A (Kind of) Fairy Tale

Sheila clutched a Swiss army knife in her hand. She extracted a small blade to carve an opening in the cardboard box surrounding her. This released a blinding stream of light that poured down like a phosphorescent waterfall. She closed her eyes and then opened them slowly, allowing them to adjust to the new light. It had been a long time since she had looked outside. A very long time.

She peeked through the new opening and saw that the world had not changed. It was still the same as it was before. The river coursing over the rocks had straightened a little. It no longer curved the same way. The white water had calmed somewhat, but other than that, the world was no different. The leaves were still green. The sky remained blue. The birds still sang.

Then the leaves fell and then winter came and snow collected on her new window. Translucent stalactites of ice dripped over her opening and distorted her view. She shivered, decided it would be better to hibernate, and fell fast sleep.

The world was her bed and it was soft and comforting. It made sense when nothing else did. She woke as the snows began to thaw, and she tried to remember why she was here, where she obtained the Swiss army knife in her hand, why she was in a box, but decided that these were worthless questions. She was here because she was here and that was all. This is no different for anyone else, no matter how strange or sensible or senseless they might happen to be. People aren’t all that different, though they often like to think they are special. She had had time to think and no longer clung to false notions. Maybe she wasn’t special, she decided, but at least she was free. She said, “Freedom is in the mind, not a physical state of being,” and she chanted this over and over and over until she almost believed it, but not really, because she was a protagonist, and this, by default, made her special. At least it made her special in her own self-contained universe. Without a character there can be no story, after all, and without a story there is simply nothing to tell.

Then the box dissolved with the raging rains of spring and she emerged during a storm. Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, but then the winds swept the storm – and the dissolving remains of her box – away. As the clouds broke apart to reveal the sun, she outstretched her arms. Her joints popped. She ignored the pain and bloomed. Delicate and colorful petals flitted with a soft breeze. She was beautiful and fragile and, ultimately, meaningless.

The Empty Road

A man lay splayed out against the asphalt. A thin but widening circle of pooling blood crowned his head. His face was pale and white. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead and trailed down his grizzled face. His breathing came quick and fast. He spoke, and I leaned down to hear his broken whispers.

“The sky is a ball and I am bouncing it on my knee. We play four square with the sun and dodgeball, too. I love dodgeball. If I catch the ball you’re out. You’re out. But who are you?

“And where’s Goldie? She was around here somewhere. Oh, yeah, she chased a squirrel across the road. That car hit her Momma, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You told me I should never let her off the leash.”

He wept and sobbed.

I tried to calm him. “Shh. It’s okay.”

His wild eyes turned in frantic circles. Lids fluttered.

“What’s that? Not the dark. I’m scared of the dark. Can’t you leave the door open, Dad?”

At this point, he shuddered. Tears fell down my face as I listened to him ramble. I just wanted to comfort him any way I could. This was all my fault. “It’s okay. Shh. I’ll leave the door open. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” I hoped he didn’t hear the emotional uncertainty in my breaking voice.

“Tell Brian that I forgive him. It’s okay. I never loved her anyway.

“Ooh. What’s that? There’s so much here. So much light. So much of everything. So much. Too much, almost. There is beauty in the not here, and the not here is there, it is really there. Whatever it is.”

He stopped and looked at me with a sudden and forceful clarity. “I forgive you.”

I thought about the dull thud when I hit him, and how quickly I had sobered up as I pulled my car over. I knew the police would be here soon, but I would not run. Tears streamed down my face, and I sobbed. “Thank you,“ I told him. “Thank you.” And for the first time in a long time I knew something close to peace, but it hovered beneath an oppressive veil of grief and guilt, yet he forgave me again.

“I forgive you.”

“Thank you.”

His eyes glazed over.

“Where’s the train? Where’s the train? I hold out the butter and it melts.”

I reached down to him and felt his burning wet forehead. He looked at me one more time, one last time – there was clarity in his eyes for just the briefest of moments – and then he looked through me towards the hills and the rising sun behind them. It may have just been his muscles finally relaxing once he gave up, but I thought I saw him smile.

I also thought I heard the faintest of whispers: “Beautiful.”

Distant sirens echoed through the hills. They sounded empty. They sounded unreal, as if from another world.

I reached out a trembling hand to close the dead man’s eyes. I closed my own eyes and prayed while his cooling blood congealed.

... Beautiful ....

