the fake

by nick nelson

felix woke up. it was 0700 hours. he was supposed to be at work at 0830 hours. felix did not want to go to work. he not only did not want to go to work but felt it was very unfair that he was expected to do so. at this period in human history only 24.6 percent of the population “had to work”. and felix was one of the 24.6, a fact which filled him with a dull resentment which occasionally flared into blinding rage. on this morning he decided he would not go to work. he decided he would get up, drink his glass of grape juice in leisurely fashion instead of gulping it down. and then go to the museum. there was a picture felix had seen at the museum, a painting of a woman sitting on a beach and looking at a sunset, and he had enjoyed looking at it and thought he would like to go and look at it again. felix called his workplace and left a message that he would be absent that day, because he was ill. what felix did not suspect was that his employers had, just in the last week, installed a new sensor system in their phone network that could determine if a caller was lying or telling the truth. on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being absolute truthfulness and 100 absolute deceptiveness, felix’s message immediately registered a 99.9. so it was, that when felix had finished his grape juice, and dressed, in what he hoped would be appropriate attire for the weather he would encounter, and stepped out into the street, he was immediately spotted and followed by glenda and hector, two officers of the security police. glenda and hector, no less than felix, resented having to be employed - in their case, employed in following and arresting deadbeats and slackers like felix - and it was with no good humor that they arrested felix as soon as he took up his position in front of the painting of the woman looking at the sunset. felix made no resistance to his arrest, realizing that it would be futile to do so, but he was a bit surprised that hector, after a brief conference with an official of the museum, took the picture off the wall and carried it with him as he and glenda escorted felix to the fifty-story headquarters of the security police. nobody in the street showed the least surprise at watching the trio - felix in handcuffs , hector with the painting under his arm, and the scowling glenda - promenading down the street to the headquarters. glenda and hector took felix to the thirty-seventh floor in a swift elevator and brought him to a small interrogation room. the room was featureless but clean, and contained only a chair, which felix was directed to sit on, and a table, in which hector propped up the picture of the woman watching the sunset. glenda pointed to the lower right corner of the picture. “what do you see there?” she asked felix. felix had not noticed the corner of the picture before, but he looked at it and said, “it looks like a signature.” “exactly. and what does the signature say?’ hector squinted and said, “i think it says - ‘dubois’” “that is what it says,” glenda agreed. “but do you know what?” “no, what?” felix replied dutifully. “it wasn’t painted by dubois at all!” glenda cried. “it was really painted by a clever forger named reynard! what do you think of that, smart guy?” felix just shrugged. “this picture is a fake!” glenda hissed. “nothing but a lousy fake! you have betrayed your contract with society, and destroyed your own existence for a picture that is nothing but a fake! ha, ha, ha!” hector joined glenda in her laughter, and felix had no choice but to sit there and listen to them. felix was sentenced to fifty years breaking rocks on one of the moons of jupiter. during his long years he found peace with himself, and he also developed something of a reputation among the other prisoners for saintliness and wisdom. finally felix’s fifty years were up. as was the custom at the rockpile, all the prisoners were gathered together as the warden said a few words. “we are here today,” the warden intoned, “to wish our brother felix farewell. as you know he is no ordinary con, but has long been a source of solace and a beacon of compassion to his fellows, and an all-around great guy.” the warden cleared his throat. “does anybody have anything to add?” “i do!” a woman seated on the ground in front of the crowd cried. she stood up. felix had never noticed her before, but thought she looked familiar. did she resemble the police officer glenda, who had arrested him on that long ago day? or maybe the woman in the picture on the wall of the museum, looking at the sunset? “i got something to say,” the woman announced in a loud voice. “i know this guy. everybody thinks he is so wonderful and some kind of guru or shaman or holy man or whatever but i am here to tell you he is nothing but a ————— “

