101 Words

Barton the Biker Never Bikes Alone. Top Bike Injuries and Remedies.

Luke scrolls through his emails, deleting the spam.

Avoiding Fun? Top Fall Festivals Near You.

Luke looks down at his bike helmet and then at a festival pamphlet. Hank has invited him to a festival today, but Luke is planning on a solitary bike ride on some backroads.

Fun Festivals for Friends. Go NOW!

Luke closes his computer and decides on the bike ride.

Somewhere in the sky…an angel facepalms.

“Luke!” the angel screams. “Take a hint!” She frantically flies towards the billboard division, hoping she isn’t too late.

When quantum computing gurus discovered the theory of performing infinite calculations in a single operation, they promised the public everything from nanobots to immortality. A quirk in quantum theory would let us trick reality itself.

But the theory failed in practice. They rechecked the math and it looked fine, but the live computations repeatedly produced garbage output.

Years later, a meta-study revealed something strange in the outputs. The chronologically concatenated results produced a string of 169 repeating bits. It seemed nonsensical until a programmer arranged the sequence in a 13 square grid—to see a perfectly formed angry face emoji.

Three o’clock. Everyone prepared. Annie shuffles about with her walker-rollator. Tony mumbles unintelligibly. At the table, players throw their cards at random.

Family members arrive, take their seats, and watch the clock tick off seconds.

The minute hand hits four. Hasty kisses, weak handshakes and off.

A sigh of relief. Annie kicks aside her rollator and skips across the floor. Tony lights a cigar. The poker players ante up. Music! Golden oldies. Some hit the dance floor. Joe serves drinks at the bar.

Visiting hour is always very rewarding because, for those that put them here, it is sheer hell.

When I signed up for interstellar expansion duty, I never expected to be placed on rubbish detail. Yes, I know. I shouldn’t have assumed I’d be the next world conquerer, but I scored in the top twenty percent of the new recruits.

Except on ‘attitude.’

I could have complained, but why? I placed in the top one percent on ‘ability to learn and adapt.’ I embraced the opportunity and the promotions that followed.

Today, as I issue the order to attack the enemy fleet, I smile at my good fortune.

It’s amazing how much dirt you discover in the officers’ trash.

“I’ve never done anything like this with anyone,” Corinne Glint said.

Traffic paid them no mind. Corinne and her boyfriend Bid Lovey were just another young Georgia couple in a rattletrap Mustang parked curbside. Old women, wobbling by on canes, gave them disapproving scowls. Bid, who had boxed in prison, returned their dirty looks, whistling through his mashed nose.

“I’ll be gentle,” he said.

“You won’t leave me?”

“We’re in this for life.”

“Bid, by your shark-gray eyes I can tell that’s true.”

“Good,” he said. “Baby, put on your mask, pick up that gun, and follow me into the bank.”

She always hated them. The eight legs and hairy bodies, the way they move. Everything about spiders repelled her.

Aversion therapy worked to where she grew to like them. She’d entertain friends by letting a tarantula crawl on her arm while they watched in fascinated horror. It gave her confidence, poise.

She tells me all this as we sit at the bar, strangers just meeting. She’s damned attractive in her way. At last call I make my move.

Her apartment is dark as I follow her in. Large hazy shapes hang in the dim room. I hear the door lock click.