This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. The ring had become a chain around his neck. She was supposed to be this grand gift from the universe, this reward to make up for a lifetime of pain, and she almost was. But now, he was being dragged somewhere he’d never intended to go.

Veronica was kind and sweet and never criticized. She was the first woman Kurt had ever dated who didn’t accuse him of having Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder because he liked to keep his life running smoothly. “But she has someone else…” The words echoed in his mind as he snapped the empty ring box open and closed. How could she expect a man to share his fiancée?

They had met at a fundraiser for Saint Brendan’s Orphanage. Like him, she was adopted, and had never known her birth parents. But while he had spent eight years waiting, she had been snapped up almost immediately. It was easy to see why. What parent wouldn’t want such a gorgeous, happy daughter? Vibrant, red hair, eyes like jade, and a laugh that held back all the darkness in the world.

After that first evening together, they spent the next eight months exploring everything their city had to offer, from hole in the wall diners to jazz nightclubs to a crystal creek hidden in a stretch of forest at the edge of town. He wanted to keep exploring the world, and to share it all with her.

He took her to the museum and waited until they were standing in front of her favorite painting, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”. When he dropped to one knee, she thought he had lost a contact lens. It didn’t dawn on her what was happening until he’d opened the tiny, felt box. Her lips spread into a slight smile, and then, instead of the one word he expected to hear, she said, “We need to talk.”

Veronica took his hand and led him outside to a park bench. “Kurt, I love you. I do. I want us to spend our lives together. But there’s someone else.”

“You’re cheating?”

She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and kissed his cheek. “No, darling. We haven’t been together intimately. But we want to. I was working up the nerve to tell you, but I guess I waited too long.”

He rubbed his eyes and tried to keep the hurt from turning into tears. “Do you… do you… like him? More than me?”

“No! You’re my favorite. I like him a lot, but I love you. You will always have my heart.”

“Then why? Why do you want to be with him?”

She laughed and waved at the city around them. “Look at this place! The streets, the buildings, everything is alive and filled with stories! There is so much out there, waiting to be explored, and I want to see it all. You will always be the brightest star in my sky, but you cannot be my world. You can have me forever if you just trust that I will always love you. Can you do that? Can you trust me enough to give me my freedom?”

He swallowed hard. “What a choice!” he thought. “Ninety percent or nothing.” Aloud, he said, “I love you more than I ever thought I could love. What else can I say?”

“Hey, wake up.” Kurt suddenly realized his boss was standing over him, waving an orange binder. “Stop daydreaming and get started on the Eisenhower Expressway plans.”

Kurt was a traffic engineer, and spent most of his time drawing construction traffic control plans. He would create a path, and thousands of people would follow it, going exactly where he wanted them to go. Life was so much more orderly that way.

He placed the ring box next to his keyboard and dumped a handful of paper clips inside. He never used them, but it was better than leaving it empty.

He decided not to meet her boyfriend. The curiosity ate at him, but the risk was too great. What if they were making love, and all he could see was this stranger’s face? It was better not to know, better to ignore it altogether. He asked Veronica not to tell him the other man’s name, or even mention the fact that there was someone else. Instead, Kurt would spend Thursday nights alone while she was “at book club”. She even bought a new paperback each week to help complete the illusion.

Weeks passed, and he finally managed to push the negative thoughts out of his head. After that, he never felt neglected, or jealous, or afraid. Their lovemaking was as good as ever. Better, even. She had an amazing amount of energy, in and out of the bedroom. Everything might have gone on that way forever, if she hadn’t come home with that smile. That damned smile. Her face told of secret, forbidden joys, far beyond those offered to the rest of humanity. She was as content as a monk on a mountaintop, every desire satisfied. It was enough to make him sick.

The red dot bounced across the map, and Kurt following a few blocks behind. Earlier that week, he had installed some new software on her phone, an application for paranoid parents called “Teen Tracker.” It took the GPS data from her phone and sent it to his laptop, which was resting beside him in the passenger seat. You needed the phone password to install it, but she had given him that months ago. She trusted him.

After a few miles, city streets were replaced by narrow, gravel roads that snaked through farmer’s fields. Endless rows of wheat turned into forest, tightly-packed trees arching over the road. The setting sun spilled orange fire through the leaves.

Another curve in the road brought him to a vast, Queen Anne mansion. In the front yard stood a lone hickory tree with a faded, wooden sign hanging from the largest limb: “House of a Thousand Doors.” Odd name for a bed and breakfast, or whatever it was. He pulled into the lot and climbed the stone steps to the front porch.

Inside, a narrow lobby stretched off into the distance. The wood paneled walls were stained a deep burgundy, and the floor was black tile scattered with crisscrossing white lines. Everything was quiet. The place felt wrong somehow. It was almost like an imitation of a house, some figure in a wax museum. The echo of his footsteps was off by half a beat. He was almost certain there were more windows outside than inside. There was plenty of light, but he couldn’t see its source.

After about a hundred feet, the lobby made a series of sharp turns, seemingly at random. He came to a wide hallway with numbered doors down each side. The hall was filled with a swirling mass of people. Some were in pairs and headed for a room, others were apparently alone and searching for someone to share their evening.

A flash of red hair vanished into the crowd. He tried to follow, but a wall of people blocked his way. Despite all the couples he had seen step into their rooms, the crowd hadn’t gotten any smaller. If anything, there were even more people than before. Where were they all coming from?

A figure broke through the crowd, a small, gaunt man in a black suit. His skin was an odd, pale color, almost gray, and seemed stretched too tightly over his bones. “Why are you here?” His slight smile said he already knew the answer.

“Veronica. I’m here for Veronica.”

“To speak with her, or to satisfy your curiosity?” The man reached up to scratch his chin. His long fingernails were filed into points.

“I…”

“This way.” The man lead Kurt to a hallway that he hadn’t noticed before. Their path twisted and turned like a gnarled oak. At last, they came to a pair of doors. “You can talk to her in this room, or you can watch her in that room.”

“Will she know I’m watching?”

“Just do your best to stay out of the light.”

