Fiction

Jake’s stomachs growled. The big boss had sent him into town to meet with the company’s newest computer geek. The noob had selected a Marriott near the spaceport. Jake hated Marriotts, always full of squirrels.

The alley, you would have sworn, is empty. Blank concrete walls and a narrow, colorless door, likely out of use for years. You’re turning your head to say it’s a bust when the light blazes into existence, catching the corner of your eye, flooding the door and the whole lane with blood-red light: a bent-neon sign and the words THE OZ CASINO.

I write this in bright sunshine, teasing words from air that is rich with glimmering motes. My hands trace calligraphic arcs against the cloudless sky, circling primrose, aconite, forget-me-nots.

It was close to three a.m. when a woman came into the Borderlands diner. I slipped the book I was reading under the counter and said, “Morning.”

Down at the town hall, everybody decided I should be the one to smash up the Invader’s statue. Folks in town call me Joe-Fix-It. I’m usually around doing odd jobs, helping mend a fence or changing a tire. And I’ve always been handy with a sledgehammer. No sweat, I told them.

All Alice ever wanted was to hear them sing. That's what I told her father, when they brought me to him, after what happened in Guam. At first, he just stared at me, like I was some bug he was tempted to pull the legs off, one at a time. Then he started talking.

"When we are done here you will be killed," said Director Emmet Peterson of Best Possible Life, Inc. Hearing this, Asher leaned back in his chair, casually rested his hands in his lap and began to swivel ever so slightly from side to side, the tension in his shoulders melting with each subtle twist. Still, he made sure to knot his brows for the Director's benefit.

Jaime was born on the same day a ladder descended from the sky off the coast of Atlantic City and dipped, like a toe, into the ocean.