Website: Weirdyear

Dear Editor:

I recently started a new flash fiction site called “Weirdyear Daily Flash Fiction”, and I was wondering if you might be interested in putting a link to it up on your site.

www.weirdyear.com

Thanks!
Earl S. Wynn

Letter to the Editor: Odyssey Writing Workshop online

Odyssey’s online classes are designed for adult writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Each class is focused on a particular element of fiction writing and is designed for writers at a particular skill level, from beginners to professionals.

More information (and resources for writers): http://www.odysseyworkshop.org.

‘Foetal Distraction’ by Monica Carter

(c) 2009 Romeo Esparrago

Few leave this place alive. Entering through the heavy, green, odd-shaped door, Dr. Charles Dennis shivers. An inclement night: wind tears through the old house, the hospital, where desperate souls bury immorality, illness, fear of the immortal, or they bury themselves.  Tonight something other than death, sickness, and despair saturate the place; something else seems to have permeated the thick walls.

Old Jacob, a tangled mass of verbiage and stinking clothes, huddled on a makeshift bed beside an open fire, seeks the good doctor’s eye. “It were a night like this I found him, a black night — dark as ever ’ell was afore the Devil lit his fire!”  Phlegmatic eyes illuminated, he leans forward.  The unfortunate doctor wants to leave; a warm supper awaits him at the inn, but Jacob’s posture, its eerie promise, holds him.

He watches as the old man pulls his frayed coat tight about his skinny frame, rubs cold arms to warm still colder blood, and draws closer to the feeble flames that claw the dank October night, in the open grate.  Jacob, like a hideous automaton, clasps the doctor’s arm, and forces his wet mouth close against his shrinking ear.

“It were a night like this I found him: cold, wet, curled like a babe unborn, all dirty, soiled.” Before Dr. Dennis can enquire of whom he speaks, Jacob continues. “Sometimes he wept, and others he laughed, a screeching sound that sent the rats of Tanner Street — for that is where he was — scurrying.” The good doctor steps back in alarm.

NaNoWriMo Reopens

National Novel Writing Month: Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Details:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

‘Brain Break’ by Kris Knapp

Corrodel stepped through the telepod, fumbling with his mug and briefcase. He tripped, and hot coffee splashed on his white shirt.

Jobe swiveled in his hover chair and chortled. “Bravo.”

Corrodel sighed and set down his mug and briefcase.

Jobe hovered back around. “Thirty seconds late. Old man Lipston’ll have your head.” He sipped a fizzy drink.

Corrodel wrung out his tie. “Don’t care.”

Jobe shrugged and gnawed at the end of a choco-stick.

Corrodel sighed and tossed his tie aside. “I miss anything?”

“Petunias are in the Garden.” Jobe pointed with his choco-stick. “Your turn to clean out the fertilizer.”

They stared at each other.

Corrodel sighed and pulled on a rubber suit. He went to the cells and the laser bars disappeared.

“Why do we bother with these?” he muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

The human-blob inmates were arranged in uniform rows. Wires and cords ensnared their boneless limbs from the ceiling like strands of a spider web. Fluids pumped into their brains and into their gelatinous arms. He changed out their waste collectors, grumbling.

“Wouldn’t it just be cheaper to execute them?”

Jobe cackled. “Think so? What costs more? Fluids and our wages? Or lawyers, courts, appeals, more appeals…”

Corrodel rolled his eyes. He finished cleaning the collectors, walked through the disinfector and plopped down in a chair in the control room.

Jobe passed him a choco-stick. “See what they’re up to.”

Corrodel kicked his feet back and flipped on the vidscreens.

* * *

Wallach stared at the slice of pizza. Melted cheese bubbled around red saucers of pepperoni. He took a bite.

And spit it out. He shoved the plate away.

“What’s the matter?” Earl sucked on a giant rib. “You love pizza.”

“Tastes grey,” he said.

Earl barked, laughing. “How’s that?”

Wallach looked at the other inmates. They sat around in luxury chairs, eating filet mignon and lobster, drinking champagne and fancy booze. A diamond chandelier hung from the ceiling. Bombshell women and men muscled like Greek gods walked around, serving everything.

“You’ve just eaten it too much,” said Earl. A serving girl walked past. He grabbed her by her apron and wiped sauce from his face and spanked her. “Every day you eat the stuff.”