The second door lead to a small, dark room. In the slit of light from the hall, he could see the room was empty and featureless, save for a brass wall clock and a pair of curtains. Pulling back the curtains revealed a window into the next room. “Oh, I get it,” he thought. “This must be one of those one-way mirrors. It has to stay dark in here to keep them from seeing me. Better close the door.”

The next room was dark wood covered in azure carpet and tapestries. A queen-size bed was conveniently positioned directly across from the one-way mirror on the far wall. There were no closets or dressers. Clearly, these rooms were only for people staying a short while.

The clack of heels on tile, and door in the next room opened. Veronica entered, followed closely by a tall, well-muscled man in a leather jacket. She was laughing about something, her mouth covering her hands. The man lurched forward, slid his hands under her arms, and tossed her on the bed. She gasped, laughed, and began pulling up her skirt. The man stripped to his waist, revealing a lean, muscular frame, a Greek sculpture in blue jeans.

A tiny boat tossed by a vast and stormy sea. Salt water on her skin and lightning in her veins. Kurt’s hand gripped the curtain, his knuckles turning white, but he couldn’t find the strength to pull it closed. The smile returned to her face, that satisfied smile that he could never summon, the smile that made his stomach turn sour. Why didn’t he make her that happy? Why wasn’t he enough?

At last, he pulled himself away and stepped out the door, trying to remember the combination of turns that had lead him there, but the halls seemed to have shifted. When he finally made it outside, he rushed to the parking lot and ducked between two cars, where he could watch the door without being seen.

A few moments passed, and Veronica stepped outside. She was normally clumsy in heels, but that night, she was all but floating. A strand of hair was hanging loose down the side of her nose, but she didn’t seem to notice. She glided out to her car and her taillights faded into the night.

Another figure appeared. The other man, the new continent she was determined to explore. His face was quietly serene. If he knew Veronica was engaged, it didn’t bother him. This was a man without doubts, without fear, at peace with himself and the world. He stepped into the parking lot, and a lion sprang at his throat. “Bastard!” Kurt howled, knocking him to the ground. “Bastard! She’s my wife! My fucking wife!”

The man rolled, throwing Kurt into the side of a black sedan. “If she’s looking elsewhere for love, I can hardly be the one to blame.”

Kurt threw out his leg, catching the man in the temple. As he lay there stunned, Kurt stood, grabbing him by his shirt and dragging him towards the trees, out of the light. The man twisted, throwing a wild left at his stomach. Kurt stumbled backward, and the man sprang to his feet.

The man lurched forward, and Kurt brought up his hands to block a punch that never came. Suddenly, his enemy was sprinting back towards the hotel. Kurt gave chase, fists and legs pumping, but the sound of shouting hotel guests made him reconsider. He retreated to the parking lot.

“Where were you?” Veronica demanded. “You said you were going to be home watching a movie.”

“I was,” Kurt said, “but I went out to get some ice cream.”

She stepped into the living room. The remote control was still sitting on the entertainment center where she’d left it after the morning news. “What did you watch?”

“I…”

She took a seat on the couch and patted the cushion beside her. Ignoring her gesture, he remained standing. “Did you think he wouldn’t call me? Did you think he wouldn’t tell me what you did? Kurt, that was assault! I had to beg him not to press charges, and he only agreed when I promised that he’d never see you again.” Sighing, she rubbed her forehead. “Will you stay away from him? Can you leave him alone?”

“Veronica, I don’t know if I can handle this. How can you expect me to share you with another man? How do I know he won’t take so much of you that there will be nothing left? How can I trust you?”

“That’s something you have to figure out for yourself.”

For the next two weeks, Kurt buried himself in work. He begged for overtime, covered for coworkers on vacation, did everything to stay away from home as long as he could. Finally, he fell asleep at his desk. His boss woke him with a slap to the back of the head and ordered him to go home.

When he walked through the door, Veronica was already gone. He turned on the television, but the only thing on was daytime talk shows. Even awful television was relaxing. The guard at the gates of his mind wandered off. Dark thoughts crept in.

“She’s with him right now, isn’t she. And the next time we’re together, he’ll be with both of us. His smell in her hair, his taste on her tongue. I could scrub her skin until she’s raw and bleeding, but he’ll always be there. I’ll always know where he’s been. This has to end. Everything comes to an end eventually.”

He drove in a daze, earth and sky rolling by unnoticed, until he found himself back at the House of A Thousand Doors. The place looked different in the daylight. The windows seemed taller and narrower, and the porch had three steps instead of five. The place was made of oak, but there were no divisions between the panels. It appeared to be one continuous piece of wood, like it had been carved from a single, gigantic tree. Or perhaps the house had simply grown there, at the top of the hill.

He climbed the steps and reached for the door. The knob jumped out of his hands, the door banging open. The halls rearranged themselves like rivers flowing into new banks. They squeezed him out, spitting him into the lounge.

The lounge was long and narrow and dim, like a cave with stools. A handful of people were scattered at tables and on sofas, sitting in their own, private pools of light. At the very back of the lounge lurked the bar, a monstrosity of granite and black leather. Behind the bar stood the gray man.

As Kurt moved across the room, the air seemed to resist him, like walking through water. The gray man drummed his pointed nails on the counter and watched him approach. As soon as Kurt was in arm’s reach, the gray man produced a glass of champagne and thrust it at him.

“I think you’re supposed to say ‘what will it be?’” Kurt said.

“Funny,” the gray man said, “I thought you were going to ask me the same thing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kurt took the glass and twisted the long stem in his hand. Bubbles danced through liquid gold, rising higher until they burst.

The man’s hand dropped below the bar, returning into view with a glass of red wine. “When you were very young,” he said, taking a long sip, “your family lived at the edge of a patch of woods. Early one morning, while you were out playing, you saw something shining in the trees. Drops of morning dew had been caught in a gigantic spider’s web. The droplets were trapped, isolated on the silken strands. Each one would go through its brief existence thinking it was the entire world. But the web joined them all together, and the spiders could walk across the web and drink any drop they liked.”

Kurt put down the glass, the champagne sloshing over the sides. “How did you know about that? Are you a fortune teller?”

“Fortune tellers want to help you. I just watch, and wait. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an almost infinite number of places to be.” He stepped through a pair of swinging doors into a dark back room.

