Category: Story

fiction, Story

Zombie children

Dogsandbikes.com
Squirrel life is not without risk…

Chapter 2.2

My phone vibrates in my jacket pocket. It’s a familiar number but I don’t remember whose it is. I don’t answer calls unless I’m certain about them and I hold the phone through three vibrations before answering. “This is Norm.”

“Hey, it’s me,” Golding says as if I’ve been eagerly awaiting his call, as if we drink beer and play poker and take vacations with our families together.

“Listen, Golding, they’re closing the doors on the plane.”

“I’ll leave voicemail…”

“You do that,” and I hang up.

New character: Golding. To be honest, I don’t know why I brought this guy in, and the part that follows, well, it may just be the first thread that once pulled, unravels everything. It begins with a flashback:

I’m ten, with my buddies Ira and Robbie. We’re in the woods behind our development, a damp place with steep paths and hidden hazards like poison ivy and hornet nests in rotting logs. We wander around and shoot at things with cap pistols and slingshots we make from fallen branches and old cut-up bicycle tire tubes. We hunt for arrowheads and hunks of quartz rock.

Darby Creek snakes through the woods and leads to an old quarry where we will soon crawl through a chain link fence to swim. It’s a shallow rocky creek that runs fast after a good day of rain. We pull crayfish from it until the day old washing machines and tires and shopping carts stick up out of the muck. We become scavengers and one day the story goes that a boy from our school gets himself trapped in a rusting old refrigerator and suffocates.

Ira says, “Normalizer, see that squirrel?” on a branch far away. It’s sitting there licking its little hands and grooming its head. “Think I can hit it?”

“No way,” Robbie says.

“Bet you a dollar I can.”

Robbie and I reach into our respective pockets right away and pull out change and count it. “I got it,” Robbie says. “You’re on.”

“I only have sixty-three cents.”

Ira licks a finger and holds it up in the air. “You have to adjust for the wind.”

He lines it up, carefully adjusting his back hand, the one holding the rock in the tire tube band. We’re standing behind him and he’s taking forever to get his aim. Finally, he turns his head back to us, his slingshot aimed toward the squirrel. “Watch this,” and he releases his shot still looking back at us and away from the target.

The rock whooshes out of his slingshot and smacks squarely into the squirrel, knocking it out of its perch. It lands with a rustle in the leaves below. We three stand with our mouths open. “Holy crap,” Robbie says.

We race to the spot where the squirrel landed. “Poke him,” Robbie orders. “See if he’s dead.”

I pick up a stick and poke it lightly. It doesn’t move. There’s a smudge of blood on its head. “I think it’s dead,” I say.

“Check again,” Ira says, his voice a shaky whisper.

I poke it again, a little bit harder, and when I do, Robbie bumps me and the stick plunges into the squirrel’s belly. “Look what you did Norm. You killed him.”

“Didn’t. It was already dead.”

Robbie punches me in the arm and says, “You killed him. You have to bury him.”

“Ow. All right.”

I kick with my sneaker heel at the soft muddy ground and soon have a large enough indent for the body. Using the leaves as a scoop, I push it into the hole and kick some mud and leaves over it.

“There,” I say. “Can we go swimming already?”

“You’re going swimming? You going to the quarry? I’m coming,” says Golding, appearing from behind a tree. His nasally voice, perpetually on the verge of a sneeze,

We trudge to the site of the old quarry, my friends and I and Golding. It is one of those hot, humid days that nowadays stretch into October. Golding is new and I don’t like him.

“What happened to that squirrel? Did you kill that squirrel?” he says.

“We found him,” Robbie says.

“How come you made Norman bury him? Why would you do that?”

Robbie shakes his head at him. “We felt like it. Shut up.”

We get to the edge of the quarry and Robbie peels off his t-shirt and All-Stars and jumps into the water. He disappears taking a trail of bubbles with him and emerges, whooping, “Come on in. The water’s great!”

Ira follows and then it is just me and Golding, standing there, looking down at my two friends splashing in the water, their voices echoing off the quarry’s gray-black walls. “C’mon Normie, jump in.”

“You afraid?” Golding says in my ear. “Afraid of the water?”

“I’m not scared,” I shout.

“No one said you were scared,” Ira says.

“Golding did.”

“He doesn’t count.” See, nobody liked Golding.