the empty house

by fan taser

emily had been married to frederick for several months, but continued to be surprised and gratified by evidence of his fabulous wealth, as well as by his attentiveness and devotion. emily’s mother, and her best friend, charlotte, had been skeptical of frederick when emily first met him. they professed to be puzzled by the fact that, despite his supposed great wealth, they could find no mention of his existence on the internet. emily explained to them, as frederick had explained to her - “frederick is one of the people who really own the world. those people you read about in the news and online, like bill gates and jeff bezos, they are just actors hired by the really rich people to play the part. so that people like frederick can enjoy their privacy.” one morning frederick suggested to emily that they drive up to one of frederick’s houses for the weekend, one that frederick had never mentioned before, near the canadian border. “another one!” emily laughed. “darling, you continue to amaze me.” “it’s just a little place,” frederick replied. “with what, about fifty rooms?” emily teased. “fifty or sixty. but it’s empty. i don’t use it much.” “completely empty?” emily asked. “somebody must take care of it.” “oh, there is a housekeeper, mrs wellesley. i suppose she hires some locals once in a while if something needs to be fixed, but basically it is just her. she won’t bother us. it will just be the two of us. she won’t even serve us at dinner if you don’t want her to. i will do the cooking.” “that sounds fabulous. you know how much i enjoy your cooking.” shortly after one o’clock, emily and frederick got into one of frederick’s ferraris - a light green 2017 gtc4lusso - and reached “the empty house” on the border just as dusk was falling. the house was completely surrounded by the tallest trees emily had ever seen. there was a detached garage almost hidden by the trees and frederick parked the ferrari in it and they carried their bags inside, where they were met by mrs wellesley, who looked as if she had just wakened from a nap. emily had wondered about “mrs wellesley”, a female living alone in the woods at frederick’s disposal, but was reassured at the sight of her. she looked about forty years and a bit on the heavy side. what a cow, emily thought, nothing to see here, folks. later, after the delicious dinner - one of frederick’s unique and effortlessly whipped up creations - frederick took out his phone and excused himself. he usually attended to the dreary business side of his existence for about an hour each day. left to herself, emily began wandering down the corridors of the house. frederick had described it as having “fifty or sixty” rooms but it seemed more like two hundred. the corridors were lined with old-fashioned oil paintings in heavy frames. they were mostly portraits, interspersed with a few paintings of horses, battles, and storms at sea. emily thought the people in the portraits looked very unattractive. i guess they didn’t have face lifts or botox back then, she thought, or even face cream. i must be tired, she thought, after that long drive, because as she looked at the people in the paintings they seemed to get even uglier and nastier looking, not even to be human any more, but demons or strange dragonny or lizardy creatures with big red and green and purple faces… and they started talking to each other and to emily… doesn’t even suspect, does she, poor thing… silly girl, you should have stayed at that internship at finley and finley… emily came to. she was lying on the floor of one of the corridors, with frederick and mrs wellesley bending over her. “darling,” frederick was saying. “you have had a long day. i knew we should have stopped on the way, instead of racing up here. what a fool i was. can you get up? mrs wellesley will take care of you.”” “i’ll be all right,” emily insisted. “i don’t need any help.” “mrs wellesley is a trained nurse,” frederick told her. “put yourself in her capable hands.” later, when frederick and mrs wellesley were driving back to the city, they stopped at a small restaurant just off the highway, where they were both well known. when the waitress had left with their order, mrs wellesley lit a cigarette. “what did you see in that one?” she asked frederick. “she hardly seemed worth it.” “you just keep doing what you do,” frederick told her. “and i will keep doing what i do.”