Kurt took a seat at the bar and tried to remember the sequence of twists and turns that had brought him to the lounge. He reached for what was left of the champagne. Somehow, the glass was full and the counter top was dry. Reaching out, he idly ran a finger around the rim of the glass.

A hand on his shoulder. A woman in a silver cocktail dress smiled at him, her face half-concealed by strands of wavy, black hair. “You’re new,” she said. “Are you here by yourself?”

“Yes. But I’m with someone. I mean, she’s not with me, but she’s in the building. I think.”

“You’re not sure if you’re with someone?” she laughed.

“It’s complicated. This place is confusing. This isn’t a real building, is it?” She was just a stranger, no reason she should care about him, but the words poured from his mouth. He told her about Veronica, about her boyfriend, following them to this place, everything. Finally, she silenced him with a finger on his lips.

“Maybe you should stop reacting to her choices and choose your own path.” She turned for the door. “Or my path. Whichever you like.”

She lead him to a cavernous library, endless rows of shelves interspersed with carved granite columns. Reaching back, she grabbed his hand and pulled him towards a high, octagonal table. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We won’t be interrupted. This is my secret place. Now, on your back.”

Obediently, he hopped onto the table. The woman climbed up and straddled his waist. Her fingers caressed his stomach, stroked the coutures of his chest and the side of his face, and wrapped around his throat. He tried to scream, but it came out as a chocking gag.

Her face twisted into a fanged smile. As she squeezed tighter, her skin began to bubble and drip. She melted like a wax figure, her skin sliding into a new shape: the gray man.

His vision blurring, Kurt summoned the last of his strength. He rolled on his side, heaving the man to the floor. Kurt jumped from the table and ran, the pale man’s laughter chasing him down the hall.

The building groaned as, once more, it shifted into a new shape. The wall lurched forward and forced him in a new direction. The hall tightened, threatening to crush him. His feet pounded the floor endlessly, until at last he collapsed.

The sound stopped. A glass clinked, and a woman’s voice was saying, “Oh, you’re so bad!” He opened his eyes. Somehow, he had come back to the lounge. He picked himself up off the floor and dropped into a seat near the door. At the far end of the room, Veronica was sitting at the bar. She had some pink, fruity drink in one hand, her boyfriend’s arm in the other. He pulled her closer and their lips met.

“Just get out of here,” Kurt thought. “Now, before they see you. This place – she – she is obviously driving you insane. Just… go.” He stood slowly, prying his fingers from the back of his chair, fighting the urge to throw himself across the room and break the chair across her boyfriend’s skull. The few feet to the door was the farthest he’d ever walked.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” came the boyfriend’s voice, calm and reassuring. Kurt ducked around the corner, watching as the couple left the lounge and headed out to the parking lot. He counted to fifty and followed.

Veronica’s car was under a tree at the far end of the lot. The boyfriend opened her door for her, kissed her on the cheek, and watched her drive off into the darkness. He turned on his heel and started back towards the house. Passing under the ring of light from a lamppost, he vanished, as if he had stepped through a doorway that wasn’t there.

“That man isn’t human,” Kurt thought. “None of these people are. I have to warn Veronica. Wait – I can’t say anything, or she’ll know I was here. She’ll think I’ve gone mad with jealousy. I’ll have to come back in the daytime, and find some proof.”

The next day, Kurt pretended he’d been hit by a stomach bug. He called in sick to work and waited for Veronica to leave for the day. At the sound of her locking the front door, he jumped out of bed and threw on his clothes. He slipped his camera into his jacket pocket and headed back to the House of 1,000 Doors.

The parking lot was empty, but the door was unlocked. Inside, the place was quiet. It felt as if the building were asleep, waiting for the night to return. The long hallway of numbered rooms was empty. The door to the gray man’s observation room stood open, silently beckoning. He stepped inside and found the curtains were already parted. The lights in the next room were on, but no one was inside. “I wonder when the first guests usually arrive,” he thought. “Are there even employees here? It feels like I’m the only one around.” All was silence, save for the clock on the wall.

The clock’s hands jerked backward, spinning in the wrong direction. Faster, faster, a black blur. The clock seemed to pause and catch its breath, and the hands moved forward once more.

The clack of heels on tile, and door in the next room opened. Veronica entered, followed closely by a tall, well-muscled man in a leather jacket. She was laughing about something, her mouth covering her hands. The man lurched forward, slid his hands under her arms, and tossed her on the bed. She gasped, laughed, and began pulling up her skirt.

“This must be a video screen!” Kurt gasped. “It’s not a mirror at all. But why are they playing a recording?”

If it was a recording, it wasn’t entirely accurate. As if he had heard Kurt’s words, Veronica’s boyfriend stopped and turned towards the sound. He pulled his shirt back on, climbed out of bed, and walked towards the wall. His face twisted into a smile.

“Can he… can he see me?”

The man leaned in close, closer, until his face melted through the glass. “Yes.”

Kurt ran for the door.

He found himself in his bedroom. Veronica was in his bed, screaming in pain. At the foot of the bed stood her boyfriend, squeezing her hand. She was wearing a pale blue nightgown, pulled up above her waist, revealing a round, swollen belly. “Almost done!” the man said. “Just a little more. You’re doing so good!”

Kurt’s spirit was torn in two. His future had abandoned him, and he was being forced to watch what could have been. He wanted to scream, he wanted to be sick on the floor, but what would be the point? There was nothing left. He had been plucked from the fabric of the universe, and his very existence was coming unraveled. Finally, he said, “How do I get out of here?”

The man said simply, “You have to go out the way you came in.” He gestured to a door that, moments earlier, hadn’t been there. Kurt stepped through, going back once more.

Veronica sighed, watching her baby sleeping in her arms. It was hard to enjoy the moment when she knew it wouldn’t last, that she mustn’t grow attached. She wouldn’t have him for long, and it would be half a lifetime before she would experience this again. She looked up at the man at the foot of her bed. “How many times has this happened before?”

He laughed. “You ask me that every time.”

“How many?” she insisted.

“Countless thousands.”

“How many more times will we go through this?”

“Until he learns.”

There was just one thing left to complete the cycle. He reached down and plucked the baby from her arms. Turning, he walked through the final door, back the beginning, back to Saint Brendan’s Orphanage.

