula up your urethra.”
The student Surk thanked the fry cook, caught the donut that was hurled at her head, and left.

Half the donut got her past the lobby, the other half got her an audience. The computer technician wore no tie, shaved no cheek, and suffered no fools. His eyes were squinted and his hair was thinned and his mind was pared down to a thin blade of acid.
“Hi,” he said. “This isn’t jelly. You aren’t Rosemary. What the hell are you doing in here?”
“What is the nature of humanity?” asked the student Surk.
“Wow,” said the computer technician. “Wow. Seriously? Who cares. Only morons think about that stuff. If you were smart you’d make enough money to not give a shit about that question. English major over here.”
The student Surk thanked the computer technician, then flipped him off with both hands and left.

From there, the next target was obvious.
The pass-badge from the computer technician’s desk and an authoritative series of lies led the student Sark from room to room to room to working on ‘repairing’ a small camera in a corner of the press gallery of the Highest Courtyard. Ingenuous use of coffee breaks did the rest of the work for her, and before long the ruler entered the room.
“Hey!” shouted the student Sark, as the crowd of scribes settled down and placed pens to tablets. “What’s the nature of humanity?”
The ruler sighed. “Obviously, asking stupid questions, doing stupid things, and generally getting themselves killed without proper guidance from the qualified. Guards, seize her and do something fatal.”
But the student Sark was already gone.

It was a nice day in the botanical gardens. Quiet. Clear skies. A breeze. And not too dry. You could practically hear the plants growing.
The head gardener was not a whistling woman, but she did indulge herself in loud humming when the times merited it. And so they did. Good weather to be alive in. Good weather to work in. Good weather to turn the compost heap in.
The compost heap yelped under her shovel, then disgorged the student Surk.
“Jeez,” said the gardener. “What were you doing in there?”
“Long story,” said the student Surk. “I’ll cut it short: what is the nature of humanity?”
The gardener hummed that one over for a moment. “To grow,” she said. “And while you’re at it, to tend. Hey, do you hear a siren?”
“Absolutely. Can you lend me your hat?”
“N-”
“Thanks,” said the student Surk. And she left over the nearest wall.

Six miles between the palace and her was the safe zone, and a good time to stop and be someone else. Always easier than most people thought. Turn your clothes inside out, clean the dirt off your face, walk higher in the shoulders, there you are, you’re a stranger.
“You done?” asked the plumber. “Sink’s clogged.”
“I know,” said the student Surk. “I just clogged it.”
They sighed. “Great. Thanks. The hell is this? Compost.”
“Absolutely.”
“Wonderful. Anything else I can help you with?”
“Sure. What’s the nature of humanity?”
“To produce shit, naturally. That be all?”
“Yes. You’ve been immeasurably helpful.”
“Don’t sweat it,” said the plumber.
And then two minutes later: “Hey. Wait a second.”

The walk back, as it so often is, was much longer. The sun helped by setting on her halfway through, and the frost was thick on the doorknocker of the garbage-hovel.
“Go away,” said the philosopher of garbage.
“It’s me,” said the student Surk.
“Did you find an answer for me? Need to pay your yearly rent with something, and you know it.”
The student Surk nodded. “The nature of humans, my teacher, is utterly blinkered self-absorption.”
“About time you got it,” said her teacher. “Now come in and close the door. You’re letting in cold air, and I’ve got a kettle waiting for us.”

See the rocks.
Red hot and boiling with potential; brimmed with enthusiasm and cheer.
They are all so new, and they already harden with age. Huge sheets and cratons, cores and ridges, spread across the planet – a skin thin enough to make an apple envious, but miles deep. Below they run together in a liquid that turns from slush to pure flow, but here they are craggy and proudly solid, or as near as a thing can be to that. All children of the sun’s scraps, congealed like over-done scrambled eggs. Scraps made whole.
See the rocks. See them grow stiff and solid and endless.
Now, let us watch them dance.