the dead man

by horace p sternwall

the dead man woke up. it was dark. he had an overwhelming urge to play a game of checkers. remembering his recent unpleasant experiences in the elevator, he walked down the five flights of stairs to the lobby on the second floor. daniel boone was behind the desk at the foot of the stairs and the dead man nodded to him. genghis khan, ed gein, and winston churchill were slumped in chairs around the lobby. churchill was smoking his eternal cigar and the other two were just staring into space. the television and the big cabinet radio were both turned off, and the checkerboard was nowhere in sight. neither was the gray cat. “anybody up for a game of checkers?” the dead man asked hopefully. “no, man,” ed gein told him. “nobody wants to play checkers with you.” “where is everybody?’ the dead man asked. “where are the teds?” “they went across the river to newark,” genghis khan said, “to see the new hoochie koochie show.” “the hoochie koochie show? at this time of night?” “where you been, brother?” ed gein asked. “this is the modern world, not like old times. the action runs all night, if you just know where to find it.” stonewall jackson wandered in, and joined the conversation. “i remember when the blue laws had teeth in them, and you couldn’t smoke a cigar or buy a pack of gum on sunday.” “that must have been before my time,” winston churchill growled. “must have been,” stonewall agreed. the dead man went down the last flight of stairs to the street. there was a bit of fog in the air. a little girl approached him. she might have been the little match girl or she might have just been anybody from nowhere. “they stole my duck,” the little girl said to the dead man. “what?’ “the bad men stole my duck,” the little girl repeated, with a sob. “they did, did they?” “i will give you ten million dollars to get it back.” “you don’t have to do that, honey. i will do it just because i am a good guy. show me where these rascals are and i will fry up their bacon in the devil’s own grease.” “follow me, then,” the dead man followed the little girl down a long flight of wide stone steps. the fog got heavier. at the bottom of the stone steps the little girl pointed to a warehouse . its door was cracked open, and a dim light showed through. “they are in there. but be careful.” “they are the ones who are going to have to be careful,” the dead man assured the little girl. the dead man pushed the door of the warehouse open. and there, sitting around a card table with a bottle of whiskey and some glasses, were his old nemeses - pope ignatius xv, and his two henchmen, allen dulles and sir edward gray. “got him again, boys! “ pope ignatius cackled. “fell for the oldest trick in the book!” allen dulles crowed. “please, fellows, don’t do this to me,” the dead man begged. “we got you fair and square,” pope ignatius intoned. “now, listen up , and listen good, because we will only go through this once. get down to waterloo station and get the 4:45 to istanbul. it will make a stop at vienna. a woman will get on wearing a green hat and carrying a red briefcase…” three days later, after the most desperate, hair raising, and yet tedious and interminable hours of his existence, the dead man crawled back up the stairs of his hotel. churchill was still in the lobby, along with two of the teds - bundy and roosevelt. the dead man started to tell his sad story but none of them wanted to hear it. “why do these things happen to me?” he cried. “only to me?” “stop your whining,” ted bundy told him. “why don’t you pull yourself together and try to make yourself useful for once and make something out of your life?” “out of my life? but i am already dead - dead!” “nobody wants to play checkers with you, man.”

the child

by corinne delmonico

catherine was a curious child, and lived in an apartment on the third floor of a building in a large city. the third floor was the perfect height for a person, who, like catherine, enjoyed watching people pass by on the street below, as it was low enough to get a good look, but high enough that the people being watched rarely looked up and saw that they were being watched. catherine enjoyed watching the persons passing below more than she enjoyed television, or scrolling through a computer or tablet or cell phone. she did not at all like reading or doing homework, and nothing could persuade her to take up piano, violin, dance, or any other such nonsense. “if you do not mind my asking,” her mother said to her one day, “what do you find so interesting about the people in the street?” “i think it interesting,” catherine replied, “that they are all so much alike. you would think that there would be more variety, but they are pretty much all the same. i wonder, if perhaps, inside they are all different.” “and that is what interests you? i would think it would be just the opposite, that they would start to bore you.” “no. i find it a source of infinite fascination. and i also wonder, where are they all going? and looking so serious, most of them.” “they are all going different places,” catherine’s mother said. “no!” grandpa, usually so quiet, spoke up from his chair in the corner. “they are all going to the same place.” catherine’s mother rolled her eyes. “and where might that be, dad?” “to the grave! they are all headed to the grave!” “oh, for heaven’s sake, dad, the child is morbid enough, without listening to stuff like that!” “no,” catherine replied thoughtfully, “i think grandpa had a point. a very good point.” and she turned back to the window, and continued to watch from it, day after day, until she was finally sent away to school.