• The imaginary friend I had as a child was actually a real person. Going to the park will never be fun again.
• I should just ignore the voices in my head because they aren’t real. But didn’t the voices say the same thing about him?
• The quickest way to get more self-esteem is to take it from other people.
• Maybe I have intimacy issues, but I can’t stand it when people touch me on the cornea.
• Talking to yourself doesn’t make you crazy. What makes you crazy is doing it over a walkie-talkie.
• It might seem like everyone I love is walking away from me, but that’s just how parades work.
• WHY IS THIS &@#! ICE CREAM SO &**!@ COLD?! …Sorry, my therapist says I need to work on my rocky road rage.
• I finally realized I have an eating disorder after I broke up with my girlfriend just so I could cheer myself up with ice cream.
• My therapist said I’m a chronic procrastinator with a messiah complex, but I’m not worried. I’ll save the world . . . eventually.
• I shouldn’t try to drink my problems away, even if my biggest problem is having too much booze.
• It’s pretty crazy to wear a tinfoil hat to keep aliens from reading your mind is pretty crazy. It’s really crazy to wear a tinfoil hat because your brain is a baked potato.
• My therapist says I have a condition that causes indecisiveness, and he’s naming it after me. I’m not sure how to feel about that.

]]> http://www.writepop.com/humor/things-i-learned-in-therapy/feed 0 http://www.writepop.com/humor/why-we-broke-up http://www.writepop.com/humor/why-we-broke-up#comments Mon, 06 Jun 2011 23:38:54 +0000 Writepop http://www.writepop.com/?p=693 My girlfriend and I are about to celebrate our third anniversary. It’s great to finally be in a happy, stable relationship. My last few didn’t end so well…

Lisa just couldn’t deal with the fact that I was born without a uvula.

I told Susan that I wanted two women at once: one to iron my shirts, and the other to bake pies.

Amy got angry because I was always forgetting birthdays, deodorant, pants…

Janice thought I was immature, and I thought she was a poopy head.

Marie only wanted me for my body. Or, more specifically, my healthy kidneys.

Kathy didn’t like that I wanted to “wear the pants” in our relationship. And occasionally the sun dress, but that was only on the weekends, and just because they’re comfortable, not because I’m weird or anything.

Janet and I couldn’t agree on what day to celebrate as our anniversary: our first date, our first kiss, or the first time she filed a restraining order.

I dumped Rebecca after I asked her what sex felt like from a woman’s perspective, and she just said “let me show you” and waved a cucumber at me.

I dumped Carol because she was totally obsessed with being spanked. All night long, it was “No, you can’t spank me”, or “I said don’t spank me”, or “Damn it, stop spanking me!” God, talk about something else already!

I had to dump Rachel because of her intimacy issues. Every night, she would watch me undress, and then close her windows and tell me to get out of the bushes.

“Sixteen stories to the street. That has to be enough.” David jammed the crowbar into the door frame and pulled. The wood cracked and snapped, pieces falling. Tossing the tool aside, he retrieved the wine bottle of from the top of the stairs. There were a few mouthfuls of red left. Couldn’t let it go to waste.

The rooftop was still wet from the afternoon’s rain. It was rush hour, but the thunder of engines was carried away on the wind long before it reached the rooftop. This far up, there was only the sound of birds. The words “Deimos Inc” were written in gigantic, steel letters on the side of the building. A family of pigeons was living in the “D”. Every morning, the birds flew from the sign and searched the street for scraps. If they saw something they couldn’t eat, they covered it in shit.

In a few more days, it would be six years since he had graduated from California State, six years of sitting at a desk and staring at a flickering rectangle. His father had spent his life designing office buildings like this one, grand structures like urban mountains.  “But everything I’m doing is just ones and zeros, just shifting the pattern in the pixels.  A thousand years from now, my father’s work will be unearthed by some alien archaeologist, but my entire life will be digital dust by next week.”

Not everyone felt the same way about their work. Downstairs, the other screen slaves were dancing. This was a good year for Deimos.  The wall charts in the accounting department had sprouted tall, black lines like prison bars. The boss had invited everyone to a formal cocktail party to celebrate and, hopefully, to get drunk enough to forget about asking for raises.

David threw a leg over the railing and stared at the black pavement below. He swallowed the last of the wine, wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket, and let the bottle fall over the edge. On its way down, the bottle bounced against the side of the building, exploding like fireworks.

He didn’t bother to leave a note.

When his eyes opened, the sun was cresting the top of distant hills. The edge of the roof was about ten feet above his head. Underneath him was absolutely nothing.

He screamed, but the pavement didn’t rush up to meet him. He wasn’t falling. Hours must have passed since he’d jumped, but he still had another hundred and fifty feet to go. He had landed on something hard and cold, but could see only empty air.

Struggling to his feet, he stood on nothing. A careful step sent ripples through the air, like a drop of water falling into a bath. “What is this? Am I dead or am I dreaming?” He pressed a hand to his chest. His heart was still beating. Moving his arm made his side ache. His head throbbed like a rotten tooth. Unless ghosts could have cracked ribs and hangovers, he was still alive. “Something saved my life. But what?”

If he could walk through the air, perhaps he could walk to the ground. Moving cautiously, like stepping across a sheet of glass. Did this invisible something extend across the whole city? He felt the air with his feet, tapping to make sure the path was still solid.

He came to an incline, the air sloping upward gently. Apparently even empty space could have hills and valleys. Whatever this was, it felt much smoother than a sidewalk. He had a sudden vision of slipping off the edge and falling to the street, exploding like a piñata filled with ground beef. Perhaps it would be better to just sit down at the top of the hill. Surely someone would see him eventually, and mount a rescue effort. Right?

“But why worry? So I might fall to my death. Isn’t that what I wanted? Well, I was drinking pretty heavily last night. Maybe this is god or the universe or whoever giving me a chance to reconsider things more rationally. How do I do that?”

He searched his jacket pockets. He had a golf pencil and the receipt from the tuxedo rental place. Only three square inches of paper to help him make the biggest – and possibly last – decision of his life. He scratched six words at the top of the page: The Pros and Cons of Suicide.