I’m not afraid of the water even though it’s cold and will shock the breath out of me. I can swim and I’ve swum here before. It’s the time and distance between launching and landing where it feels like I’m caught on an invisible hook struggling to climb my way down out of the air, a moment that passes like an hour.

“Just close your eyes and lean forward. The water’s great!”

I can’t do it. I find a zig-zag path on the rocky wall down to the surface, dip my toe and slide in. It’s freezing cold and when I come up I gasp. “Water’s great!”

Golding takes off his stupid alligator shirt and slips backward, hitting his head on rock and falls straight down into the water. Robbie and Ira swim to him while I tread water and think, let’s just tell everyone we found his body floating here.

fiction, Story, Uncategorized

Sideswiped (Zombies)

Dogsandbikes.com

In the future, it’s safest for cats to roam in broad daylight.

Yeah, the zombies are coming and Norm is going on a business trip. He doesn’t travel well. He doesn’t know it yet, but everything seems ominous to him.

Love in the Time Before Zombies
Chapter 2.1

I’m impatient and intolerant and feel confined in airports and on airplanes. Travel exhausts me, which is why I take prescription amphetamines and constantly drink espresso.

A few minutes ago, Jill slept while I put on my consultant’s uniform: gray slacks, white shirt, and blue sport coat. I paused to stare at my wife’s sleeping body. She wore a tank top and boxer shorts. I kissed her on the cheek. “Mmmm,” she said. “Come here!” She grabbed my collar and pulled me onto the bed. “This will only take a minute,” she said.

“I have a minute.”

Jill makes sure we get a quickie in before I travel so she can draw upon recent raunchy memories in case my plane crashes or Peruvians kidnap me. Afterward, I kissed her on the cheek again. “See you in a few days.”

“I might not really love you,” she said, her eyes closed, already returning to sleep.

On the way to the airport, there’s little traffic, but an ominous – see what I mean about ubiquitous ominousness – van sideswipes us on the 125th street ramp to the Triboro Bridge. It’s one of those beat up windowless vans you see a lot of in the city. The words “Ken’s Contracting” are stenciled unevenly on the side in black, a corona of fine black a couple of inches from the letters, where the excess spray from the can collected.

Dave’s Lincoln had scraped against the side of the van as we merged into a single lane, hitting the van’s dangling side view mirror and ripping it from its duct taped mooring. Glass shatters, maybe the headlamp, and that, combined with the caffeine and other drugs kicking in, really gets my heart going.

“Criminy,” Dave says. He slows down and looks in his rear view mirror, considering whether to stop.

He pulls over. The van drives up behind us and instead of stopping, it accelerates into us, sending my face lurching forward into the back of the headrest.

“JFC!” Dave yells. He gets out of the car.

“What is wrong with you? Are you out of your mind?” He doesn’t curse. He speaks clearly and enunciates very well. He controls the tone of his voice the way a TV preacher does.

I click open the door, but as I move to open it, Dave slams it shut with his hip. Just as well. I’m woozy. I touch my face with my fingers and wince when I feel the area beneath my left eye. No blood yet, but it hurts and already is puffing up. There are loud voices coming from outside the window, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. Then the front door opens and Dave reaches in, and just as quickly, is outside again. Something has been smashed. I turn my head around and through the tinted rear window see that Dave is holding a big black pipe. He swings it and shatters a headlight. The three men slowly back away from Dave. One of the men runs back into the van through the sliding door, it behind him. Dave holds the pipe above his head and wiggles it. One gets in the driver’s door. The other is standing his ground, yelling at Dave in another language. Dave takes a step towards the man, who finally yields and retreats to the passenger door. The driver guns it straight at Dave who sidesteps, spins, and swings the black pipe into a taillight, shattering it. Dave gets into the car. 

He puts the pipe down. It’s actually a big, metal flashlight, dinged and scraped in a couple of places and wrapped in duct tape at the handle. He flicks the switch. “Perfectly good flashlight, ruined.” He drops it onto the seat. He looks at me through the mirror. “That’s one nasty looking bruise. You OK?”

I nod. My face hurts and so does my head. I might have a concussion. “Christ, Dave, you scared the daylights out of those guys.”

He smiles. “I could have taken all three of them if it came to it.” Despite that unscheduled interaction, we arrive early. The limo has a long scrape mark on the passenger side, and the rear end is dented. It will be a long day for Dave. I hand him a fifty.

“No need to do that,” he says.

“No,” I say. “I owe you. Get yourself a nice breakfast somewhere.” 