“Pizza used to be my favorite.” He shrugged. “Nothing tastes right to me.”

Earl shrugged. “Get drunk.”

Wallach stood and walked down the hall to Cell 18. He opened the door.

Scott was lying on a white sand beach. Muscled cabana boys served her drinks and fanned her with huge palms. Her heavy breasts bulged against a scandalously small black bikini. Her black hair was a salty tangle. Her head lolled and she looked at him. “You look pissed, Wally.”

“Want to sex?”

She rolled her eyes. “No. For God’s sake, go have Marilyn Monroe or Cleopatra or whoever.”

“It wouldn’t be real.”

She stretched like a cat. “Like I’m real.” She sat up. “I’m a blob on a chair somewhere. So are you.”

“We’re alive,” he murmured.

“No bones. No real brain. No eyes or teeth. We’re a sack of organs.” She stood and snapped her fingers. The cabana boys moved off.

“I’d rather live like that.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she said, walking to the water’s edge. “You’re just a little stir crazy. Happens to everyone. Want to build a sand castle?”

He shook his head.

She shrugged and walked into the crystal water. “Some people would kill to have this,” she said.

“So you won’t sex.”

She threw her hands up. Hundreds of naked women appeared on the beach and surrounded him. “Knock yourself out,” she said, and dove beneath a wave.

Wallach pushed through the throngs of women and followed her into the water. She surfaced and he floated beside her. “I’m going to try it,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Lee did it.”

“Lee died.”

“We don’t know that.”

“You don’t know it. The rest of us do.”

“I mean it, Scott.”

She kissed his cheek. “Best of luck.” The water surged all around her. A huge black fin cut through the water. She grabbed it and sped off on the back of a huge whale.

He swam back to shore and climbed back through the orgy of naked women. He went to his room: four grey walls. He snapped his fingers. A leather jacket appeared on his shoulders. A wide-brimmed hat appeared on his head. A pistol appeared in a holster on his belt. He took a deep breath and left his cell.

* * *

“A runner!”

Techs filed into the control room, waving money. They interfaced into the prison computers.

“Two hundred says he doesn’t make it past stage one!”

“Double or nothing says he makes it past stage four!”

“Five hundred on stage three!”

Corrodel put fifty creds in the pot that the runner wouldn’t make it past stage one. Any more and his wife would kill him.

“So what happens if they get past stage five?” said Sendak. He was a new tech with squirrelly cheeks and a big forehead.

“They don’t,” said Jobe, collecting the bets.

“But in theory. What if they do?”

Jobe rolled his eyes and belched. “The prison computers are all wired to the government processors. The ones that run everything on Earth and work at below 1% total capacity. It runs traffic, warrants, strategic defense, interplanetary travel, the economy, shopping lists and business accounts, and Christmas lists. It controls the interface chip installed in babies at birth, for God’s sake. Even though it’s literally impossible to get past stage five, if someone did I’m sure the computer has a stage six.” He looked at Corrodel. “Stage two. Loser cleans out collectors for a month.”

“You’re on.”

* * *

“Don’t do it,” said Earl. He carried a bottle of booze in one hand and his other was draped over an Amazonian woman’s shoulder.

Wallach stood at the brink of the long, black cavern. A sign above read:

POINT OF NO RETURN

He glanced back. Only Earl had come to say goodbye.

“Goodbye, Earl.”

He stepped into the cave.

The wall transformed behind him. The entry closed and become a wall. He touched it and muttered. He turned and took a step forward.

The stones collapsed underfoot. He slipped down into the chasm.

His hands caught the edge and he held on by his fingers. A black chasm loomed below like a waiting maw.

He scrambled for a grip. The stones gave way.

Two hands grabbed him by the wrists and helped drag him up.

Scott grabbed him by the belt and pulled him back up.

“You came,” he said, wheezing for breath.

“Jesus, Wally. What are you dressed up to be?”

He smiled up at her. “You came.”

“Yeah. Now let’s go.” She dragged him back to the wall. “How do we get out?”

“What’d you think the sign was for?” he said.

She touched the rocks. “You mean…”

He dusted himself off. “It’s okay. I’ve got it figured out.”

She grabbed him. “You mean we can’t go back?”

He walked over. He tapped a rock with his foot and it gave under his weight. “We’ve got to run across, Scott.”

“No. No. We’ll just stay here and they’ll let us back in.”

