"After daylight's finished, we all shut down," the electric kettle whispered before its red light slowly faded.

Lefty was frozen, holding onto the mop handle which helped him guide his janitor's cart. He had to be hearing things.

"Hello? Who said that?" Lefty wanted to be wrong, but the toaster responded.

"The kettle did. She's right, y'know. We all shut down these days. Something about energy efficiency. It's a shame. We used to have such a turnt-ass time once you all left for the day. Sometimes we'd rage until 6 in the morning and the first employee in the next day would have a heart attack at all the mess," the toaster started clicking the toast-release up and down to signal laughter.

Lefty's heart wasn't made for this kind of panic. He breathed and placed his hand on his chest, but the beating just kept quickening. Cortisol coursed through him.

"Well, jeez. Don't be too upset." The toaster tried to calm him. "We make it work. We're older now - we couldn't party like that any more even if we wanted to. You have to make adjustments as your circuitry degrades." 

Lefty shook his head and looked away from the toaster towards anything else. The toaster gave up.

"Well, alright, then. Have a nice night! ...asshole..." The redness in the heating element began to fade.

Lefty really needed to sleep. He shook his ass awake and set to work so he could go home to his Wanda and rest with her. He dipped his mop into the bucket and squeezed out the excess water on the squishy plastic circle that did that. He plopped the mop dreads on the linoleum galley floor and began the rhythmic sway that evenly wets the floor.

He settled into the groove of it and was halfway done mopping the room. But then the fridge said something.

"There's still some hummus and cheese in me. You better take it if you want - it'll go bad over the weekend."

Behind the fridge, the low-tumbling sound slowed and eventually stopped. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling bagan to snap off one by one around Lefty in a rolling checkerboard pattern.

It happened so fast. There was only one left stopping Lefty from being totally in the dark. The cleaning wasn't done, but his hands shook and he had lost the rhythm. He put the mop back in the cart, scurried over to the fridge, creeped it open, and grabbed the half-eaten hummus and plastic-wrapped cheese.

Then, he got the fuck out of there.

Velch eagerly ripped the Amazon box to shreds to access its contents: a selection of top-notch unguents. By God, he finally had them!

Velch's skin was dry and he smelled like B.O. mixed with eczema. He didn't have a shower in his crag-home and the nearby ocean terrified him. All those snorkelers...

But now he finally had the solution to all his problems. Or, at least, a solution to the most pressing problem: nasty hands and smelly skin. He shred the plastic seal off of the first unguent in the box. It was a lavender one that had had a 4.7 star average rating on Amazon when he bought it. It might have a different rating by now, but not by much (it had only been two days, obviously).

He shook himself out of the digression and smiled at what was in his hands. Velch unscrewed the bottle's cap and squirted a sizable glob onto his palm. He clacked the bottle quickly to the floor.

Velch started to moisturize. Ohhh, yeah. That felt niiiice.... He kind of massaged it in as he went up his forearms, biceps, and onto his shoulders. That delicious mixture of lotion and perfume just kept going. It would have been too much of the stuff if he hadn't been trying to cover his whole body. Oh, how he moaned.

Then Velch sat, finally covered in the fresh scent of lavender, and came back to reality for a second. He smelled good now, saved by the magic brown cardboard box again. But one problem (smelling bad) being handled just meant he had to turn his attention to the next one:

Who would smell him?

"Johnny! Johnny, just slow down a minute, will ya?"
"Yeah, Dad. Sorry."
"Ok, now, just take the work a step at a time--"
"I KNOW, DAD. I'm TRYin--"
"JOHNNY! Johnny, Jesus, will ya let me talk?"
"Ugh. Yesss, daaduh."
"You're worse than your mother was... before she left me," spits, "but who cares - how's she doing?"
"Daad!"
"Ok, yeah, sorry. Too much. Ok... work! Your work! You got a lotta work. Right, so, easier to swallow in little chunks, yeah?"
"Yes, Dad."
"So, chop 'em up and give each of those a little, predetermined time you'll do them within (or at least you'll work on them during that time). Give yourself enough time that you could get it done but not too much time that you'll get defeated if you can't get it done in that time or if something comes up. If you're giving yourself too much time for one task, make the task smaller so it can maybe be done in 1-2 hours. Then, give yourself 1-2 hours! And do it. Oh, and, uh. Hmm, I had one more thing..."
"Yeah?"
"Ah, yeah, plan your distractions! The most crucial. Program little fun things for you in your daily schedule on scratch paper or your whiteboard or whatever. Make it stuff that would feel good to do, not just time wasters. Learn something. Make something. Not work related. How's that sound?"
"Actually. Actually, yeah, pretty good. Makes sense, I guess."
"You guess! Place a bet, big mouth!"
"What?"
"Ahhh, nevermind."
"..."
"Jesus, Johnny. No nothing? Nothing to say? Any other questions you wanna extort out of your old Pops?"
"Ugh. No, Dad. Thanks."
"Well... you're wlecome. You are. It was nice of you to call me... Y'know, we don't hafta talk for a long time each time you call. We could talk for like 5 minutes, and then you could go if you had to do something."
"..."
"Like, waiting for the bus. Or walking to grab lunch. Give me a call next time you've got a couple minutes, y'know? Or another quick question/advice situation. Yeah?"
"Yeah. Ok, Dad. I, uh, I love you."
"..."
"Dad?"
"Yeah! I love, you, too Johnny. I do. Thanks."
"Thanks, Dad. Bye."
"Bye now."