At the airport club, I have a drink – I know, I know, it’s not even seven in the morning. My father used to joke, “Does your face hurt?” And like the punchline, I whisper, “No, but it’s killing me.” The aspirin has helped to bring down the swelling, but everything throbs in time with the beating of my heart.

“Norman?” It’s Colleen, a business analyst on the project, in charge of infrastructure.

“Colleen?” I say. “What are you doing in New York?”

“I spent the weekend with my boyfriend – he lives in the Village. Remember, we had this same conversation Friday at the airport in North Carolina?”

I don’t remember. I rub the back of my head feeling for the bump, but it’s my forehead that’s bruised, I remember now. “There’s blood on my shirt,” I say.

“Yes,” she confirms.

“I was in an accident this morning,” I tell her. “Nosebleed. Nothing serious.”

“Let me see that,” she says, and pokes the bruise on my forehead with a finger. “Are you all right?”

I ignore the question. “What’s on your calendar this morning,” I say. She’s the infrastructure team lead. “Where are your people on the cabling on nine?”

“Finished two weeks ago. We’re on eleven now.”

“On schedule? What’s the date?”

She tells me, but I’m not listening. I open my tablet. “I have a few emails to catch up on.” I sit down at a chair looking out over the jetways and runways. One jet takes off. Another lands.

Understandably, he didn’t notice the dog as he walked into the airport.

So:

Everyday violent encounter or harbinger of doom? You decide. But don’t worry about Colleen. She doesn’t have much more to do here. She’s young and smart and will soon make partner, and shortly thereafter spin off her own tech company. She’ll get to enjoy a marvelous lifestyle before putting all of her time, brilliance, and resources into preserving the natural world, before the zombies come and claw it all to pieces. 

fiction, Story, Uncategorized, writing

Love in the Time Before Zombies

Dogsandbikes.com
Outside the bedroom window, storm clouds turn the sky a steely blue.

Norm and Jill are afraid that the world is unraveling and that soon, civilization will collapse.

Some people are waiting for the time of the zombies to come, both fearing it and desperately craving it. They want apocalypse, burning cities, every man for himself. They stock up on weapons and canned food and reading glasses. They build bunkers and become survivalists. They learn which insects and weeds to eat and how to shoot a crossbow. They watch zombie TV and wait for the time of the zombies to come.

Some people don’t want to be lumped in with the zombies, don’t want to go down in a hail of bullets, or the shrapnel of a fertilizer bomb. Norm and Jill are like that, but they’re afraid it’s coming and there’s no stopping it. They came into being about six years ago. They and two little children living in an apartment in New York, exactly like the one I lived in, growing more fearful as 25,000 words accumulated until one day they just stopped mid-paragraph. It was titled, Love in the Time Before Zombies. A lot people don’t like that title because they think it’s derivative. *

Norm is kind of like me, only better at his job. But dumber, too. Jill is loosely based on my wife. I say loosely because it’s safer for me that way, you understand.

They have two barely sketched out kids, Brian and Dot. Little is known of them other than that they both like cute, cuddly things. We don’t know their ages, what color hair they have, whether they’re plump or skinny or ordinary or exceptional. Their names will change a half dozen or more times.

The story starts with a line that violates the first of Walt the Dog’s Rules of Writing: “Unless you’re Pat Conroy, don’t use weather to start a story. Even in the prologue.”

Love in the Time Before Zombies
Chapter 1, Verse 1

Lightning flashes on the gray sky across the river over New Jersey, and then it strikes startlingly nearby. Thunder follows an instant later and she flinches in the bed beside me, but doesn’t wake. She can sleep through anything. Most nights, I can’t even fall asleep.

In a moment, Brian’s tousled head appears in the door. He rubs his eyes. “What was that?”

“Just thunder,” I say. “It’s just a storm.”

“Can I get in bed with you?”

I pull the covers aside for him and he runs to the bed, clambers up and over me and lands between Jill and me. She murmurs something, licks her lips and rolls onto her side, draping an arm over Brian as another blast of thunder shakes the room. I hear a scream, pounding footsteps and Dot bounds into our bedroom, her hands covering her mouth, tears on her little cheeks and she too dives onto the bed.

“Mommy, mommy, mommy!” she shrieks.

Jill wraps her arms around Dot, cradling her, kissing her hair. “Shhhh, my little punctuation mark. It’s OK. Mommy’s right here.”