“They won’t.”

“I’m staying here.”

“Then you’ll starve to death.”

“Starve…”

He took her hand. “Come on. Run as fast as you can. Don’t stop! Here we go. One. Two. Three!”

He broke into a run and dragged her by the hand. Rocks plummeted down under their feet, falling into the chasm below.

“Jump!”

They hurled themselves forward, landing on a solid edge. They lay panting on the ground.

“I’ll kill you,” she said. “Let me go back.”

“How?” He stood and helped her up. The path was gone; now only a gaping pit stood between the cliffs. A long cave stretched before them.

The walls rumbled. Iron spikes emerged and began to close off the tunnel ahead.

“Come on,” said Wallach. They took each other’s hand. “Come on, run!” They bolted down the cave as the walls began to close in. Closer, closer.

Scott broke free. A spike pierced Wallach’s leather jacket and stopped him in his tracks. Scott turned and yanked him out of his jacket and they leapt free. The walls slammed shut. Boom.

* * *

“Damn it.” Corrodel wiped his face. “What am I going to tell Lori?”

Jobe ate a swizzle cake. “You’re only out fifty.”

“She’ll know. She checks.”

Jobe stifled a yawn.

Corrodel looked at the screen. The two runners were spelunking down into the third stage. “What’s the point, anyway? Why even have the stages?”

Jobe swallowed noisily. “Inmates rejected the program without a possibility of escape and woke early from stasis.”

“We should keep them in a hellhole then. Why treat them like royalty?”

“Costs us the same either way. And no activist groups are banging down doors for prisoner treatment this way.”

“What’s this guy in for anyway?” said Sendak.

Jobe pressed a button. “AWOL on Titan. Triple homicide. Stole three police skiffs. Jesus.”

The techs all stared.

“One thousand he makes it!” Sendak shouted.

* * *

Wallach slid down a gravelly slope.

Scott followed, cursing. “If I’d known I was going to die in the temple of doom, I would’ve changed.”

He looked at her bikini and grinned.

She pulled a switchblade from her bikini. “Back off.”

He raised his hands and backed up a step.

“So what now, Flash?”

He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it to her. “We keep going.”

She looked at the sweaty shirt and slid her arms through. “What happens then?”

He pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit it. “I don’t know.” He pushed through some cobwebs.

They stood at the verge of a large, open chamber. Stone tiles lined the floor and torches lined the walls.

He waved Scott back and took a burning torch from the wall. He tossed it forward. It clattered against the floor.

He shrugged and walked forward. Scott followed. “No explosives? No tricks?”

Wallach felt something drip on his hand. He sniffed and looked up. Nozzles carved into the stone ceiling sprayed down fumes. He coughed.

Scott began coughing. “Oh God. I can’t breathe.”

“Cover your mouth!” he said. They ran.

Blades and guillotines rained down from above. They danced through torrents of razor-sharp daggers and swords. They rolled beneath two giant pendulum blades and into a hall just as a giant stone door slammed shut.

Wallach coughed and shook his head. His eyes cleared.

Scott climbed up. “I could be anywhere. Doing anything.” She sobbed.

He offered her his hand. She slapped it away. He shrugged and looked around. Strange hieroglyphics and paintings covered the walls. He ran his fingers over them.

“Where are we, anyway?” said Scott.

“Inside the computer-generated maze.”

“What happens if we get out?”

“These prisons are all built with a five-tier system. They’re connected to the government databases and supercomputers.” He flipped open his lighter and cast light through the tunnel. “See, the human brain rejects the program without possibility of escape. Keeps us in line.”

“How do you know so much?”

He smirked. “I used to work for the government. A long time ago.”

“But you didn’t tell me what happens if we get out.”

He shrugged. “We might not. Stage five is supposed to be impossible. No one’s ever gotten past it.”

Footsteps padded behind. Wallach turned. His hand went to his holster.

Scott snorted a laugh. “I think you can put the gun away, Tex.”

Shapes moved through the darkness. Strange voices.

Wallach cocked the hammer on his pistol.

“Wally. What is it?”

Wild shouts through the cave. A human shape ran at them with a spear. Wallach shot him and he fell dead.

“Go!” he shouted.

They ran.

Arrows and darts skittered across the floor, nipping their heels.

“Don’t look back!” He shouted. He shot backwards as he ran. Smoke and the smell of cordite filled the tunnel.

