Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

“They must have been great chiefs of these people, or some sort of paramount gods,” one said. “To be commemorated in such a monumental way.”

“Do you think we’ll ever know who they were?” said the other. “Perhaps there is some evidence still left, even after ten thousand years of history.”

“No, I think not. Whoever saw fit to carve four of these creatures into the rock never foresaw a time when they wouldn’t be known. I am, truth be told, more interested in the other carving, the one of one extinct being riding another.”

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Experts now believer that the Zeoocea complex near Siwa was actually the product of a much later dynasty, the 26th, and pharaoh Psamtik II specifically. But questions still remain about how the pharaoh was able to construct such an elaborate edifice during his brief 6-year reign, and what purpose it served. The courses of stones, descending steplike for 400 meters from a 750-meter square appears on modern radar images to be an inverted pyramid which, before it was filled up with sand over time, would have left a void almost identical to the Great Pyramid at Giza. While clearly not intended as a burial place–the stones appear to have been placed directly into a hollow prepared for them with minimal underlying structure–its ultimate purpose remains a mystery.

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“What are you doing here?” I cried.

“I think you’d be happier to see me than that,” said Dajins. He was seated at my desk in the corner office of the Clark building, idly filing the various pointy bits on his demonic body that showed through his Armani suit.

“I sold you my soul and I’m in great health,” I said. “Go away, it’s not time to collect.”

“Such mistrust!” Dajins laughed. “What if I told you that, true to your soul, I actually put it on the soul futures exchange.”

“The what?”

“Oh, surely a big time stockbroker like yourself can figure it out!” Dajins said. “Normally, it’s very risky. Souls lost all the time. But you? You were a big winner, my friend. I made a hundred times what I invested.”

I gasped. “So I get my soul back?” I said.

“Ha! No,” Dajins chortled. “You’re not off the hook that easily. But because you’ve made me a wealthy demon, and because I think the results will be amusing, I’ve decided to cut you in.” He gestured to a box on the table. “Six souls, from six other foolish unfortunates, for you to do with as you please.”

“What am I supposed to do with them?” I cried. Then, hurriedly: “I’ll trade you for my original soul.”

“What, and lose a hundred-to-one moneymaker? No, friend. You have fun with your profits, you hear? And I’ll see you again…real soon.”

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Everybody knew that there were as many deities as there were grains of rice in a harvest. But, for season after season, Zhou had found his own haul to be hardly enough to feed himself, let alone his wife and small children. HE had already sold what he could, and offered what he could spare at the temples in the village and along the road into town.

There had been no answer.

So he built himself a small pagoda out of paddy mud, and asked the priest in the village to write out “for anyone who needs it” on a scrap of bamboo. Zhou hung the little sign on the tiny pagoda after it had dried, and told his daughter she could use it as a doll house if no deity had seen fit to accept his small offering of incense.

The next day, the fields were overflowing with rice, far earlier than the harvest should have been. Zhou then had the priest write two more messages: “thank you,” and “who are you?” He delivered both with his very last bit of incense.

The next day, both had disappeared and a new message had been left, on finely folded bamboo paper. The priest was surprised to see a farmer as humble as Zhou bearing such, and even more surprised when he read it aloud.

“I am nothing, and I come before and after all that has ever been. But despite my greatness, no one has ever built me an abode before.”

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“It’s not my fault,” said Eustace. “Those cops had it out for me. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, and they still threw me in the back of the cruiser. I had to spend the night in the tank.”

“Eustace,” said Bridget. “You know how it is. We’ve talked about this.”

“Yeah, I know,” Eustace said, jamming his hands in his pockets. “No justice for zombies in this town.”

“Right. Now this was your third DOA; one more, and they’ll take away your license, and then they can shoot you on sight,” Bridget added. “Do you want that?”

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“Here’s the thing,” said Inspector McTeague. “It was dark. He can’t be sure who kissed him, only that if felt like the victim.”

“What are you saying?” asked Officer Strong. “I don’t understand.”

McTeague thumped a thick manila envelope onto the tabletop. “You’re familiar with Hattie Snodgrass?”

“No, who is she?”

“One of the most skilled con artists the department has ever had to deal with. She is an expert kisser, Strong, a master of the art form. She can make her kisses feel like they came from somebody, anybody, else.”

“My God,” said Strong. “You mean to say…?”

“That’s right,” McTeague said. “She’s a ventrilokisst.”

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She hadn’t expected the music to have this effect on her, even with the new subwoofers she’d just bought from Carlos so he could get his fix. But each fresh beat, throbbing through the floor and inter her body, seemed to dislodge something.

Chinks, tumbling pebbles, in the wall that she had built up unconsciously over the years.

It was a barrier to keep her small, keep her safe, keep her acceptable. People don’t like that feral edge in a woman, they say. People don’t like the animalistic gleam in one that runs barefoot through the forest snow with hair shining from every pore. She’d erested that wall to keep the wolf inside, and the music was making it crumble. She began to dance, gyrating with each fresh hit of the electronics, each newborn bass note headed straight for her heart.

In the window, she could see the dingy woods, full of trash and garbage. But she could also see herself, and she was changing. It felt as natural as bathing to slough off her clothes. A world of scents and sounds opened up, and hearing the music through keen lupine ears only redoubled its effect.

When the song was over, she unlatched the door with her nose and disappeared into the woods. The woman would return, but for now the beast was free of her enclosure, and she would play long and hard in the forest and howl deeply at every moon she could find before returning, more of herself.

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The results came back negative. There was no life to speak of on any of the four planets orbiting ULAS J0015+01. It had been a long shot, astronomers knew, but public opinion as much as anything had led them to make the final push. The most distant star in the Milky Way was lifeless. Humanity and its hangers-on were the only life in the galaxy.

As with so many others, ULAS J0015+01B had the remnants of an advanced civilization and a thriving biosphere. The great craters where the city-ships had lifted off for parts unknown were still visible, as were the twisted and dead remains of what must have once been a thriving biosphere. Not a single living thing remained.

Like every habitable planet, ULAS J0015+01 was awash in signs that its inhabitants had seen us coming, and they had fled in abject fear before us.

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Snowflake Warning
Issued: 8:55 PM CST Jan. 17, 2018 – National Weather Service

Snowflake warning remains in effect until noon CST Thursday.

* A single snowflake drifting lazily to the ground has been observed and confirmed.

* Prolonged exposure to the snowflake could lead to hypothermia and may harm pets and livestock. Exposed plumbing is in danger of being damaged.

* A patch of ice where the snowflake melts and solidifies is a very strong possibility.

Precautionary/preparedness actions:

* A snowflake warning means a prolonged period of snowflake-friendly temperatures is ongoing. These conditions will be dangerous to people and pets without adequate shelter and could damage exposed pipes.

* Inhabitants are urged to remain indoors and away from exposed windows and exterior walls.

* Do not travel unless absolutely necessary.

* School cancellations are likely and recommend.

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His hands were almost dead with cold. Oh, how much one little Fifty Shades of Grey removal might warm him!

If he could only take one from the shelf, ridding it from existence forever.

Besides, it was cold in the library, and the pages could be used to stuff even the biggest cracks

And then, an idea. Inspiration!

A jaunty stroll through the cold was warming in and of itself, but upon beholding the dumpster behind the Salvation Army, laden with One Hundred Thousand Shades of Grey…

A most agreeable bonfire.

He felt the blazing dumpster might be a metaphor for something, but the thought passed with his last shiver of cold.

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