the bureaucrat

by nick nelson

brady smith had been working for the department of identity consolidation for ten days before he heard someone use the term “bureaucrat” and realized that it applied to him. he vaguely remembered hearing the word before but without knowing or caring what it meant. “but there is nothing wrong with being a bureaucrat, is there?” he asked emily johnson, his immediate supervisor. “no, of course not,” emily replied, “it is just that many people would rather be something else.” vaguely troubled, brady made an appointment to meet with a counselor in the human relations department. jennifer carter, the counselor, assured brady that there was nothing wrong with being “who he was”, but that if he liked he could seek other opportunities, and she handed him a packet of brochures depicting some of these other options. brady flipped through the brochures, which described the opportunities and qualifications for being, among other things, rap stars, ballerinas, models, movie producers, homicide detectives, best-selling novelists, talk show hosts, united states senators, hedge fund managers, serial killers, vampires, vampire hunters, drug dealers, drifters who traveled from town to town solving crimes, and several varieties of assassins. “and all these things are better than being a bureaucrat?” brady asked. “some people think so,” jennifer replied. “of course, everybody is different and everybody is who they are.” brady thanked jennifer and left with the brochures. after work, he went straight home to his apartment, where he was greeted by his cat, who wished to be fed. brady would have preferred a dog, which might have greeted him with more of a show of affection, but the apartment by-laws prohibited it. he tossed the brochures on to the couch in front of his tv. as he did so, the full force of what he had learned that day hit him like a sledgehammer racing down the track to hell. he had always thought that people liked him, or at least did not begrudge him his existence. but now he realized that everybody hated him.

the assassins

by nick nelson

the meeting had fallen silent, with the participants staring into space with their hands on their knees. ms parkhust, the facilitator, looked from face to face searching for a spark of life. “mack? you look like you might want to say something?” “no, i’m good,” mack replied. “anybody else?” ms parkhurst asked. “does anybody have something they would like to share?” “i do.” “very good, stan. thank you.” stan stood up. he looked straight ahead and cleared his throat. “my name is stan gantry, and i am a trained deadly assassin.” “thank you for sharing that, stan. is there anything you would like to add?” “i saw and did things too terrible to be told.” “bullshit,” one of the participants seated behind stan announced . “now, bradley,” said ms parkhurst, “you know that we encourage positive input.” “including for something that is positively bullshit?” bradley shot back. “you know that we encourage the free exchange of views,” ms parkhurst continued in a mild voice, “but negativism is not in the spirit of the meeting.” “there is no way this gentleman is, ever was, or ever will be, a trained deadly assassin,” bradley insisted. “i don’t see how you can say that,” mary jane johnson, who never contributed much to the discussions, interjected. “how can i say it?” bradley replied. “i will tell you how i can say it. because there are no trained deadly assassins, at least not like you see in the movies. i am not saying that the c i a might not have somebody killed once in a while, or that there are not people who will kill for money, or make themselves available to kill for money.” “then what exactly are you saying?” ms parkhurst asked. “i’m saying there are no people like you see in movies or read about in thrillers, who do it as a full time occupation, like being a doctor or a lawyer or selling real estate. and make big money doing it! how many people would they kill? one a month? one a week? and supposedly there are thousands of them out there, working for the c i a, for the f b i, for this or that top secret organization, for god knows who. the bodies would be piled up on the sidewalks, you wouldn’t be able to walk down the street. no, my friends, the trained deadly assassin is a fantasy figure as much as sherlock holmes or miss marple, or vampires or werewolves.” “that is all very well, bradley,” said mary jane johnson, “but it is all just your opinion. i know, because i was a trained deadly assassin myself.” “so was i,” added shirley phillips. “and so was i,” said patricia mastronello. “i was one for twenty years,” said chuck davis, in a booming voice from the back of the room. “i was one for thirty years,” mike richardson, who was seated right beside bradley, looked up at him and said. bradley tried to laugh. “how about you?’ he asked ms parkhurst. “i suppose you were one for forty years?” “no,” ms parkhurst replied. “only six or seven years, before i got married. now sit down, bradley, it looks like you have been outvoted.” bradley shook his head. “next i suppose you are all going to say you were vampires or werewolves or zombies.” “we can take that up some other time,” ms parkhurst told him. “maybe at next week’s meeting.”