“Not one more day working at Deimos, not one more moment of pointless poking at a keyboard, building sandcastles while the tide is coming in. Sure, no chance of finding a meaningful job, either, but I’m starting to doubt they exist. Does anyone drive to work with a smile on their face?”

The pigeons left their home in the sign, off in search of their daily bread. It was hard not to envy birds. The wind caressed their faces, held them up, carried them through the world. Why did they have so much more freedom? Even standing fifteen stories in the air, he was still chained to the earth.

“And they have a family. At the end of the day, they have their chirping little ones to come home to. What the hell do I have? My apartment complex won’t even let me get a dog. Would I even be happy if I had someone? Do I really want to spend my life with another person? In a little while, the streets will be filled with cars and pedestrians, thousands of people, all with one thought: get the fuck out of my way.

“I could go out, I could meet people, maybe find someone wonderful. But the absolute best case scenario is I end up like my mother, fifty happy years with my soul mate, and two weeks by their bedside in the hospital. It’s like driving for hours to a funeral, in the hopes that there will be some nice scenery on the way.

“Why guarantee myself heartache when joy is so uncertain? I could make sure I’d never have any more pain. I might miss out on a few happy moments, but at least I’d have a little peace.

“Or would I? Every major religion is against suicide. They all say I’d end up in hell. But why should god get mad at me for killing myself? He created this world. He knows what a shit place it is, and he’s not doing anything to fix it. But, then, I suppose killing myself isn’t exactly doing anything to fix it, either.

“What about Buddhism? They don’t believe in hell. I’d just be reincarnated. Probably into a lower life form. I could end up a bug on someone’s windshield.

“What if none of the religions are true? What if there’s nothing? Maybe death is just floating forever in an endless, black void. Or spending forever on earth, unable to touch anything or communicate with anyone. The afterlife might even be spending eternity working at an even worse job than I have now.

“On the other hand, this might be a miracle. Maybe this proves that god exists, and he’s saved my life for something more meaningful. But it looks like I’m stuck up here. If there are angels under my feet, why won’t they set me down? The only thing I know for sure is that, if I jump, I won’t get a chance to change my mind. …Probably.”

He looked over his notes, but couldn’t see anything clearly pushing him to one side or the other. He still had plenty to think about, but not much more space to write. And it was hard to think about death objectively when the sunrise was painting the sky orange and gold.

The invisible object began to vibrate. It lurched forward, the sudden jolt knocking him on his back. The thing darted away from the office building, humming over the street. He wanted to call out for help, but it was so early in the morning, there was no one to hear him. Even if their had been, what could they have done?

The thing flew faster, buzzing like a gigantic chain saw. The wind whipped at his face, shoving him against the side of the invisible hill. Skyscrapers gave way to suburbs, then farm houses, then forest. At last, he came to rest above a clearing. The invisible object was quiet.

A ring of stones marked a smoldering camp fire. At the edge of the trees stood a dome tent, like some gigantic, neon orange turtle shell. Someone had left empty beer cans and crumpled fast food wrappers scattered about the camp site.

The air filled with a sharp whir. A cone of blue light descended from the object and surrounded the tent. In an instant, the light, and the tent, vanished. The whirring was replaced with the muffled sound of screams.

“Oh my god…” David thought. “It can’t be! I’m on a… This is a… What are they doing down there? …No, don’t panic. They obviously don’t know I’m here. I’m safe.” But the vibration returned, quickly growing into a high-pitched squeal.

The object sailed up over the trees, carrying David into the air. The forest thinned, replaced by a checkerboard of farmer’s fields, a winding snake of highway, then miles of sand. As the object rose higher, the air grew cold. He pulled his jacket collar up, but it did nothing to help. It was designed for parties, not protection.

“Soon the atmosphere will be too thin to breathe. What if the things down there want to go home? I’ll burn to death in the atmosphere. Maybe my skeleton will end up in orbit. Unless…” Fighting against the wind, he stood and peered down at the earth.

Into the blue. For a heartbeat, it almost seemed like the air was holding him in place, that he would never fall again. But it didn’t last.

His jacket flapped against him like a flag in a storm. The wind was deafening. This time, there would be no second chances. This was the end. “God, if you tried to save my life, I’m sorry. Maybe next time.” He suddenly realized he was still clutching his list. He opened his hand, and the paper fluttered away.

The wind made his eyes water. Far below, something shined like amethyst. He closed his eyes and tried to prepare himself for whatever was about to come. Maybe the afterlife would welcome him with open arms. If there was nothing on the other side, hopefully it would at least be peaceful.

Blinding pain, suddenly choking. “Water! A lake? The ocean? I need some air… I have to swim to the surface. Which way is it?” Impossible to think when everything hurt. The ribs that were cracked now felt broken. Why even try to swim? He would never make it back to shore. Even if he did, the universe clearly wanted him dead. He could just open his mouth and let the water inside, and the pain would stop.

Deep in the blue, something was moving. A strange shape was approaching, something long and gray. A dolphin? A shark? Gray scales, fins, and long, black, hair. Her smile wrapped him in a warm blanket. Her hand touched his, and he could breathe again.

Thank you all for coming. I am glad to see you all here, even though you are undoubtedly more concerned for your inheritance than for me. I’ve been a cold-hearted bastard for a lot of years, even more than you know. I can’t imagine that you’ll ever forgive me for what I’ve done, so I only ask that you judge my deeds in the proper context. That is why I have called you here – to tell you about my life and my sin, and to explain why one of you will die with me.

I grew up in a nothing town in the Arizona desert. Not even a Post Office; just a school, a diner, and the last gas station before the highway to Las Vegas. The only thing I had in the world was my friends. There wasn’t much to do, but we had so much fun that I never worried about the future.

I remember one night, desperate for anything to do besides homework, we had a game of hide-and-seek in the cemetery. On the count of ten, we flew in all directions. I ran to the back of the graveyard, past the tombs of the city fathers, to a place where time had wiped away the names of the dead. Searching for the perfect hiding place, I fell over a broken headstone, tore my leg something awful. Must have left half a gallon of blood in that grave, but they never found me.

When the final school bell rang out, my friends scattered to the wind – college, the army, anything to get out of that little town. But turning eighteen took me by surprise. I found myself working at the gas station, watching cars filled with laughing people headed to places I’d never see.

