He told her, “I need you like I need a slap in the face.”
She gasped and slapped him.
“Thank you,” he said, wincing slightly. “I did something weird to my jaw the other day and I think you knocked it back into place.”
Theirs was an atypical love affair.
It was approaching midnight, and Mandy didn’t have a clue where everyone else was. All she could see was darkness; all she could hear was soft sloshing and splashing. Where were they?
Something moved past her leg, startling her. She jumped and screamed: “Marco!”
A chorus of voices replied, “Polo!”
The cow’s tongue was rough and uncomfortably wet as it slapped its way across his face, licking and licking and licking. He was paralyzed with fear, sure it was getting ready to open its mouth wide and take a bite…
And that was how he got the nickname “Salty Face”.
Kraig drove off the lot with the fastest street-legal sports car available, the Chevrolexus Landjet XII, and he felt good about it.
His wife wasn’t quite so enthusiastic.
The problem wasn’t that it was unsafe or expensive: it was just impractical, in 2049, to drive a car on the ground.
“Is this what happiness is supposed to be like?” he asked himself. “Am I happy?”
He stepped out of his door. “Have I ever been happy?”
He made his way toward town.
“Oh, right. This makes me happy!” he thought, as his robot hands crushed another puny human head.
Tom Brendlinger often goes by the username of TomBrend.
The floor of the small, drably painted room was covered in sticky notes. Frantic “To Do” lists were scribbled on them, with frequent duplications and repetitions.
A brilliant man had once lived here.
He’d been obsessive-compulsive. That explained the sticky notes.
The battery-powered light bulb he’d swallowed explained the brilliance.
“‘You saved my life, Ratman! How can I thank you?’ – ‘I didn’t save you so you could thank me, Mr. Cheese. I just wanted to eat you myself!’ – ‘Oh no! Help me, someone!”
“Rusty, stop playing with your food!” snapped mother. “Why can’t you act like we normal mice do?”
“I missed the train again,” whined Alyssa over the phone to Gunther, her unsympathetic pet gorilla.
Gunther said, “Suck it up, princess,” but it was in sign language, so Alyssa didn’t see.
“Thanks for listening, hun,” said Alyssa. “See you tonight!”
As usual, Gunther spent the day plotting his escape.
“My stuff is in the truck already. Where’s yours?”
“I still think this is a colossal waste of time.”
“Look, I don’t make the rules. On Boxing Day we pack stuff, drive it around, and unpack it again. It’s tradition.”
“No, it’s idiotic.”
“Are you calling me stupid?”
“Absolutely yes.”
Just before dusk, the sun crept up to the horizon. He stealthily surveyed the dark but bustling city laid out before him.
The sun sprang forward, dashing across the sky at breakneck speed and vanishing on the other side.
If he was lucky, no one would notice he’d been late.