Hundreds, a thousand voices screamed for blood behind them. Drums sounded in the deep. A thrown javelin whistled through the air and took off Wallach’s hat and stuck in the ground, quivering.

A grey-skinned creature dropped down from the ceiling and screeched. Spittle sprayed from its fanged mouth. Wallach put a bullet between the creature’s black eyes and they ran.

A lighted chamber waited ahead. Scott began to slow and stumbled as she ran. Wallach shoved her forward. They dove through the portal. A stone door slammed shut behind them.

Wallach laughed and stood. “We made it! Scott, we made it!”

Scott sat on the ground, staring at the wall. A dart protruded from her neck. She ripped it out and threw it. He picked it up and sniffed the end.

“Wally,” she said, falling limp.

He cradled her in his arms. “You’re going to be okay. We’ve only got one more stage. We’ll get out and get you some help.”

“We should’ve stayed.”

“Scott. You’re poisoned. Hang on, okay?”

“Look. It’s Lee.” She said pointing.

He followed her finger. A shriveled corpse lay in the corner. Its face was dry and its limbs were emaciated. “He made it all this way,” said Wallach. “What happened?” He laid Scott carefully down and searched the room. The walls were blank. He walked around. “That can’t be it. There’s something else here.” He paced.

A stone tile sank under his weight. A wall slid open. Pure white light flooded the room from the door.

“Look! There it is!” he said. He ran toward it.

The wall slammed shut and the tile surfaced.

He looked back and forward. “It’s weight activated? That’s so simple! No wonder no one’s ever made it past this. Someone has to stay behind and hold the door open. . .” He ran over to Lee’s corpse and tried to pick it up but it crumbled into dust.

Scott dragged herself onto the tile and sat. Blood dribbled from her lips and she moaned.

He went to her. “No. [[Let me use Lee's body, and we can both go."

"Forget it. He weighs nothing now," Scott said.

"Then I’ll hold it down, Scott.]] You go. Get help.”

“I never.” She gasped for breath. “Did. Much like you.”

“We’ll stay together. We’ll get a huge pepperoni pie. How about that? You and me. First thing.”

She smiled and went limp.

The wall slid open as the tablet sunk into the floor. Light flooded the room.

Wallach wiped his eyes and stepped into the light.

Weightless. He floated into the white void. Colors wheeled about him. His body dissolved. Yet he remained. Corporeal, formless.

* * *

The vidscreens exploded. The shockwave threw the techs back and they sprawled across the control room. Smoke sizzled from monitors.

The techs all pulled themselves to their feet. Corrodel helped Jobe up. They stared at one another.

“Jesus,” said Corrodel. “What happened?”

Jobe hopped back into his hover chair and leaned over a sizzling monitor. He tapped it a few times. “One of them is dead. The woman.”

“What about the other?” said Sendak. “I had money riding on that bastard!”

“Uh…” Jobe flipped through a few screens. “It’s weird. His vitals are there. But brain activity’s dropped off.”

“So he made it?” said Sendak.

“Shut your hole, man; you know the guy didn’t do it. No one’s ever done it,” said another tech.

Jobe scratched his head. “Well. Something shorted the computers. His vitals are there. But he’s not in prison. So I guess he made it.”

The techs all moaned. Sendak leapt up and down and squealed. Corrodel rubbed his temples. Techs doled out money. Sendak ended up with a few thousand.

“Pizza for everybody!” he shouted.

Jobe tossed away his choco-sticks. “Pizza sounds good.”

“Yeah, it does,” someone said.

“Pepperoni,” another droned.

Corrodel scratched his head. “Pizza.” He looked at the sizzling screens and shrugged.

an author living in Jacksonville Florida. I’ve been published at DemonMinds, Allegory ezine, Moon Drenched Fables, Aphelion, and other publications

(c) 2009 Romeo Esparrago

Corrodel stepped through the telepod, fumbling with his mug and briefcase. He tripped, and hot coffee splashed on his white shirt.

Jobe swiveled in his hover chair and chortled. “Bravo.”

Corrodel sighed and set down his mug and briefcase.

Jobe hovered back around. “Thirty seconds late. Old man Lipston’ll have your head.” He sipped a fizzy drink.

Corrodel wrung out his tie. “Don’t care.”

Jobe shrugged and gnawed at the end of a choco-stick.