Sally

The Pastor Comes A Courtin’

Pastor Jason shook hands with Momma and Daddy at church. Momma asked what such a fine young man was doing without a wedding band? He said he just hadn't found the right girl yet. He looked to me and smiled.

He never asked me out, but he asked Momma. Momma agreed, and he took me on a date. He took me on a walk down a nature trail and talked to me about God while he did things to me I thought God should never know about.

Marriage

I suffered morning sickness on my wedding day.

The Honeymoon

I sat down on a toilet seat that was cold and wet with his urine. Before going to bed, he put a fresh roll of toilet paper on the roll. He made it go under. I prefer the paper to go over.

Birth Pains

Still newlyweds, he would not come to the hospital with me. I was there all alone while I miscarried that first time. It was the same the other three times. He said his parishioners needed his comfort, and he had God's duty to perform. My stillborn infants' dead eyes never saw their father. Perhaps that was for the best?

The Parishioner

Cathy Jacobs, a single mother, kept having children out of wedlock. All three of her children looked like Jason.

Insomnia

There were recurring dreams of my children. They looked like me, not Jason. They looked nothing like Cathy's children.

I woke up sweating and feeling an empty pit in my stomach. I touched the scars from my last C-section, and went to the bathroom to cry. Once again, the toilet seat was wet and the toilet paper went under, not over.

The bastard!

The Request

I asked for a certificate of divorce the next day. He quoted, "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." I mention that divorce is permitted in the case of infidelity. He claimed there was no infidelity, and even if there were, a Christian woman would forgive.

Trapped

He refused the divorce. I talked to Momma, and she told me I was being ridiculous, that Pastor Jason had opened up so many doors for the family. She told me to stop being so selfish.

"Besides," she reminded me, "you don't have a job. What would you do?"

I had no answer.

Jason moved us to a big house in the country. I was only allowed to leave the house on Sundays. I sat on the front pew, listened to him preach, and forced a smile on my face.

Bruises

He no longer slept with me. The only time he touched me was when he hit me. As lonely and isolated as I was, I made him hit me a lot. I know it was wrong, but I enjoyed the touch.

A New Day

There was a new parishioner. A middle-aged man named Charley. He was a tall blonde with an athletic build. Despite his age, he looked younger than me. Before coming to town, he used to play football in the city. He's retired now.

He smiled at me. I smiled back and uncrossed my legs.

A Second Request

I asked for a divorce again. Charley promised he would provide me a way out.

My husband refused, quoting "And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery."

He hit me and called me a sinner before leaving me alone in the house. Jason drove away to be comforted by his parishioner.

Salvation?

Reading the Bible, looking for a way out, I read "And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into Hell." I didn't want to sin. I understood I had to cast off the hand.

A Bonfire

I got up to go to the bathroom. The seat was wet and the toilet paper went under, not over.

I had enough.

I took the roll of toilet paper into the bedroom. I straddled Jason, used the sheets to hold him down, stuffed the toilet paper roll into his mouth, and lit it on fire. His screams were muffled as the sheets caught the flames.

The firemen found me laughing in my nightshirt while I watched the blaze burn the house to the ground.

The Caged Bird

On Sundays I am surprised by how free I feel despite being enclosed in my cell. I sing and write long love letters to Charley.

He never writes back.

The Fisherman's Tale

Wrinkled hands, spotted by an age of outdoor living, reeled in the line. The fisherman squinted as he watched his line dart across the rippled and sun-dappled surface of the pond. He pulled back. The reel squealed. His fishing pole bowed into a steep curve. The tip pointed outwards and flicked around as the line moved.

Something leaped in the water about twenty feet from the shore. Something big. It shined a multifaceted reflection of golden sunlight.

“Ha! You’re a big one, ain’t you? C’mon baby. Don’t fight it.” He held his breath and let out a little slack, worried the line would break from the strain.

The reel whined as the fish ran out towards the center of the pond. Once the line stopped moving, the fisherman inhaled and pulled back on the pole again. The fish struggled, but not quite as hard as before.

“That’s right. C’mon over here baby.”

The fish gave up the fight, and he was able to reel it in. He bent down among the reeds lining the muddy shoreline and reached into the water to pull out the bass. It was the strangest bass he had ever seen. It was as golden as sunlight; it reminded him of how his wife’s blonde hair had shimmered back when they were still young and used to swim in this very pond.

He reached down to grab the fish by the mouth.

“Excuse me.” The fish said.