See the rocks dance. It is a special technique.
The ponderous grind of tectonics; the smooth slippage of the mantle greasing the way. The surface of the planet puckers and dimples as water arrives and winds its way around the continents. They are crashing together, they are splitting apart, they are one and divided.
Nowhere else yet seen knows this dance. Affable little Mars is silent. Twin sister Venus is still. The giant moon above hangs cold and empty, though its stones are the old cousins of those below. They will grow ever older, and never shift an inch.
Below all this, and utterly alone, the rocks dance.

See the seas dance. It’s hard to find anywhere else they ever will.
A little colder and they will freeze forever. A lot hotter and they will boil away into the atmosphere.
It will be a lot hotter, someday, when the sun gets too old and angry.
But for now they are free to surge, and they are making the most of it. The rocks may comprise the planet, but it is the seas that cover it. Only the piddling nubbins of the continental crust dare raise a peep of their mass above the waterline.
They flex, they bob, they weave up and down as the planet tips and spins and wobbles and the atmosphere curdles and coughs.
A lot less patient than rocks.

See the little things dance. They do so in desperation.
They want to continue – they must, all of them that didn’t care are gone. The survivors are passionately afraid, and will stop at nothing to continue. Every movement is calculated, every angle eyed, every opportunity exploited to throw a tiny fragment into the future. Again. Again. Again!
Some of them have discovered a trick of turning sunlight into food. This is an excellent trick and begins to become more widespread.
Unfortunately, it’s not as clean as it could be. After the feast comes the relief, which produces a small but noteworthy quantity of an angry little thing.
For a long time, there will be no consequences.

See the consequences come storming in. They’re furious and ready to tear up the place.
Oh-oh, oh times two. It’s oxygen. And it’s ready to kill.
Sets its sights on all those rocks, gets sucked in like spaghetti and shreds them, tears them, rusts them. Oxidation everywhere, all the where. Minerals popping up like zits on the double, and the seas and skies a deathly soup as all the little things that prefer their homes still and safe choke to death on poison.
Some of them live. Some of them get real messed up and even decide they LIKE it. They like this shake-up.
Take a deep breath. Keep dancing.

See the little things grow fat. It takes a long time.
Little things taking little things inside them to make them into bigger things which multiply themselves into bigger things that eat little things that change into bigger things that get bigger.
It’s not a great solution, and it’s not for everything, or even most things, or even SOMEthings. Almost all of the little things…stay little. They’re endlessly busy, but they’ve got plenty of space.
Some of the poor little things grown fat think they’ve gotten an easy time of it. Gotten too big for their predator’s britches. Boy are they annoyed when their fellows turn on them.
Underneath the little things, the older dances continue. But they’re too big and too slow for their nervous and self-absorbed little heads. Except when some of the rocks sneeze and turn the seas anoxic, or somesuch. THAT gets their attention, at least until it’s over.

See the little things sprint. There’s no art to it, but you have to admire their frenzy.
Up! Up! Up! Into the macrosphere!
Out! Out! Out! Across the planet!
Fill the seas! Surge onto the shores!
Grow taller! Grow thicker! Grow greener!
Grow bigger! Grow hungrier! Grow fewer!
If the rocks belch and you all die, well, roll with it and get back up in a mad scramble. If the sky spits a stone from the beginning of time onto your head and blots out the sun, them’s the breaks and the lucky ones have no time to shake it off. It’s a race! It’s THE race! Get going, going, GONE!
And this too is a dance, even if it’s a little bit tasteless.

See the ape dance.
It’s hard, but if you squint you can make them out.
It’s one of the little things. No, not that one. That one. Not that one. THOSE ones. Yeah, there. No, over there. Trust me.
Silly creatures – they’re strutting along bolt upright, waving tools in the air and stuffing everything into their mouth that’ll fit. Hollering and jumping, hopping and spinning. Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!
That’s no way to conduct yourself in public. There outta be a law… but of course there isn’t. Everyone’s been more or less making this up as they go along.
Things tend to work out, in the long run.