So, the story continues and eventually the storm subsides, and frankly, some of the sentences I make up are overblown and self-important and embarrassing. The kids fall asleep and Jill is quiet and Norm starts to drift off when she says, “Norm, how are we doing? I mean, how much do we have in the bank?”

That line about money is supposed to be important to our understanding of this couple. Jill the money manager, the financial wiz is suddenly worried about money. Norm says he’ll check their account balances in the morning and she insists he do it right then and there. He does and when he comes back to bed, she’s asleep.

Love in the Time Before Zombies, is a pre-apocalyptic tale. I mean, once you have zombies, you have the apocalypse, and these events are all the things that happen leading right up to that. These may be pre-zombie times, but make no mistake about it, the zombies are coming.

* As Bob Dylan sang, “if there’s an original thought out there, I could sure use it right now.”

letters, Story, The Best Results Blog, Uncategorized

Petrovsky resurfaces

Dogsandbikes.com
Petrovsky’s dog at a highway service stop. P had just gotten up to attend to an urgent matter and I was left for 17 uncomfortable minutes trying to find common ground with this  disinterested animal.

Note: for best results, listen to Elmer Bernstein’s The Great Escape while reading this document.

A letter from my old acquaintance Petrovsky arrived just the other day. Until two years ago, I hadn’t seen P since the old days and thought P had disappeared from the face of the earth. But recently P’d resurfaced and we’ve met periodically at highway service stops halfway between our towns for the last two years. We mostly talk about old times but I suspect he wants to enlist my help in solving Ptarmigan’s Riddle. When P’s letter arrived. I wanted to post the actual letter, handwritten in the old style, however, it disintegrated shortly after I read it. Luckily, I have a photographic memory…

My Dear DS,
With the holidays coming up, I wanted to let you know that traditionally, I don’t give presents, however I expect that you’ll want to give me something. Which is very thoughtful of you. Please do not spend more than $800 because that’s too much, unless you feel as if you must. Since you and I have never exchanged holiday gifts in the 40 years we’ve known each other, and assuming that starting from our time at The Delinquency School, you probably would have spent $10, and that over the course of four decades, that amount might have crept up to, say, $35 per annum, then $800 seems reasonable (which is crazy because no on in their right mind would spend $800), however, you’ve had that money available to earn interest, to invest, or to blow on Betamax tapes, so the $800 not spent over the years on a trinket for me would be worth many thousands by now. Knowing you and your market savvy, you bought Apple in 1976, and that’s worth a fortune, so why would you gripe about $800? I would not be at all hurt if you needed to save up and you put off your holiday present til next year, but it will likely run you closer to $835. It’s up to you. Again, I do not give presents. Everyone knows that, so please don’t expect anything in return.

By the way, I have big birthday coming up next year and you’re way behind on birthday presents, too. No need to sweat that now…we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I do give birthday presents – birthdays are important and meaningful – but I never remember birthdays, so you probably won’t get one from me.

-Your humble friend,
Petrovsky

fiction, Story, Uncategorized

Playing ping pong with Steve Jobs

Dogsandbikes.com

It was definitely Steve Jobs. Sure, Steve Jobs has been dead for years, but the person in the body was Jobs. Lean build with casual clothes loosely hanging on him. He sounded like that actor, not Peter Coyote, the other guy, who was in that movie with Russell Crowe and Guy…what’s his name. Pierce Patchett was the character. It will come to me.

IMG_1027
Prototype iPaddle

Jobs had twin boys with the exact same face, the face of this guy pretending not pretending to be Jobs. Round, flat, moon faces, tanned, with prominent noses. Faces of character that looked older than they were, and except for the boy bodies and boyish exuberance, you’d think they were adults.

They were playing ping pong on a long table, 2/3 the width of a regulation table with rounded ends. The net in the middle rose and fell, sometimes regularly, other times staying in place. The whole setup was on a turntable that slowly rotated, occasionally stopping and reversing.

My wife knew I’d want to play, and Jobs took note. “When the boys are finished, well have a go,” he said. “Do you play well? Are you good?” I play hard bat, an old school form of spongeless ping pong, from ping pong’s golden age. Before I could answer, another set of twins, these older, and less Jobs-like, came into the room carrying a telephoto lens about 8 feet in length and gave it to a woman, a doctor. I said something about the enormity of the lens and she said, “why shouldn’t I, it’s my vacation.”