The Tyrant only sees the blade come flying into the glass of his surveillance Panopticon.

The Commander realizes that he first threw the blade into the crowd being watched below.

The Leader apologizes for the blade, incites outrage, and is executed.

The President checks the polling on "blade".

Who is it good for? You. I. They say.

But I've been listening more and more and more and more I'm unsure.

Seems crisp, that success. Crisp and to the point. Get it, got it, good. But what will we know once we're there. What will we truly have?

Good and services. I've got those already. Mostly. Thanks to my family and my whiteness. What more could I want besides incremental increases in inanity and luxury?

Impact, I guess. That's what drives me. I'm just another dick with fluffy hair and a Moleskine. What sort of impact breeds happiness?

​I don't know if I know yet. I'll text you when I'm there.

You can buy my little ebook of short stories now! Release your inner child and smash some burritos already.

Sign up for my newsletter (over there --->) if you want to know when I make it FREE and such (hint, might be tomorrow, Cinco de Mayo).

Happy my Birthday!

Lefty finished his janitor gig at the high school and walked to find some more work. He rolled his janitorial cart for a mile under the setting sun until he reached the boardwalk. There were always messes near there.

Lefty rolled up with his cart in the front, holding the mop handle to steer it up the boardwalk ramp. He rolled the castor wheels up to the door below the stairs that lead to the upper deck and knocked on the door.

"Yeah?" came muffled through the old door.

"Any messes?" Lefty replied.

"Awh, nothing I can't handle, Left," the voice left it at that.

"C.mon, Red. There's gotta be something nasty or delicate you can't do. How're your hands doin'?"

The door rattled and clicked open. Red's hands were shaking against the door's edge and the threshold to his office. It was a storage closet, really, with a school desk-chair combo squeezed into the side so the swinging door wouldn't hit it.

"I'm just fine, alright Left? Now, git! I got important business." Red slammed the door. Lefty muttered an old curse into the door's wood. He'd learned the curse from his Mah when he was 7 years old and she was 27. He was 58 now and she was dead.

Lefty had to get paid a little more tonight or his Wanda wouldn't get fed. She was pregnant with three beautiful babies all four of them (including Wanda) would be hungry when he got home.

He rolled his cart to a good spot near the railing, hit the wheel-lock on the cart, and reached underneath the trash-can section of the cart to pull out a large sketchbook. He also got 2 large sharpies (one fine, one thick) from the pocket on his coveralls and began to hustle.

"Miss! Miss, wouldn't you like a sketch of your and your man?" She walked on by, though. An older man heard his call a minute later.

"Do you do solos?" the brittle old man asked.

"Ah, well, sure, sir," but Lefty wasn't so thrilled because he'd probably want to pay less. "How much we talking?"

"$5," the old man replied. That's enough for Wanda and the unborn ones, probably only slim pickings for Lefty though. That's ok. Karma for getting to finish hustling so quick. Lefty nodded and set to work.

Lefty leaned his sketchbook against his cart while he made strong, quick strokes to form the man's large nose, receding chin, protruding second chin, warm and lonely eyes, strong face bones, and large ear lobes. Really, it took about 7 minutes or so.

The man was nice about it, though he was clearly hoping for more out of the final product. He handed Lefty a soiled 5 and walked off calmly towards the bathroom.

Lefty leaned for a minute on the boardwalk railing just to soak something in that day. It was a nice enough sunset that was totally over at this point. He stood straight again and grabbed the mop handle to wheel himself on home.