The man fell back on his rump. Reeds and mud cushioned his fall, protecting his fragile hip (it had just been replaced six months ago). “What the –“ He pulled his pole up and began slamming it against the fish.

“Ow! Cut it out! Damn it! Stop it!” the fish screamed.

The man began to yell himself now. “Dang demon! What the hell!”

The fish tried to swim away, but could not. The line was tangled among the reeds. The hook was caught in its lip. “Stop it, old man! I can grant you wishes!”

The man paused, his pole held up above his head. “Wishes, huh?”

The fish looked at him and nodded its head by contorting its body. Scales glistened. “Yes. Three wishes. That’s how this thing normally works, right?”

The fisherman shook his head. He thought to himself that he needed to check the side effects of his new cholesterol pill. He could not remember the warning label saying anything about talking fish.

“So?” The fish looked up to him expectantly. “What’s your first wish?”

The old man thought about his wife, he thought about his kids and grandkids, he thought about the warmth of the sunlight beaming down against his bare scalp and soaking into the t-shirt on his back, and he paused to listen to the songs of grasshoppers and cicadas. He shook his head and began beating the fish once again with vigor.

“I don’t need you, demon. I gots all I need!”

Shining scales littered the pond. Like rising ghosts, steam filtered up from the dissolving golden flecks along with the smell of corruption.

The fisherman nodded his head, spat into the water, packed up his tackle, and turned towards home. He smiled. He knew his wife would be waiting on the front porch with a smile and a nice glass of iced tea.

The Day the Sun Slept In

The sun didn't come up, so I decided to stay inside. I figured there was no point going out if there ain't no light to see by. I remembered hearing about something like this back in Sunday school – that God had done something with the sun for some battle or something, but I've always been fuzzy about details. I've never been a good student.

I thought I'd paid the power bill, but the lights went off. I kicked my toe against the coffee table and it hurt like hell. It's a wonder the neighbors didn't call the cops with all my fussing. My damn apartment has thin-ass walls.

With nothing better to do, I tried to play some music on my iPod. I thought some Zeppelin would do nice, or maybe some Sabbath? But that damn thing didn’t work either, and I knew I just charged it. Fucking piece of shit!

After sitting in the dark a while, I got tired of staring out the window. The swirling purple clouds were pretty weird, but after a while they got boring. I pulled out the old hookah and lit up some stems and seeds, all that was left in my baggie after the night before. I coughed on the harsh smoke. It burnt like fire.

Hoping to refresh my stash, I called my buddy Roach, but my cell had no charge. I tossed it out the window because it pissed me off.

The phone broke through the window and stopped in midair among dozens of glass shards. They sat a moment, still, and then began spinning before slowly floating up into a black and purple swirl of sky.

Papers fluttered throughout my apartment. A couple taped-up concert flyers from my old band ripped off the living room wall.

I decided I didn't need any more weed after all; my tongue felt like a stuffed sock.

Shuffling my feet and using my hands to guide me through the dark, I carefully walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and spilled my milk. It pooled on the floor. I felt an odd urge to cry, but it passed.

I pulled out a beer – the only liquid I could find since the sink wouldn't work – but it was one of Bob's damned imported pieces of shit. I tried to twist off the cap and cursed as the serrated edge cut into my hand. I needed to find a bottle opener.

I remembered a flashlight I kept on the fridge. I pulled it down and laughed because it didn't work. Of course that piece of shit would be out of batteries, too.

I put the flashlight back in its place and worked my way over to the little window in the kitchen, unopened beer in hand. The cold condensation felt nice on my bleeding palm.

I looked out and knew something was wrong.

Behind our apartment is a school. Normally, when I wake up around noon the place is swarming with kids. They're out there hollering and going on during their recess, generally pissing me off as I try to sleep.

But the playgrounds were empty.

The school was dark and without students.

I couldn't have known it at the time, but I felt it. I knew deep inside that I'd never see another kid again. And I'm glad.

What's left of this world ain't no place for children.

The Reunion (Based on a True Story*)

With thanks(?) to Berrien Henderson. This one is your fault!