Once upon a time, there was a diligent and hardworking beaver. All day long the beaver toiled at his dam, cutting down trees and dragging them to the place where his tiny little brain told him the sound of rushing water was loudest. It was just a very little stream, but it was what was there, so it’d have to do.
“What’re you doing?” the other animals asked him.
“Dunno,” said the beaver. “Feel like it. I like this.”
“You don’t know why you’re doing it?” they said. “That’s silly.”
The beaver grumbled at the laughter of his friends and neighbors, but continued to work hard. Day and night, sun and rain, down came the trees and up came the dam. Plastered with stream-mud, built on tree-bones, higher and higher.
“Silly,” said the mice and the voles and the grubs and the spiders and the millipedes. “Silly!”
And the beaver grumbled some more, but with his mouth full. There was work to be done.
None too soon, either. The rain was coming.

It came in fast and hard and in sheets, accompanied by a wind that could shred treetops and tear teeth from mouths.
The beaver’s teeth were safe inside the beaver’s mouth inside the beaver’s nest under the bank, where he listened to the chaos and madness for two days. On the morning of the third day, the beaver came above the waterline and looked around.
His dam had worked beautifully. The rainwater had channeled itself into the stream, and now the forest was a lovely beaver meadow, comfortably drowned.
“Hah,” said the beaver, as he watched the corpses and homes of his friends and neighbours bob in the froth. “Who’s silly now?”
Then he gnawed down a funny-looking tree, took a big bite out of the weird-looking branch hanging off it, and fried himself to death.
Several of the brighter woodland creatures could’ve told him that was a power line. But they’d all left or drowned by then.

***

Once upon a time, there was a poor and miserable family of two: Jack and his mother. All they had to live in was a shack made of two boards nailed together, all they had to eat was old dry dirt. The one thing they had left in all the world was his father’s old bare-boned stock portfolio.
“Jack,” said his mother, “take that damned thing into town and sell it, would you? We can’t eat paper, and believe me we’ve tried.”
Jack nodded and walked to town and walked back and walked back into town with the stock portfolio this time and sold it off and was almost all the way back home with the proceeds when he ran into a mysterious stranger about five hundred feet tall.
“Psst,” said the stranger. “Want to buy some beans?”
“No,” said Jack.
“C’mon,” said the stranger. “They’re magic.”
“No,” said Jack.
“Plant them and they’ll carry you up into the magical cloud-realm of the giants, where you can steal all the loot your tiny arms can carry.”
“No,” said Jack.
“Aww, c’mooonnn.”
“No,” said Jack.
“Tell you what,” said the stranger. “Pay me just five bucks and you can buy this mystery bag that contains a randomized number of beans with a chance to contain a magic bean of rare, super rare, epic, legendary, or mythical qualities, each exponentially more potent than a regular magic bean.”
“I will buy every single one of them,” said Jack.
And that was how Jack came home with no money, a cartful of painted navy beans, and ten thousand dollars of bean debt, which kept him miserable and enserfed until his grandchildren died without descendants after decades of back-breaking labour and hardship.

