The kids liked to build mazes for the mice to run around in.

I would tell them how would you like to be dropped in a maze and forced to roam around for dinner.

So, I bought virtual headsets, plugged them into an immersion computer, and forced the kids to solve a maze.

Win and get dessert, or lose and get Brussels Sprouts.

Bobby and Danny were good at it, but Ricky always seemed to get eaten.

They feeding him to the minotaur to distract the beast.

Ricky got a slice of cake.

And I, the minotaur, got the rest.

There is a series of cartoons of a monkey in various outfits that sells for millions of dollars.

But in spite of people owning an NFT license for them, anyone can copy the image

Me, I own a real monkey, to dress up in various outfits.

Unlike the cartoons, I don't sell licenses for the monkey.

I've got a license to keep the monkey, but I don't sell licenses.

Or tickets to see the thing. It's fucking dangerous.

It rips off the clothes and attacks me and throws shit all over.

Which is what those stupid NFTs are really worth.

Danny is the mayor.

It's not a big town, but he's not a big guy.

Maybe five foot one, five foot two with those boots he wears.

But he's got big ideas for the town, big plans.

Which is why Tania is running for mayor against him.

Tania wants to keep things the same.

"I want everything to stay the same," she says at the debate.

"Well, what about the mayor?" says Danny. "If you become mayor, that'll change."

Tania thinks about it a bit, then steps away from the podium.

Danny wins.

Sure, the guy talks big, but never delivers.

Lizzie

Richard

Serendipidy

Tom

Lisa

Norval Joe

Planet Z

The next topic is Pester

LIZZIE

These pillows are good quality, she thought. The price was acceptable. So, she bought them. She placed them in her garden, dreaming of perfect soireés with her super elegant friends dressed in their pricey clothes, smiling fake smiles, dragging along bored little husbands with perfect bank accounts that they spent in perfectly useless facial creams. Argh! She hated them. The pillows. Good quality. Well... Would they endure something rougher, she wondered, something a bit more... But then she remembered her mother's words "a clean conscience makes a soft pillow". Perhaps she shouldn't have wiped those perfect smiles off their faces.

RICHARD

My bed!

Pillows, magazines, computer keyboards and laptops. These are all perfectly acceptable surfaces to sleep on… If you're a cat.

The general rule is to select a space that will be the most inconvenient and inappropriate for one's owner, and occupy it in a manner that is so cute and adorable that only the most heartless of people would consider summary eviction.

Which clearly makes me a very bad person, if the resentful feline stare currently fixed on me is anything to go by.

I won't be long, I promise.

And once I've typed this story, the keyboard is all yours.

SERENDIPIDY

I've never believed you can smother someone to death with a pillow.

Let's face it, if pillows were that dangerous, they'd be covered in health warnings, and every time you went to bed you'd be in imminent danger of inadvertently committing accidental suicide!

They also don't work for muffling gunshots to the head. I've tried it, and it makes no difference at all.

However, those polythene bags that new pillows come in are a different story altogether.

Capacious, easy to carry and dispose of, and totally airtight -fatal every time.

You end up with a lot of spare pillows though!

TOM

While sleeping not good to stop breathing.

I remember going into the Cpap Store. There was this deck top poster of a guy, 50ish, gray temples; faced forward wearing a knowing hint of a smile, and a full Monty mask. Think it was a ResMed AirFit F20. Lots of rigid plastic giving off a Bane/Hannibal vibe, that in fact lacked the high wattage personality of either. No one in the history of Cpaps didn’t look stupid to down right silly. To uses the damn thing, you have to value over this hurtle and embrace your going to look stupid. So, in that sprite I ware Air Pillows.

841 - 972

Angel of Death

Major Cristen Larson was mentally extremely flexible in abstract think. The product of A FEW Thousands of years of diligent breeding. Her Count Zero plan terrified the war college. The general consensus of the high council was this experiment had gone too far. They promptly locked the Major in a Virtual reality matrix. From within Larson hacked the central computer and collectively fried the entire council. Her matrix then knifed through the Emperor’s ice field to stand before the throne of Shadus the Five. “Very resourceful,” quipped the Emperor. This was how Major Cristen Larson became LT. Colonel Cristen Larson.

LISA

Outside

It’s a kitchen that he’s led Pippa into. Ceiling high sash windows reveal deep snow outside and she blinks against the brightness. He asks her what they need and ‘Freedom’ comes out as ‘Pillows’.

She doesn’t want to be their spokesperson. She stares past him; out of the window at the snow. Escape would be futile. It’s drifted, deep and seems to stretch forever. Something unspoken hangs between them and she fills the silence by repeating the word Pillows, then adds a ‘Please’.

She wants to get back to the basement, back to the others and away from his stares.

NORVAL JOE

Scowling, Sabrina crossed her arms like Linoliumanda's presence was a personal affront.

They gathered around the sinkhole and stared at...

The nurse asked if I needed painkillers, I didn't need any, so I said no.

But I should have asked for some cake.

Because, seriously, I wouldn't mind a slice of cake.

And it doesn't have to be a big slice.

A small one would do.

I really just want that first fork of it, taste it, feel it.

Everything after that is just gastronomic dry humping and pushing rope.

That's how the senses work, you know.

Too much of something, and you desensitize to it.

If anyone that worked with feeling dumb after every stupid injury I cause myself.

Burritos need to be wrapped like they're about to be loaded into the back of a coroner's wagon.

The rice needs to be so Spanish, when I walk into the restaurant, it puts me on the rack and makes me confess and convert.

The onions grilled to the point where they make themselves cry.

The refried beans need to be cooking for a decade in a pot that's never been cleaned.

The kitchen needs to be an animal carcass horror show designed by Toby Hooper.

And when you stick in your fork, it bursts like the chef facehugged John Hurt.

It's 49 out.

So the heat is on.

I wear a blanket... I've got lots of blankets.

But none of the fucking things is Goldilocks JUST RIGHT.

Some too light.

Some too heavy.

Some too thick and warm.

Some have bad memories associated with them, but I can't bring myself to donate them or give them away or throw them out.

So, I put on a thick warm blanket, and I'm too hot.

I turn on the fan, and it's now blowing too hard on my face.

I'm cold. I'm hot. I'm tired.

I curl in a ball and cry.

I walk for exercise.

My Apple Watch tracks my distance and pace, and lets me know when I've walked for 45 minutes for the day.

I try for more than 60.

Then, I sprained my knee.

Siri kept pestering me about closing my activity rings.

In spite of my being crippled.

So, I turned off the notifications and got rid of the activity watchface.

Now, I have a timer watchface.

Fifteen minutes for putting on ice.

30 minutes to take off the ice and put the pack in the freezer.

Repeat those steps until I can do my walks again.

There was a power outage at the water treatment plant.

The redundant transformers worked brilliantly... they both failed at the same time.

The pumps stopped, and the water pressure dropped for a few minutes.

It took a few hours for the city to issue a boil water warning text messages.

So, I boiled water and filled up some pitchers.

Drinking. Cooking. Brushing my teeth.

And I didn't shower for two days.

When the notice finally came out to stop boiling water, I was boiling water for tea.

I stopped. I looked at my phone and sighed.

And took a shower.

Danny can't write poetry.

It's just words that rhyme. Like a six year-old would write.

So he asked one of those machines on the internet.

And it wrote poetry for him.

Good poetry. Not great, just good.

Good enough, because when he wrote it in the card he gave to the girl with the next locker over, she smiled, and she kissed his cheek.

He kept the internet machine on his phone.

And it told him the things to say, to write, and to do.

The cheerleader had the same thing on her phone.

To tell her how to respond.