Fitzwilliam scowled as he surveyed the meager farms that bordered his own. One in particular, owned by one Aiden O'Dell, grew nothing but the wretched root. Apparently the folk here were simple enough to enjoy living on it.

And foolish enough to depend on a single crop for sustenance, he mused inwardly, pleased at himself for being so much better than the mere peasants.

He whistled as his convoy of carriages continued on the road to the port, its armed escort trudging along in silence, but ever watchful, in case of attack by the occasional band of ungrateful Irishmen. He...

Scott winced as he saw the woman spread the fingers of her left hand on the table. Of the standard complement of five, she had only her pinky and thumb remaining. The others appeared to have been cleanly sliced off.

"Ouch," he said, taking notes on her chart. "What was your occupation?" he asked politely, trying not to let the sight bother him.

"Data entry clerk," she said in a laconic, bitter tone.

"I, ah, yes, I can see how that would be ..." Scott coughed to disguise his confused verbal fumbling. He wrote some more, primarily as an excuse...

"Just one second, I implore you!"
said Marie as the guillotine descended
"I know there's no chance
That my fate will be rescinded.
But I must correct myself
For records and textbooks historic
In the int'rest of lurid TV
what I said was, 'Let them eat COURIC'."

There once was a man named Fernando
Who encountered a man named Orlando
They met at mid-morning
But then, without warning
They were killed by a robot commando

Finally, the door swung open. The light was brilliant and painful after so much time i the dark; not so brilliant as His, of course, but the effect was much the same.

"DO YOU LIKE IT?" His voice boomed. "IT ONLY TOOK ME A WEEK. SIX DAYS, IN FACT."

They stared stupefied. Where there had once been nothing, there was a giant celestial body, a blazing fire fixed in the heavens. Closer, there was a spinning blue-white sphere orbited by a pockmarked satellite.

And upon that globe, tiny things moved about, hunting, gathering, eating, sleeping, fucking.

"What?!" They screamed incredulously....

"The key to the door is lying on the floor, a meter and a half to your right," it instructed. The more it spoke, the more unnatural it seemed to Jolene, the more artificial. Synthesized.

Slowly she followed its directives, feeling along the stone-cold floor in the dark. "Be quick," it admonished her tonelessly.

Finally her fingers brushed it; her pounding, she seized the key and stumbled her way back to the door. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm, and carefully inserted the key into the lock. To her relief, it turned, and the door moved...

, he assured the frightened convenience store clerk. The first thing was potato chips. He needed potato chips RIGHT NOW, he told her, or he would literally explode, because there were bombs strapped to him.

Don't worry about the bombs, he said again, trying to calm her down. But get me those potato chips quickly. I want the deep-fried sour cream-and-onion flavored type, he said, speaking slowly and enunciating so that there would be no screw-ups.

He had the advantage. She would be forced to retreat behind the counter, retrieve the bag of succulent potato chips that he knew she...

Alarm clocks, women, toys and books;
Bananas, high-heels, dirty looks.
The clocks get bigger as they grow,
For Cleopatra told me so.
And in the middle of it all,
Suspended, that which cannot fall,
There lies a prickly yellow fruit
That renders chosen meter moot.

"Bad way to go," said Detective Renfield. He was standing over the body (or what was left of it) with his arms akimbo.

I sighed, adjusting my hat to better shade me from the hot sun. "Fourth case this month," I reminded him. "Maybe city hall will finally get serious about the pigeons after this."

"Nah, I wouldn't count on it," my partner said cynically. "A few bums get eaten by pigeons, what do folk like them care?"

"According the statistics, the pigeon population's tripled in just a few months," I remarked, thinking back to my interview with Professor Gendry....

"I really don't see why your dollhouse needs to be 1:10 scale," Jose grumbled as he surveyed the wood-and-glue staircase that Sandra had erected in the middle of the garage.

"I'm thinking it needs a bit more support here," Sandra pointed to the middle stair, ignoring his complaints. "Pass me the staple gun, will you?"

"When are you going to make the dolls?" Jose wondered.

"Silly," Sandra chided him. "I'm not going to MAKE the dolls. They'll come by themselves."

"Huh?"

Sandra smiled mysteriously. "You'll see."

Jose shrugged.

"By the way, you probably shouldn't come down here at night."