While the boys played ping pong, Jobs showed us around. “What brings you to Atlanta,” he asked. Then, “Wait, don’t tell me, you’re here to bicycle the rivers. Of course you are.” Which was how we arrived here. His sprawling house complex crossed the river and the bike paths on either side went straight through the house. We were just pedaling past, admiring the furniture when he waved us over. “Have lunch with me,” he said. “We’re having grilled asparagus and some other things. Chips, maybe.”

Periodically, things, the furniture, tall, deep shelf drawers would automatically open, and Jobs would react, either removing an item, or putting something away. “If I miss it, I have to wait another day for an opening. Crazy system works,” he said. David Strathairn, that’s the voice Steve Jobs used. Really good choice.

A Jobs nephew, climbed on to his rotating bed as shelves were opening and removed some clothes, tossing off and throwing the old ones in a just opened chute. The doctor with the camera watched. “Why shouldn’t I watch? I like to see naked people especially when they look good. It’s my vacation.”

The boys came running up, each holding a ping pong paddle. “We’re finished,” they said. “You can play now.” Jobs looked exasperated. “No, no, NO,” he said. “It’s not the right time.” He patted his chest. “What do you think of this body? It works, but the design isn’t as user friendly as it should be. Look at these hands. Let’s play ping pong.”

We went to the table and slid it out, away from a couch. “Which side do you want?” he said, taking the side he wanted. “Grab yourself an iPaddle. They’re all the same.”

I picked up a paddle. Wood handle, rounded striking surface made from maybe cork. Slightly tacky. No rubber. Jobs hit me a ball and I returned it. The tack on the surface allowed me to get a little topspin and the ball dove nicely for me. My first shot landed deep, and high-bounced Jobs. He said,”whoa!”

He hit short balls, hard ones, angled ones and I returned them, each time eliciting a loud exclamation of praise from Jobs. A crowd gathered and I hit the ball back and forth with Steve Jobs, occasionally slamming one just to let him know I could do whatever I wanted, that I was in complete control.

Story, The Best Results Blog, Uncategorized, writing

Note to the piano movers

Dogsandbikes.com

Thanks so much for coming ahead of the storm. It’s only a category three; I don’t know why they even bother to call it a hurricane.

When you first enter the house, be certain to ignore our darling dog, Schatzi, who has a multiple personality disorder. He’s suitably medicated, but, if disturbed will most certainly engage in antics that some find unsettling given his mammoth size.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Ignore the dog

As I told Big Al on the phone, the upright piano in the dining room needs to be moved into one of three upstairs rooms. I refer, of course, to the Steinway, not the Baldwin, which is an inferior instrument and scheduled for destruction early next week. The demolition team may have already rigged it with explosives, so please stay away from it.

The first and best option for the Steinway upright – please do not move the Steinway grand – is the bedroom in the southwest corner of the west wing of the second floor. You must take precise measurements of the hallway before you start. Of immediate concern is the sharp left zig-zag leading to the small second staircase. Remove the handrail but under no circumstances are you to destroy it – nothing should be destroyed unless you receive instructions from me to the contrary. Once you’ve navigated the piano through the west wing stairs, hallways, and turns, place it along the south wall. As always, before moving the piano, check inside for dead animals.

Should this location prove inaccessible, try the north tower. Again: measure, measure, measure. You may use my husband Derek’s surveying instruments so long as you wipe your fingerprints from them when you return them to cold storage. He doesn’t like it when people handle his tools, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

Some movers have had difficulties with the round stairway leading to the north tower – it was only recently that the Louis XIV Armoire was at long last extricated. It was so… cathartic splintering it with an axe. Of course, Derek wanted to blow it up, but for safety reasons, we ignite explosives only outdoors. However, I do have every confidence in your abilities.

If needed, you may construct and install a suitable winch which should be removed when you complete your task. Place the piano in the exact center of the tower facing west so that my daughter Ezmerine can play her mournful little concertos at sunset, her only real joy. If you see Ezmerine, please do not comment on or make notice of her nudity. Though she is a free spirit, she is very prickly on the subject.

Now that I think about it, the tower really is the first and best choice.