***

Once upon a time, there was a king who loved two things: his family, and making numbers go up. His principal means of doing the latter was logging, for his kingdom was well-timbered. Many trees were felled, many logs were hauled, many numbers were delivered to the king, and with these he purchased fine things for himself and his children. This pleased him so much that he would order more trees to be felled, and so it continued for some time, until the kingdom’s landscape was much troubled by erosion. The peasants complained, but they were only peasants and as such irrelevant.
At length came a warning, delivered by an ancient crone who stepped through the castle’s guards as if they weren’t there. She walked through the king’s court and touched each courier, and as she touched them they were stricken dumb, until she stood before the king in a true and deep silence.
“I am of the deep and rotten woods,” said the witch. “I am of the swamp and bog. You’ve wrecked your lands, and now you wreck mine. Leave it be or suffer the consequences.”
“Pish to threats,” said the king. “I will not accede to such boorish behaviour. Nuts to your nonsense, alarmist upstart.”
“Very well,” said the witch. “Until the day you cease to destroy my home, I curse you thus: for every hundred logs taken, one of your children shall fall into an everlasting sleep. Only by returning the landscape to what it once was shall you see them ever wake again.”
“Fuck you,” said the king.
“I’m sorry?” said the witch.
“Fuck you,” said the king. “You think I care? I love two things: my family and making numbers go up. You want to make me choose between them? Easy. Numbers. Fuck you, and fuck my children too. Let the little bastards rot in their beds, I’ll console my grief with luxury. I’ll chop logs just to watch ‘em burn! To hell with you, to hell with them! To hell with this metaphor – I DON’T EVEN CARE ABOUT TREES! ALL I NEED IS OIL!”
The king ripped off his robes to reveal an expensive and well-fitted suit and screamed in pride and despair, as if someone had stuck a lightning rod up his urethra.
“I LOVE IT. I LOVE IT SO MUCH I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT IT. I LOVE IT AND THE NUMBERS. BY GOD, DAMN YOU AND ALL THIS EARTH!”
Then he hurled himself out the window and ran off into the wilds, on all fours, like a beast. He was never again seen as he was, although an unidentifiable and mashed mass of flesh was pried out of the moving parts of the largest pumpjack in the kingdom some weeks later. It looked to have been trying to mount it.
The witch, the king’s children, the loggers, and the rest of the kingdom perished due to famine as their crops failed and local trade networks dissolved in a furor of paranoia and starvation.

May woke up and was a homeowner. She fumbled around inside her head and put on her homeowner face – cheerful, but empty.
This was normal.
She brushed her teeth and ate a breakfast and got dressed and had a shower and made a list of things to do in some order or another and had the closest thing to a morning she’d get.
Then she went down to the curb, to the bus.
“Morning,” she said.
“Morning,” she answered.
May got onto the bus and was bus driver. She put on the bus driver cap. She put on the bus driver face – stoic, yet aching underneath.
This was also normal.
There were twelve stops between Mary and her destination. More of her got on and off at each one. Faces, faces, going to places, places. Each with their own little problems and their own little profits.
At nine o’clock she stepped out at the bookstore and put on her homeowner face again.
It was a little grim and dusty inside, but she showed no sympathy to her book clerk. She wanted something, and the customer was always right.
So she toiled for herself, and found it buried in a dark corner where the roof’s collapse had shredded four bookcases and shielded another.
A newspaper.
“Excellent,” she told herself as she paid. She would read this as she drove herself to work in her taxi.

The stocks were up. The sports were down. Someone had scandal’d, but a speck of water damage had saved their name from besmirchment for all time.
“Hmmrph, hmorph. Hlarph,” proclaimed May authoritatively. “How much longer?”
“Almost there, ma’am,” said May. “Traffic’s bad.”
It always was on this street. King had been left clogged and she’d never got around to calling herself to clear out the breakdowns. But there was a path, if you were willing to violently ram a car into a few bumpers every day for years, and so there was.
May punched out the meter, paid herself her fare, and disembarked. As she took off her taxi driver face and put on her important mayor face she vowed once more to never use such a shoddy service again, as was her custom. It had almost made her late to work. This was improper and abhorrent.
Indoors, May threw her briefcase into the council chamber, sat down at the secretarial desk, and put on her receptionist face – friendly and open yet utterly unyielding. She scheduled up the day, dealt with three rude and unseemly incidents where she didn’t have an appointment, and had lunch. When she was through she wandered into the chamber, put on her councillor face, and pushed through a little light gerrymandering, though it took some convincing her to do it.
A good day’s work.
To treat herself, on the way home she stopped off at a greasy and delicious little place, put on her fry cook face – dead serious, laser-focused, jaw slightly agape with furious concentration that could boil oil – and got takeout. Onion rings, thick and so crumb-larded that they were almost donuts.
She opened her mouth to take a bite and something swooped down, took the bite for her, from her, and shot up to a nearby roof before she could even flinch.
“Fuck!” she said. It was the third time her homeowner face had ever swore.
“AiiiieeEEK, AiiiiiEEEEEYK, YARK YARK YARK YARK YARK YARK!” replied the thief.
It was a vulgar thing, a white and grey bird with a yellow bill and hateful little yellowed eyes. It shredded her food and gulped it down greedily.
May glared at it with genuine hate, then forced it down. No, no no. This was not part of things, not right now.
So she put on her pest control face when she got home that night, and left a few onion rings on the porch, laced with rat poison and ketchup.