The doublewide sat in a field littered by clumps of crabgrass, rusting tricycles, and the random husks of automobiles propped up on crumbling cinderblocks. Waylon Jennings crooned through an open window, but we could hardly hear him over the sound of our riotous laughter and exaggerated gossip. Uncle Vanya passed around a bottle of white lightning -- he drank the stuff like a baby drinks milk -- and we all took turns sipping and spitting fire. Cousin Geli -- affectionately nicknamed “Sasquatch” -- ate all the potato salad. She didn’t share any of it. That boy of hers, Tommi, jumped her -- the crazy ass fool -- and sucked bits of devilled egg and mayonnaise from the chest hair on top of the fleshy bosoms exposed by her tight hot pink halter top. Geli giggled, giggled, and giggled some more as we pulled Tommi away. I slapped him on the nose and chastised him. We decided it would be best if we cut him off -- he’d had enough for the day. We locked him in the tool shed out back, and he howled like a hound dog.

My brother, Skinhead Charlie -- so-called due to his hairstyle and not because of any ideological reasons, at least as far as I know (or his wife either for that matter; hiding it from her would be difficult indeed) -- stumbled around singing my long hair can’t cover up my redneck as loud as he could, and I laughed because the irony was totally lost on him. His wife, Clarista, and his boy, Natanyon, shook their heads in embarrassment. They looked around with apologies written on their faces. Her brown eyes met mine. I nodded to her, leaned over, and ruffled Natanyon’s overgrown knot of tight curls. I winked to Clarista to let her know it was all good, nothing we haven’t seen before, and besides, the night was just getting started. I’d met them in the city where they lived once. I spent the night in their clubs and grinded and bounced while the MC scratched records and the smell of sweet cigarillos filled the air. It was a good time, but she was wrong if she thought that that was the extent of what it means to party. That wasn’t a party. It was a good time, yes, but not a party. Our reunions are a party. If they survive, they’ll know the difference and never forget it. If, when morning rises, their sanity is left intact, they will be one of us. Yes, they’re family now, but there’s family, and then there’s family.

So, I got up and grabbed a Bud from our ancient mud-stained cooler, cracked it open, and licked the foam from my fingers. I walked over to the grill where Granny wore her finest plaid apron inscribed with the words “IF YOU SAY IT AIN‘T DONE ENOUGH, YOU CAN KISS MY ASS!” She had her own jug of moonshine. It hung from her pinky finger. She brought it up and took a big old side-sipped swig without even making the hint of a grimace. She smiled and pointed to me with the tongs she held in her other hand and asked well, what the hell you looking at, shit head? I smiled back and gave her a kiss on her wrinkled cheek. Despite the heat of the day, her skin felt cold. I said I was just coming by to check on the vittles, and she said fuck off. With a jerk of my hand I grabbed one of the ribs from the rack. It fell off the bone, tender as pudding. Granny slapped me on the back with her tongs and laughed. Then she kicked me in the ass, so I stumbled away.

And then the real festivities began. The sun dipped low in the sky. The surface of our small fishing pond shimmered in alternating bands of orange and red as the water rippled. The wind picked up and we smelled it -- the life of the party. A tentacle shot up out of the center of the water. I shouted and pointed.

The music stopped. Everyone stopped. We waited.

Uncle Vanya walked to the pond. His eyes were rolled back into his head; all we could see were the whites. He held back his neck and sang his song, a single wavering note. I heard Natanyon and Clarista ask what was going on. I would have told them it weren’t nothing to fear, but that’d be a lie, and besides, being scared is part of the fun. Uncle Vanya paid no mind to anything besides his song. We all sat in silence and listened to him. His skin began to pulsate around his ribs. It opened, just a slit, and the single note became a loud creaking croaking. The croaks emanated from his inner depths. He reached up a fist, his wiry arms covered in burly dark hairs, and thrust it into the slit. He reached around a moment -- you could see his arm moving under his skin -- and then grabbed something and pulled it free.

The catfish flipped and flopped in Uncle Vanya’s fisted hand a moment. The shell of skin that had once been Uncle Vanya collapsed in on itself. The catfish walked on its spiky fins towards the pond, but we all knew it wouldn‘t get very far. The water began to roil. Tentacles reached upwards and waved towards the dimming sky as if trying to grasp the stars that had not yet appeared. There was a thunder of applause and we hooted and hollered. Granny walked down to the pond’s edge and picked up the bloated catfish and tossed it into the water. She kicked Uncle Vanya’s shell behind her. The tentacles scooped up the worthless bag of skin and tore it apart. As the tentacles sank back down into the water, we could all hear Uncle Vanya laughing, laughing, and we laughed with him, and I was a little jealous. A selfish part of me hoped it would be me this year, or at least Granny -- lord knows she’s waited around long enough -- but we love each other, and celebrate for each other, and don’t hold no grudges. I sipped Vanya’s white lightning and said cheers under my breath, and I knew he heard me. They all heard me, all my relations, and sometimes, when I’m fishing, I can hear them down there. They’re always partying whether we're here for the reunion or not. For them, the party never ends.