Months passed by like commercials on TV. The bell rang for the trillionth time, and I trudged out to fill up yet another car. This one was a Corvette, canary yellow, shining like candy wrapped in cellophane. Behind the wheel was a pretty, young thing in a tank top and aviator sunglasses. I scrubbed her windshield and out of habit said “Have fun in Vegas.”

She smiled, the sunlight glinting in her glasses. “Actually, Daddy and I just moved to town. I’m headed to work at the diner across the road. By the way, my name is Rosa.” She handed me a few crumpled bills and waggled her fingers goodbye. As I stared at her taillights, I realized I hadn’t told her my name.

After that, I had every meal at her table, trying to work up the nerve to introduce myself and ask her out. I ate slowly, hoping to find the words by the time I’d finished dessert. Only took me six months! Finally, she agreed to spend her next lunch break with me. Thank god she said yes. I was getting sick of rhubarb pie.

But where to take her? The only place to go in town was the damn diner! We ended up having a picnic in the field by the cemetery. That might sound morbid, but this was the desert. There weren’t that many places with nice grass.

She brought some strawberry crepes and I brought a bottle of wine. We exchanged awkward small talk and watched the grass dance in the wind until the wine spread its smile across our faces. She told me about growing up in New Mexico, her pets, her plans for college. I mostly just listened, because the only thing I wanted to say was “I’m lonely.”

We spent the next three months in each other’s arms. Her kindness and her laughter pushed away the dark that had enveloped my heart. This woman could save me. She could be my oasis.

One evening, I traded every dollar I had for a ring I hoped would make her mine. I headed to her apartment, too excited, driving too fast. The wind rose, carrying a summer storm. I drove through miles of water until the cemetery appeared, lurking in the dark. I always hated that curve.

The world exploded, blinding pain. I had slid, crashed through the fence, and the limb of an oak tree had pierced my chest. Everything was blood and broken headstones.

I would never see sweet Rosa’s face again. My joy had turned to ashes. Desperate to free myself from this fate, I cried out to whatever spirits could hear me. “Anything you want! Just save me, and let me share a long life with her.”

Silence.

Something touched me on the arm. A voice like a flock of crows. “A child will pull the wings from a fly and laugh. So much less does your suffering matter to me.”

“My god…” This was worse than dying alone. I had been found by something that was going to watch me die and smile. I said, “Spirit, don’t I have anything to offer you? Not even my soul?”

“What makes you think such a thing exists?” Hot, putrid breath assaulted my face. “I roam the earth from east to west, devouring those who hear my voice. I steal the hopeful from their lover’s grasp. Why should you see her again, when my only companion is despair?”

This was agony. I had finally found some meaning, some purpose, and one slip had stolen it from me. I had to sacrificed anything to have it back. “Take one of my grandchildren for your own.”

“You will live to 99 with your Rosa, but I shall take the grandchild you love the most. I will sign my name in their flesh, and they shall join in my endless wandering.” The thing’s shrieking laughter still haunts me. “Will you cast them into the darkness? Choose quickly! My hunger grows!”

I said yes. God damn me forever, I said yes! My vision began to fade. The twisted liar! I was dying after all! A foul, choking wind, and something like the sound of wings.

I opened my eyes in the hospital. Rosa was at my side, clutching the ring and weeping. I threw back the bedsheets and felt my chest. No wounds, but every hair had been burned from my body.

A few months later, she would demand a child. At first I refused, but I couldn’t bare to see her unhappy, couldn’t bare the thought of her leaving. One child lead to two, then three, then four.

I did my best to make sure they never found love. I locked them in their rooms, trapped them in the basement, threatened their boyfriends with a knife. They ran from me, scattered, and had children of their own. I spent years trying to deaden my heart, trying to never feel anything for you girls, but I failed.

And now, once more, the light is leaving me. Quickly, search your bodies! You will know the demon has chosen you by the mark of—

• Customize your browser’s appearance with themes, personas, or cute little hats.
• Click the “New Tab” button any time you want a soda.
• Parental Controls limit access to sites that might confuse or enrage your parents, like Fox News.
• Brows offline any time you like, just by using your imagination!
• Location-aware browsing means that Firefox will always know where you are, always watching, always waiting.
• Synchronizes settings across computers, so you can use the same Firefox everywhere, whether you’re surfing the web at a party, on a date, or during your daughter’s wedding.
• Multi-touch support, for those lonely nights.
• Protects your privacy by renaming all your bookmarks “NOT PORN”.
• Improved crash protection, for people who like to watch YouTube while they drive.
• Control your browsing history with the new “Roofie Mode”, guaranteeing Firefox won’t remember anything you did last night.

Just because it’s science fiction doesn’t make it exciting. Here, then, are some science fiction novels that are guaranteed to put you to sleep.

• A Clockwork Orange Julius
• The Invisible Manager
• Atlas Shrugged, Sighed, and Wallowed in Regret
• A Song of Ice and Fire and Wind and Rain and Dirt and Trees and Pine Cones and Waffles and…
• Ringworld & Other Places to Take Your Fiancé
• Foundation, Lipstick, Blush, and Empire
• Stranger in a Strange Land’s End Sweater Vest
• A Wrinkle in Trousers
• Fahrenheit 45 and Partly Cloudy
• Ender’s Game Goes Into Extra Innings
• Something Wicker This Way Comes
• Have Spacesuit, Won’t Travel (Also Have Motion Sickness)
• 2001: A Honda Odyssey
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the New Jersey Turnpike
• Flowers for Algebra Homework
• The Moon is a Harsh Mattress (Part 14 of the Napping Astronaut Chronicles)
• The Stairs My Destination
• Jurassic Parking Garage
• Do Androids Dream of Taking Tests in Their Underpants?
• 1984: The Mondale Campaign
• I, Robert
• The Lost World – No, Wait, There It Is. …Well, That Was Easy
• The Andromeda Stain Remover
• Journey to the Center of Ohio

Bonus: Dull Scifi Movies!