If you fail at options one or two, then, as a last resort, use the east by northeast drawing room. No explanation is needed here as I’m sure you will manage either of the first two options, especially the second, which is now to be considered first. However, if fail you do, at one or two, contact me on my fourth mobile phone. Big Al should have briefed you, but phone #1 is for my husband and family; #2 is for my agent, attorneys, and artisanal medication emergencies. #3 is for my current lover, Geoffrey, although Antoine and Gertie may still have that number. Just in case. It’s been so long since they’ve called. As you can imagine, I do so miss them. So, cell phone #4 only.

Anyway, it’s a small job and I expect you’ll finish in under an hour, well before the storm is at full force. The storm will almost certainly rouse Schatzi and you don’t want to be in the house when that happens. Help yourself to the special brownies as you leave. Should the access road to the house be under water due to the hurricane, Derek and I invite you to wait it out in your truck.

TTFN,

Violetta Cheesegrater-Fencepost

featured, fiction, Story

Carried off by the swift waters

Dogsandbikes.com

“All right,” I said. “Tell me all about it.” Like I said, I had time and more than anything, I like a good story.

Alder Fanspree got up from the bench and turned to face me and his wife.

“I had just dug into breakfast, egg and cheese on a toasted roll, when a man sat down to share the table. This was outside. This happened often and I didn’t bother to look up. ‘Does the name Shnabullious Traffletum mean anything to you,’ he said.

“I looked at him over the top of the Post. He sported an outlandish  thick moustache, curled at the ends, and his cheeks were ruddied as if by a raw winter wind.

“‘Of course it wouldn’t,’ he continued. ‘You’re just an average man caught up in a mundane life. You’re married. You have two children. The girl, the older one you have named Willow, is an athlete, a decent student who will no doubt get into a state school one day. Although, she dreams of an Ivy, it’s beyond her and she knows it. The other struggles. Maybe he’s on the spectrum. Maybe he isn’t.  You think he may have difficulties in social situations that will make it harder for him as he grows up.’

“This man’s information was only partly right. I am nothing if not average. You’ve met my wife, but, we’re childless. I told him, ’You have me mistaken for someone else.’

“’So, that’s how you’re going to play it,’ he said. And he smiled and twirled the end of his moustache.

“‘Look,’ I pressed on. ‘You have confused me with someone who looks a lot like me. I get it – I have one of those faces. But I don’t have children. You’re after another man. Not me.’

“He slid a 9 & 12 envelope across the table to me. ‘Open it,’ he said.

“There was a photo of a man jogging in the early morning along the river. It was an excellent capture of a tall, strikingly handsome man in the midst of an easy run. In the background, another runner out of focus, followed.

“‘That is Shnabullious Traffletum.’”

“I flipped the photo over and in the next image Mr. Traffletum was out of focus and the trailing runner was in sharp focus. That runner looked a lot like me, but it wasn’t me. For one thing, he wore a knee brace. I didn’t know who he was, but he must live nearby. We’d seen him around. I could see how we’d get mixed up. I often run past the same place.

“This man had information about a guy who looked like me, his children, and maybe every salient detail about his life. Stuff he could use to leverage the guy.

“‘Look at him,’ I said. ‘He’s wearing a knee brace. I don’t have one. My knee’s fine. And I don’t run that early. It’s not me.’

“‘That was Saturday,’ the stranger said.

“The next image showed Mr. Traffletum again, this time from the side passing a gate that separated the running path from the river.

“‘The gate is not latched,’ he said. ‘What I’d like you to do, Mr. Grass, is nudge Mr. Traffletum as he passes the gate tomorrow morning on your run. The gate is not latched – it’s there for kayakers and they never lock it. It will be low tide and the rocks at river’s edge will be exposed and Mr. Traffletum will trip as he falls through the gate and if god is with us, he will strike his head on the rocks below, hopefully doing permanent damage. Or, render him unconscious so he can drown. If he remains conscious, he will get carried off by the swift waters, and as he cannot swim, he will likely drown anyway. Eat your sandwich before it gets cold.’

“I noticed the egg and cheese perched in my hand next to my head and took a bite. It was still warm and the cheese was gooey.
‘What do you say? Can we count on you? Do this for us, and our relationship ends and Willow grows up and, who knows, maybe Princeton takes her. Maybe Clem – is that short for Clematis? – gets a little specialized attention to help him over this rough patch he’s going through. Maybe your beautiful wife doesn’t get snatched and held and…’ He paused and fiddled with his moustache again. ’She’ll live. We’re not animals. But would she ever be the same?’”

Laurel had stood up some time ago and she was pacing back and forth.