Tuesday came, and it was time to refuel. The onion rings were missing, a fine omen as May’s bus driver face unloaded her at the gas station, where she put on her mechanic’s face – earnest and firm – and began untangling the mess of rotting pipes that led to the fresher tanks fit for siphoning.
At noon she took off her hat, put on her manager’s face – red and exasperated – and was busy berating herself for taking so long with her coffee when the bird shat in it.
It went ‘ploorp.’
“FUCK OFF!” she yelled at the sky – a shocking breach of professionalism, decorum, and civility – and threw her coffee at it. Immediately she put on her retail management face and berated herself for littering, but this only inflamed her temper further.
“AiiiiiiiieeeEEEEYUkkk, aiiiiiiEEEYUk, YAK YAK YAK YAK” chimed in the bird.
“FUCK OFF!” she instructed it again. It did not listen.
That night her homeowner’s sleep was poor and troubled, and not by her traditional fantasies of market irregularities and mortgages. Things with wings were watching her, mocking her, and when she woke up her pillow was gone.

Wednesday, Wednesday, humpday, humpday. A day for cubicles, and her weary, coffee-smudged, sigh-heavy white-collar face. “Working hard, or hardly working?” she asked herself.
“Get back to work,” her manager’s face told her, stern and crisp and tie-knotted.
She drank some more coffee, looked at some more newspapers – they should’ve been websites, but her electrical engineering face hadn’t managed to pull that together again just yet – and was just starting to get down to a nice productive morning when something came tapping and rapping at the window by the door.
“Who’s there?” she called.
Quoth the seagull, “AYIIIIIIIIKKKKK YAK YAK YAK YAK YAK YAK YAK YAK YAK YAK YAK YAK” and a whole lot more, just like that.
May cursed so foully that she was forced to fire herself on the spot and do the rest of the day’s work alone, wishing for competent help from the depths of her heart.
She set out more bait that night. A little bit of everything in the kitchen, mixed with a little bit pf everything from the paint shed and cleaning supplies.

On Thursday, everything was quiet. Too quiet.
May worked at the studio all day, but found herself drawn into doing nothing but weather reports all afternoon, and all of them ominous.
She went home, put out everything else in the kitchen with everything from ground glass to sharp pebbles mixed in, then went to bed staring at the wall and imagining little yellow beaks.

On Friday May harvested the crops, trucked them to the wholesale supplier, shipped them to the supermarket, bought the freshest-looking ones, drove home, and had just finished cooking them when the power went out.
She walked onto her porch, looked up at the wires, and saw the smouldering carcass of the gull, lodged in the transformer.
“It’s GONE,” she screamed at the bird. “Don’t you get it!? It’s GONE and it WON’T COME BACK. NOTHING’S HERE! Give it up, you’ve LOST! GET GOING!”
And with a small, truculent grunt the roof caved in on her.

If there was a moral to any of this, it was wasted on the bird. It just would’ve eaten it anyways.