three numbers

by horace p sternwall

clarence albert fanshaw was a dreamer, had always been one, and had never done an honest day’s work in his life. in his youth his dreams had been somewhat varied, involving fame, achievement, romance, and even good works, but after his small inheritance had been wiped out in one of the more obscure financial crises of the late twentieth century, his dreams had focused almost exclusively on money - on winning a lottery, finding buried treasure, doing a good deed for an anonymous person who would turn out to fabulously wealthy and properly grateful, or some other windfall which would restore him to some measure of the comfort he had known in his youth. meanwhile he spent his days in the streets, cafeterias, libraries, and homeless shelters of the great city, dreaming… always dreaming… the times changed, never for the better. clarence missed the cheap movie theaters where he had spent so much time in the vanished century, and which had virtually disappeared. so had the old-fashioned missions, which would give you a feed and ask nothing more of a guy than that he say a prayer or sing a hymn. they had already been fading away when clarence first hit the streets, and he had rather enjoyed them. clarence had another, somewhat curious grievance. there was not as much paper to be found in the streets, or left behind in cafeterias, as before. one of his most persistent fantasies had always been of finding a letter, or scrap of paper, which would contain a secret message which would somehow unlock a mysterious source of wealth, or contain a map or clue to the recovery of buried treasure. treasure island and the count of monte cristo had been his two favorite books as a child, and had made a permanent impression on him. but now, of course, in the miserable and unromantic twenty-first century, nobody wrote letters, or wrote down telephone numbers or much of anything else on paper. everything was transmitted or recorded on the same infernal cell phones which prevented them from meeting the eyes of a guy asking for spare change. so it was with both pleasure and surprise that clarence found, one rainy morning on a table at a burger king, a small piece of lined paper, apparently torn from a pocket sized notebook. the piece had three numbers written on it in blue ink. the three numbers were: 3,000,000,000 8,000,000,000 150 what could they mean? * despite his hatred of the modern world, clarence had learned to use the computers available in libraries. so, the first thing he did when he found the piece of paper with the three numbers was to google the numbers. the first thing he did was google the three numbers together. what he got seemed like a whole lot of nothing, including. “the annual report of the secretary of state to the governor of ohio”, and “ the annual report of the water department of cincinnati”, and “coins of the world - netherlands” and “growth - coconino community college.” nothing much there. next he tried the numbers separately. when he put in 3,000,000 he immediately got “convert 3,000,000 seconds to years”. it turned about to be 95 years. that might be promising. the treasure had been buried 95 years ago! next he put in 8,000,000,000. the first thing that came up was “don’t take that call from 800-000-0000”. all right, clarence thought, i won’t. he scrolled through 4 more pages and found something on reddit - saying “there are about 8,000,000,000 people on the planet”. yes, and they are all looking for the treasure. finally, he tried 150. all sorts of nothing. the best was on the fourth page of scrolling. “nancy pelosi removed a 150-year-old sign reading “in god we trust" from the entrance to the u s house of representatives chamber.” what a bitch! to do somerthing like that! but did it have anything to do with the treasure? maybe the 150 year old sign was worth 3,000,000 dollars? maybe nancy pelosi was going to bury it for 95 years and come back and dig it up and it would be worth 8,000,000,000 dollars. clarence felt that he was getting somewhere now. but just then he heard a loud recorded voice behind him announcing: “the library will be closing in ten minutes. if you have anything to check out, please do so now.” clarence sighed. he would have to come back and resume his researches tomorrow. but maybe it was just as well, as his head was starting to hurt. why did everything have to be so complicated? and would his dreams ever come true? like 8 billion other people living lives of possibly 3 billion seconds, clarence asked himself these questions about 150 times a day.