Once Vanya was gone, and the ripples faded into a smooth glassy surface which reflected the rising moon, we all turned away. Skinhead Charlie pulled out his banjo and played his twangy version of David Bowie’s Let's Dance. I did as the song asked and danced with Clarista -- her eyes were wide with fear, or maybe wonder, but glossed over by confusion -- and I told Natanyon to cheer up, to stop crying.

It was a party, after all.


*No, not really. Just goofing off. My family is actually much weirder than this one.

Blinders

Walking out on the downtown streets, I watched piles of trash float in the water coursing down the gutters. A used condom stuck to the bottom of my shoe. A bearded skeleton of a man sat naked in the rain, shivering.

People walked by as if they could not see the pitiful figure sitting on the curb. Seeing him, I realized I had walked past him many times, but never noticed him until now. I looked up to the dark clouds overhead, watched a bolt of purple lightning strike between the clouds and felt the rain splash my cheeks. The rain camouflaged my tears.

The crowd walked around him, and began to walk around me. I stopped, but the crowd moved on without me. I saw my coworkers pass me by, heading to the refinery, getting ready to work that stinking Martian clay into fuel. I took my black trench coat off my shoulders and bent down to drape it over the naked man.

He looked up to me with his wrinkled and hardened face. A glimmer of a smile appeared through the veil of his beard: pale rotting teeth and bleeding gums.

"Thank you," he said to me.

"You're welcome."

"I've been here for five years now. No one has noticed me. They walk past me, leaving me here cold and shivering in this unending artificial rain."

There was another flash of lightning overhead. I saw his face, saw through his face, and saw something majestic, but just as quickly as it appeared it was gone. The wrinkled visage returned.

"Look at them passing us by, looking forward, looking to their work, looking to their paychecks, looking to get wasted, looking to get laid, make babies, and send them off to Institution. They don't see us. They're obstructed by their own self-imposed blinders. Do you know why horses used to wear blinders back on Earth?"

I shook my head, bending down closer to hear his raspy voice over the howl of wind and the roaring rain.

"The old stagecoach drivers would put the blinders on so the horses wouldn't be spooked by what was around them. That way the horses could only see the trail ahead and not be distracted by the dark shadows hiding in the brush lining the trail. It kept them on course."

His smile widened and he pointed across the street.

"With your blinders off, what do you see?"

Wasted and crumbling buildings lined the other side of the street. The remnants of an old mine now used up. Beyond it the world ended. There was a maroon waste beyond a clear Plexiglas wall as far as the eye could see.

"Now look at me."

I looked back to the man. The lightning flashed again, and this time the brightness seemed to linger. In the light, I saw the true features of the figure below me. He unfurled his wings and glowed against the dingy world surrounding us.

"Do not be afraid. I come with tidings of great joy."

I felt a smile widen on my own face and fell to my knees. I held up my hands to the figure rising above me.

He reached down and touched my mouth. It burned as if touched by flaming coals, and my lips were sealed.

He floated further up and shouted down at me. "Spread this message because it is good! Let it take root! Once you do your part you may join us."

The sky parted and I saw others in an unreal whiteness above the clouds. Above the Plexiglas dome I glimpsed ultimate knowledge and unity before the clouds closed to me.

I sat naked on the curb and looked around.

No one had seen. The patrons of this world walked around me. They always looked forward thanks to their self-imposed blinders. Wondering how long I would have to wait for the next prophet, I sat down naked and began to shiver.

Perseids: 1861

The sun set long ago, yet the heat of the day lingered and radiated upwards from parched rocky soil. My bare feet were burned and blistered and open sores wept. I did not feel any of this. I did not feel anything beyond an inner emptiness and a tinge of loneliness. A harsh dusty wind moaned as it picked up sand from the desert floor, and my dry eyes burned. A dull ache throbbed in my head; I touched it with my hand, and my fingers came away wet with blood.

In front of me, the moon glowed large and looming on the horizon. A Joshua tree stood before me casting long, dark shadows.

Bats fluttered overhead, and, above them, an occasional star fell and trailed lines of color and light. The falling stars increased in number, and it seemed as if the sky itself might fall down.