• Backgammon To The Future
• Soylent Chartreuse
• Brunch of the Living Dead
• Forbidden Planetarium
• OboeCop
• The Months and Months and Months the Earth Stood Still
• The Fifth Element: Boron

A lot of people look to their older relatives for advice, guidance, and wisdom.  I am not one of those people.  I’ve collected a few of my grandfather’s favorite sayings here, which should explain why.

• The children are our future, which is why I use them as fuel for my time machine.
• You can’t shout “fire” in a crowded theater and you can’t name your dog “Somebody Call 911.”
• I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no face. That’s some scary crap right there.
• You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. At least, that’s what the judge said when I was arrested for drowning those horses.
• A little hard work never hurt anyone, unless you count all those weekends I spent building that guillotine.
• Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between a stroke of inspiration and just a stroke.
• An apple a day keeps the doctor away. For everyone else, you can rely on your personality.
• There’s more than one way to skin a cat, so try them all and pick your favorite.
• You never really know someone until you walk a mile in their shoes or spend an hour in their pants.
• If you really love something, set it free. Unless you’re a bee keeper who lives near a playground.
• When life hands you lemons, hand life $1.35. Lemons ain’t free, jackass.
• If you give a man a fish, you’ll feed him for a day. If you shove a fish in a man’s pants, he’ll never be lonely again.
• You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make a horse drink. At least, not without a really big blender.
• Behind every great man is a great woman, waiting to push him down the stairs.

When the doctor told Jack he was going to lose his sight, his first thought was “I should have become a podiatrist. Even blind, it’s easy to find someone’s feet. They’re usually at the end that’s not talking. But, no, I just had to be an artist…” Jack was a painter. For a little while longer, at least. He would have six more weeks with good vision, possibly less. And then the world would slowly vanish, taking his art career with it. Without sight, it is very difficult to tell if the meadow you are painting is full of red flowers, blue flowers, or ferrets smoking cigars.

He paid his bill without bothering to look at the amount, and stepped out into the autumn air, walking slowly home. The sidewalk twisted languidly past a small park and over a river, but the scenery went unnoticed. He trudged up the dank stairwell to his eighth-floor apartment and collapsed on the bed. He wanted nothing more than to lose himself in sleep, but he was suddenly terrified that turning off his bedside lamp would banish the light forever.

With a sigh, he pushed himself out of bed and wandered into the kitchen. Standing on a chair, he pulled open the cabinet over the stove. A box of icing-covered cookies was hiding behind the flour. The label on the back showed they were only slightly less nutritious than eating spoonfuls of Crisco. He had been on a diet for the past few months, but what did it matter now? He could become a human walrus and he’d never have to look at himself in the mirror again.

Across town, Felix Porter stepped nervously into the dean’s office. Felix was entering his twentieth year of teaching art appreciation at Faber College, but he had yet to actually read one of his student’s papers. Usually, he would stuff each paper into his cat’s litter box and then give the highest grade to the one that stayed dry the longest. Someone must have finally complained about the smell.

“Ah, Professor Porter,” the dean smirked. “The board is demanding cutbacks and, alas, your name is at the top of my list.”

“Me?” Felix gasped, tugging nervously at his paisley necktie. “Why am I first? My students love me!”

“And why shouldn’t they?” the dean laughed. “Your class is only twenty minutes long and next door to the vending machines. But even considering your positive student evaluations, your class is simply worthless.”

“This school is famous for its art program,” Felix protested. “How can you cut art appreciation?”

The dean reached into a drawer in his desk and produced a large, leather-bound book. He flipped through the pages for a moment, finally stopping on a familiar-looking painting. “Look at this… Do you need a class to appreciate the Mona Lisa? Or what about Starry Night? Or Dogs Playing Poker? No, if it’s a brilliant work of art, it moves you immediately. You don’t need to learn art appreciation because it’s not a skill. Teaching art appreciation is like teaching a class in enjoying cheesecake.”

“You’re firing Ms. Tannenbaum, too?”

“No, she has tenure.”

And so, Felix packed up his office and drove home. “Well, what now? The only thing I know how to do is talk about art. Maybe I could turn my old lesson plans into a book? I could call it How to Experience Pleasure While Looking at Pretty Things.”

By that evening, Felix was thoroughly, utterly depressed. He wandered into a local coffee shop, a little place by the airport called “Our Coffee Has Booze In It.” It was very popular. He found a seat at the counter next to a portly fellow in paint-stained overalls. “Barista,” Felix called, “give me a caramel latte with bourbon. Hold the caramel. And the latte.”

“I sense a kindred spirit,” said the man in overalls, offering his hand. “I’m Jack, and I have also been much abused by life.”

The two men talked for hours, each relating their tale of despair and misfortune. Outside, the sun returned to the sky. Felix jumped up from the table, knocking their stack of coffee cups to the floor. “I’ve got it! I know how to get us both back to work!”

Two months later, Jack had a show at a local gallery. All of his latest works were on display. He sat in a folding chair at the back of the room, waiting for a sale. His vision had declined significantly, but he could use credit cards by feel. As long as no one paid in cash, he wouldn’t have to guess which green blur was a twenty and which was a five. A nearby clock ticked away. The clack of heels on tile echoed through the room.

“Are you the artist?” asked a woman’s voice.

“Yes.”

“I have a question about one of your paintings, the one by the door entitled Enchanted Forrest.”

“What about it?” Jack asked.

“Well, I don’t know how to say this… It doesn’t actually look like a forest, does it? It looks like you just tossed some green paint in the general direction of the canvas. And mostly missed.”

“I guess you just don’t understand my work at all,” Jack snapped. “I have freed myself from the notion that paintings have to represent objects or ideas. The only reason I even give my paintings titles is so that you people have a starting point to begin analyzing my work.”

“But the titles have no connection to the paintings,” the woman protested. “I could switch the plaques and no one would notice.”

“Well, that’s not true at all.”

“I think all of this is just an excuse,” the woman said. “You’re just trying to hide the fact that you’re not a very good painter.”

“And I suppose you would demand that every violinist play a tune!” he laughed. “God forbid our musician feels like being a little creative! God forbid he performs a great work of art that just happens to sound like a cat being sawed in half. People might think he doesn’t know how to play!”

“Well,” the woman huffed, “I can see that you’ve chosen to mock your audience rather than explain yourself. I should be going.”