Corrodel sighed and tossed his tie aside. “I miss anything?”

“Petunias are in the Garden.” Jobe pointed with his choco-stick. “Your turn to clean out the fertilizer.”

They stared at each other.

Corrodel sighed and pulled on a rubber suit. He went to the cells and the laser bars disappeared.

“Why do we bother with these?” he muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

The human-blob inmates were arranged in uniform rows. Wires and cords ensnared their boneless limbs from the ceiling like strands of a spider web. Fluids pumped into their brains and into their gelatinous arms. He changed out their waste collectors, grumbling.

“Wouldn’t it just be cheaper to execute them?”

Jobe cackled. “Think so? What costs more? Fluids and our wages? Or lawyers, courts, appeals, more appeals…”

Corrodel rolled his eyes. He finished cleaning the collectors, walked through the disinfector and plopped down in a chair in the control room.

Jobe passed him a choco-stick. “See what they’re up to.”

Corrodel kicked his feet back and flipped on the vidscreens.

* * *

Wallach stared at the slice of pizza. Melted cheese bubbled around red saucers of pepperoni. He took a bite.

And spit it out. He shoved the plate away.

“What’s the matter?” Earl sucked on a giant rib. “You love pizza.”

“Tastes grey,” he said.

Earl barked, laughing. “How’s that?”

Wallach looked at the other inmates. They sat around in luxury chairs, eating filet mignon and lobster, drinking champagne and fancy booze. A diamond chandelier hung from the ceiling. Bombshell women and men muscled like Greek gods walked around, serving everything.

“You’ve just eaten it too much,” said Earl. A serving girl walked past. He grabbed her by her apron and wiped sauce from his face and spanked her. “Every day you eat the stuff.”

“Pizza used to be my favorite.” He shrugged. “Nothing tastes right to me.”

Earl shrugged. “Get drunk.”

Wallach stood and walked down the hall to Cell 18. He opened the door.

Letter to the Editor: Atomjack e-anthology ‘Butterfly Affects’

Dear Editor:

Atomjack has just published its first e-anthology, Butterfly Affects*.  The theme is alternate futures, where some changed event in our past (as recently as Gary Hart and the Berlin Wall) has affected our future in drastic and dramatic ways.  I would like to invite your readers to have a look.

The anthology begins here:

http://www.atomjackmagazine.com/Butterfly_Affects/index.html

Adicus Ryan Garton, editor of Atomjack

*As in what the butterfly affects

Website: Starship Modeler

Starship Modeler is an information resource for the science fiction, factual space, fantasy, mecha, or anime scale model builder.

Visit:
http://www.starshipmodeler.com/index.htm

‘More Blood’ by David Such

Illustration (c) 2009 Romeo Esparrago

The girl sitting next to him was hot, but damn she could talk. Jes was Sam Blood’s latest potential new girlfriend. She hadn’t quite separated from her current man, but Blood had a feeling that this was imminent. The uComm beeped in Blood’s ear. He activated it on silent while pretending to continue to listen to what Jes was saying.

“Blood, we have another tasking order,” his partner spoke in his ear, “it’s a worker’s comp case, a back-injury claim. The insurance agency hasn’t been able to prove it, but their AI has indicated that this perp is a faker. I’m uploading the file now, have a squiz and I will pick you up in 10.”

Blood considered this and took a swig of his He-Man 9000 Super Strong Ultra Beer. It tasted like crap but what the hell, he had an image to uphold. He focused back on what Jes was saying: “… I can’t believe it, he was such an arsehole. Don’t you agree?”

Blood thought that he was pretty safe in going along with this, “Yeah — a total tool. Who is this again?”

“I just told you, my ex-fiasco! Were you even listening?”

“Of course, Babe, I’m just a little distracted at the moment. My partner and I have this big case that we are working on. We need to catch a cheater.”

“A cheater! I’m an expert on that.”

“Is that right? Tell me everything. I’m here for you Jes, I want you to know that.”

‘The Hero’s Wife’ by Michael Meyerhofer

Illustration (c) Romeo Esparrago

You don’t know me, but you know my husband.

Likely, you heard about him fighting Shogun’s Bane, that undead dragon with a penchant for carrying off gorgeous but rather disagreeable virgins way back during the Year of Black Snow.