I grew dizzy and faint and sat on the ground. I pulled my pistol from my holster and touched the steel barrel to my neck. It felt cool and refreshing in the hot night.

A scorpion crawled on a rock in front of me. I took aim and fired. Faster than the eye could register, the scorpion was gone. Smoke drifted up from my gun. The barrel was hot to the touch now.

Life one moment, gone the next.

It all seemed so fleeting, so meaningless. I thought about my girl. I had wanted to marry that girl. I thought about the burning farms. I thought about the flying arrows and bullets and screaming and blood – so much blood. The ground was muddy with blood once it was all done and over, and what had any of it accomplished? What was the point? After all, it was only land, and there was so much of it. Why couldn’t it be shared?

So many lives were lost in the confusion. A panicked horse trampled a toddler – she was my neighbor’s kid – but I had been helpless to stop it. Soon afterwards, that same horse bucked and kicked me to the ground. I lay unconscious and bleeding in my cotton long johns beneath some scrub. Once I awoke, the massacre was over.

I looked, but there seemed to be no survivors, just bodies and blood and acrid smoke. This morning, the sun rose, and birds sang just like any other day. By midday, the life I knew was gone forever.

In the present, a coyote howled in the distance.

I looked towards the horizon behind me. Beyond the ridge – where the land was moistened by a cool mountain stream, and the soil was fertile – thin lines of smoke snaked upwards into the empty night while vultures circled. My cheeks were suddenly hot and wet with tears.

I lay back down and looked back up to the sky and watched stars fall. They burned up before ever touching this cursed land, and I envied them.

All at once, everything grew fluid around me. The land beneath me encircled me as it became a canoe, and I felt myself float downstream. The falling stars became floating candles. They flashed by as the currents grew stronger, carrying me down into a widening and endless waterway. The mouth of the darkest ocean opened up and devoured all I ever was or would be.

Then I became aware – at the final moment before this world faded into the next – that the stars continued to fall, and I knew they would always fall, year after year, oblivious of us all.

the agent & the avant-garde

I looked down at the display on my cell phone and saw it was my agent calling.

“Hey. How’s it going?”

“All right. I got your latest manuscript and there are a few problems with it.”

“Really? Like what?”

“For one thing, the length – it’s only three pages long. Most of that is a repetition of the phrase ‘Naughty Johnny was a woman.’ What does that mean, anyway? The rest of it was some kind of space opera, am I right?”

“Sheesh! You don’t get me at all. It wasn’t space opera; it was a piece of progressive, transgendered, and cross-genre steampunk. Didn’t you see my illustration of the airship?”

“I thought that was a coffee stain. All the same, I don’t think I can sell it as a book. The length isn’t right.”

“But didn’t you get my multimedia content?”

“You mean that Beta tape? Yes, I got it. I had to search all over the place for a player for that damn thing. I went to every pawn shop in town. I searched e-bay. You do realize those old dinosaurs can cost a few thousand dollars these days?”

“No, I did not know that.”

“Well, now you do. I finally found a player hidden away in my grandfather’s basement. Then I had to find a television that had the correct hook-ups. I had to take the player and the tape over to my great aunt’s house for that.”

“So, you watched the tape?”

“Yeah, I watched it. I don’t know what you want me to do with it though.”

“I was thinking about turning it into a multimedia package. I read some guy on the internet say ebooks were the way of the future. Maybe it could be sold as one of those vooks.”

“I don’t know how many people out there will be interested in watching thirty minutes of you sitting around in your boxer shorts eating a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli from the can while singing off-key Broadway tunes between bites. I have no idea what that had to do with the manuscript you turned in.”

“You didn’t watch it all the way to the end, did you?”

“Oh, you mean the part when you farted? Yeah, I saw that. Like I said, I don’t know how many people will be interested.”

“It’s a commentary on the human condition.”

“Look, whatever. I really don’t think it would be a good idea to present this to any editor in its current form, and that brings me to what I’m really calling you about.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“I think I’m going to have to let you go as a client. Our arrangement just isn’t working out. Our contract has expired, and I don’t really want to renew.”

“Oh. Okay. I guess I’ll just talk to you later, then. See you around?”

“Yeah. Sure. Maybe. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Okay.”

I hung up the phone and smiled. I had already sold the story rights for a miniseries through a back door deal with a network television producer. The contract was just waiting to be signed, and now I could keep my fifteen percent.