“Look, lady,” Jack said, “If you want to understand art, you have to study it. If you have the time, my friend is teaching a class at the community center…”

I spent my spare time in college writing a mystery novel called “They Ate the Waitress?” Before that, I had only ever written science fiction, horror, and weird things like that. Fantasy or science fiction stories can be almost anything you like. However, as I discovered, detective story readers have certain expectations about what makes a good mystery. Deviate from them too much, and your readers may give up before your detective even finds the first clue. Whether want to write a straight whodunit or a mixed genre mystery, here are some ideas that might help you get started…

Play fair

• Introduce your cast of characters as early as possible. The first quarter of the story can be spent establishing the detective, the crime, and the client, but after that, let your reader interrogate the suspects. Obviously, it’s not fair to introduce the murderer in the last ten pages. But even with half the story to go, you’re probably too late. The longer your reader has to wait to start guessing who done it, the bigger the risk that they’ll get impatient and stop reading.
• Your detective is a proxy for the reader. Let your reader see everything the detective sees. Agatha Christie may have been able to get away with hiding clues until the last chapter, but most modern readers will find such practice to be cheating.
• Unless you are obviously writing a mixed genre story (science fiction mystery, supernatural mystery, etc), the solution to the crime should be plausible. Something technically possible but too off-the-wall might just anger your readers. “Aunt Judy only made us think she was in England during the murder. All the times she said she was going to church to play bingo, she was actually taking hypnosis lessons!”
• If you are writing a mixed genre mystery, establish all the rules of your world in the first few chapters. Don’t tell us the killer choked his wife to death with his mind unless you first tell us that psychic powers exist. Anything else is expecting your reader to play a game of chess with pieces missing.

But don’t make it too easy

• Even though you should let the reader see everything the detective sees, they don’t have to hear his thoughts. They don’t have to notice everything the detective notices. In fact, you should often do the exact opposite.
• Hide the clue in a laundry list of other, irrelevant information. “The poison has to be hidden here, but where? The medicine cabinet? No, just the usual toothpaste, shaving cream, aspirin, condoms, Band-Aids – no giant bottles of strychnine.” Your reader will likely just move on to the next paragraph, forgetting that aspirin is poisonous in large doses.
• Show a clue next to a big, bold red herring. Suppose that the victim was strangled to death, and the detective is searching for the murder weapon. Most readers will never notice a scarf in the same room as a boa constrictor.
• You might have the detective or his assistant see the clue but misinterpret its meaning. The victim was beaten to death. The detective is sure Aunt Judy did it… with Uncle Paul’s huge, heavy martial arts trophy.
• You could also mention the clue, and then immediately distract the reader with a dramatic event, something designed to make them forget what they’d just read. “If Aunt Judy is the killer, the weapon should be in her crafts room! Let’s see… A ball of yarn, a pile of mail, a razor sharp letter opener… Oh my god, the cat’s on fire!”

The detective should be clever, but relatable

• The detective should solve the crime through a combination of legwork, creativity, and other special skills that he has but the police lack. He might be a genius with a photographic memory, an artist with a superior attention to detail, or a poker player who has perfected his ability to read body language. In the case of a mixed genre mystery, your detective’s special skills could be anything from x-ray vision to a jet pack.
• While your detective might be a genius, he should solve the crime because he is clever, not because he is a walking Wikipedia. It is hard to make a character relatable if he is an expert in everything from brain science to rocket surgery. Also, readers want to see detectives be challenged. A detective with all the answers at his fingertips makes things too easy. Consider giving the detective a sidekick, a love interest, or a talking dog with the needed information.
• However, you can go too far the other direction. Don’t make your detective so well connected that he has a friend with every skill he could possibly need. There are very few people who have a college buddy at the BMV to look up license plate numbers, a zoo keeper uncle to analyze bite marks, and an ex-boyfriend who also happens to be Batman.
• Also, having the detective suddenly solve the crime with a random bit of trivia feels like cutting corners. “That’s when I realized Mr. Barnaby was not dead after all. The snake bite had no fang marks. It wasn’t a copperhead that bit him, but a harmless Texas rat snake!” If the crime hinges on a fun fact, treat it like any other clue. Divulge it early in the story, and then distract the reader so it is immediately forgotten.

Help the killer cover their tracks

• How does your villain plan to get away with it? Generally speaking, the detective will be looking at the suspects to see if they have the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the murder.
• Means: The ability to commit the murder. Whatever weapon is used, your villain will want to hide the fact that they have the ability to use it. If the victim was strangled, the murderer will want to appear too physically weak to choke the life out of someone. If the victim was poisoned, the murderer will want to hide any knowledge of chemistry.
• Motive: The desire to commit the murder. The killer will want to appear as if they were close friends with the victim, in love with them, or didn’t know them at all. This may involve hiding evidence of past arguments or a bad breakup. If the killer is pretending not to know the victim, they may have to hide old photos or emails that would prove otherwise.
• Opportunity: In the right place at the right time to commit the murder. This is where alibis come in. Poisons and explosives may take enough time to work that the killer can make a public appearance on the other side of town. The killer might use audio recordings or computer hacking to create confusion about the time of death.
• In addition to hiding the means, motive, and opportunity, your killer will want to hide or destroy any physical evidence of the crime. In my mystery novel, the killer accomplished this by the simple means of eating the body. If your killer isn’t a cannibal, they have to be creative.
• Set the crime scene on fire. Hide the body somewhere it won’t be discovered until decomposition destroys any clues, like deep in the woods or in a self-storage container. Hide the body where it will never be discovered, like the foundation of a building or or one of the thousands of holes in the desert outside Las Vegas. If you are writing a mixed-genre mystery, your killer may throw the body out of the space station’s air lock, or arrange for it to be abducted by aliens.

Conclusions

Some writers may feel that the structure of the mystery genre is too confining, that it doesn’t allow enough variation, or that all the good ideas have been done. But there can be a murder anywhere, as long as there are people. Your detective could be an astronaut on the International Space Station or the captain of a ship that’s run aground on a desert island. Play fair with your readers, practice hiding clues, and create compelling but relatable characters, and you’ll have a mystery guaranteed to excite and enthrall.