Or else you read that epic poem detailing my husband’s battle against the four-armed Troll King. Or how my precious Therocles stole a magic flower from the den of a kraken to heal a dying child. Maybe you told that same story to your own children to frighten away the chill of long winter nights. For me, though, those stories bring no comfort.

He says he comes home as often as he can, but that’s still only once or twice a year. I guess a leaky cottage and an aging wife can’t compare to the courts of kings and the shy giggles of well-manicured princesses. I know he made a vow — so did I — but there are some vows even knights don’t honor.

Every visit, it’s the same thing. Therocles paces for a few days, hot-tempered as a demon-bat, then says he has to get going before the snow blocks the roads. By then, Dastian has had his nose bloodied and I have finger-shaped bruises on my thighs.

This year was no different.

* * *

“I cannot sit idle all winter, woman!” He reached for his boots. “Somewhere, brave souls are in need!” His square jaw and jet-black hair made him imposing as ever. I thought of how his looks used to thrill my blood. Where had that feeling gone?

“We could use you here,” I said. “The plow’s still broken and there’s a wyvern nesting in the chimney–”

He cut me off. “Dastian, bring my pauldrons!”

I winced at how he spoke our sweet son’s name. Dastian would have done anything to earn his father’s praise instead of his fist. “I’ll get them for you,” I volunteered.

“No! Dastian is practically a man. Sooner he learns which end of a lance is up, the better he’ll be in this world!”

I decided to change the subject. “My love, about that chimney…”

He snarled with exasperation. “I don’t have time to tussle with a wyvern — not with the snows coming! And I don’t have the coin to see it done, either!”

I wanted to argue with him, but I knew he was right — about coin, at least. Wyverns always nest deep, steely talons burrowed in stone. They love chimneys because of the darkness, the heat. Safest way is to hire a sorcerer to charm them out. But for all my husband’s exploits, we rarely had two coins to rub together. Therocles rarely accepted payment for his adventures, and then only what was absolutely necessary to care for his steel and his horse, plus a few macabre gifts for me and Dastian. A Dwarfish jewel hammer carved with skulls. Scrolls of Elfish poetry, reeking of perfume. A map drawn on Troll skin.

This visit, though, what he brought back was far less impressive.

‘The Package’ by Ilan Herman

Illustration by Andrew G. McCann

Jeff was watching the news in his living room when a knock sounded on his apartment door. He opened the door and smiled at the rotund mailman, who’d been serving the apartments for ten years. “How ya doin’, John?”

Holding a mid-sized cardboard box, the mailman smiled through his thick and graying mustache and asked, “What ya order?” He inquired only because he knew Jeff wouldn’t consider the question intrusive.

“I didn’t order anything,” said Jeff as he eyed the box.

“But it has your name and address on it,” the mailman said. “Why would someone bother to send you something you didn’t order?” He rapped his knuckles lightly on the box. “Good packaging job.”

Jeff shrugged. “I’m not sure I want it. Maybe you should take it back.”

The mailman, who wished to avoid carrying the package back to his van and back to the warehouse, chuckled. “Now that doesn’t make sense. It’s not like they’re chargin’ you or somethin’. Take it. It’s yours.” He leaned toward Jeff and held out the box. Convinced by the mailman’s hard sell but also curious about what the package held, Jeff accepted the box — about two square feet and five pounds.

The postal employee saluted. “US Mail delivers once again.” He turned and rumbled down the stairs with one more glance and a smile at the middle-aged man standing at the door to apartment 106.

* * *

Jeff walked into his apartment and shut the door. He laid the box on the coffee table and heard the postal van chug away. He then fetched a knife from the kitchenette and cut through the tape sealing the box. The label didn’t have a return address. He liked the fact that his last name, Simmoneyous, was spelled correctly. Many times when he’d requested an order, his surname was jumbled by the sender, though never to the point of a botched delivery.

The box contained a fireman’s red helmet and black jacket, both of excellent quality and authentic-looking. His first name was etched on the front of the helmet and above the breast pocket of the jacket that fit snugly around his shoulders, yet left plenty of room to raise his arms. The helmet also hugged his scalp well, as if the designer knew the exact circumference of Jeff’s head.

A warm vibration soothed his skull as soon as the helmet was resting on his head. Then a stocky, sky-blue creature formed from thin air and floated a foot off the ground. The creature had no limbs. One watery-brown eye centered its round face that had no mouth or nose. Two short tentacles rose from the top of its head.