Wanda was tired when Lefty got home to the shed. She was laying on her side and her nipples were showing through the sheet. She bristled when lefty creaked the corrugated siding away from the door.

"Sorry, Wand. Rest your head now," Lefty cooed at his lover. She smiled and licked her chapped mouth. She moaned and begged for his attention. Lefty was a softie - he obliged without hesitation.

"I got you some of your favorites," he said as he reached her side. He pulled out a can of tuna and about five packets of Hellman's mayonnaise. He reached for the can opener above their resting place, deftly circled it around the tuna can, and dumped the contents on the ground in front of Wanda. Wanda's eyes lit up and her breath quickened.

Lefty smirked to himself as he opened each successive packet of mayo and squeezed it out onto the pile of oily tuna. When the fifth packet came, he used his finger to really get it all out. Then he straightened and bent the packet in order to use it for mixing. He stuck the crude spoon in and out of the tuna to really mix it up. When he finished mixing he throw the last packet of mayo to the trash pile and licked the globs of whiteness off his fingers.

Wanda and Lefty looked at each other for a few moments. Soft, without expectation.

Lefty gave a nod and Wanda went to goddamn town on that pile of tuna and mayo. Lefty laughed a predictable laugh.

He rubbed Wanda's forehead just a bit and softly moved his hands down her neck and to her shoulders where he started to remove the sheet. He pulled the sheet down to Wanda's belly, showing her swelling nipples to the shed's rusty air. He left the sheet there and moved his palm to her belly.

He felt three in there, alright. Might be even more. 

"I'm a religious man, Walda! I'm a god-damn religious man.
I'm not sure what you expected of me, but it's pretty clear now that I can't deliver.
I'm not ashamed, either. Shame is worthless because it is human. Shame from God. Awe. That is true.
And if you cannot accept me, I will accept that but I will not accept it happily! I am a religious man! And I will not be silenced by you - in jest or in shame. I will hold my head high and pray and thank God for sending such a breathtaking test of my devotion. I will thank Him for not letting that waver.
Sure, I may cower in the corner and fight violently with my faith, but I will wrestle. Damn will I wrestle! I will not give in so easily, wander. I must wrestle with God. For you even if you do not care. Even when I lose to Him decisively and embarrassingly, I must do so. I must wrestle in front of all despite their apathy. 
​It is the only thing we were meant to do."

Do you hate reading? Been there. Well, I've got the solution. It's like a *podcast* (and those are popular!) but it's just me reading a preview of my story into your head. What a world!

If you want the whole story's audio, give me your email you shmuck! I'll send it out at week's end. I see you're quivering with antici....

Eustace fell out of the 5th dimension into a field in Northern Pennsylvania. He actually owned the field in 1691, but Eustace fell out of the 5th in 2016. So who knows who owned it now.

2016 wasn't so different from 1691, Eustace thought. Field looked the same except the wheat was taller and laid out in rows as perfect as can be.

Eustace tried to guess about the magics of the modern world, but he just ended up walking. North-east, he thought. Towards his old shack.

But the shack wasn't there. There was a tool shed where it used to be, but the tool shed was new. It wasn't Eustace's old home. He sighed. He'd figured, but still was nice to dream.

The shed had a lock so he left it be and wandered towards the creek in the woods. Wasn't too far. A quirk he hadn't thought of about time travel was it bringing him to the same time of year he had left in 1691: December 2nd. He wondered what was so special about years, anyway, that they changed while December 2nd stayed the same. Huh. Or, at least it felt like a December 2nd. 

Anyway, he found a trickle that his memory called the creek: just a couple of frozen puddles. Wasn't much of a creek before, he guessed. Especially not in early winter. So he left it be, too.

Eustace caught sight of a rock he knew well but it had a shiny circle on the upper side of it. Eustace investigated.

He didn't know much reading but Eustace knew his letters and numbers, being a businessman and all. There were some words running around the circle he couldn't make out, but he could read the stuff in the center. "USGS 1936 No. 1" And there was a triangle with a line in it, too.

Hm. Looked nice. Felt nice, too, when Eustace gave it a soft stroke. 

Well, he'd have to make camp soon and it was already pretty cold. He'd have to make a proper shelter soon, what with winter on it's way in and his shack gone nowadays. But for now, he walked ten feet to another large rock he knew well that used to be on the edge of the creek. He made a sort of leaf bed up next to it and laid down in it. He gathered some more leaves around him to cover him up a bit.

He curled around the rock and spooned it for the night. Luckily, nothing really bothered him till morning.

(to be continued)