Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Gaggle Inc., the lovable worldwide data hyper-monopoly and purveyor of the acclaimed Gaggle Glaze™ wearable privacy invasion and multiblogging tool, is pleased to announce yet another product in its portfolio. Beginning June 1, interested consumers can sign up for beta access to Gaggle Chaos™.

“We have based our products around organization, traditionally,” said Gaggle Inc. president Mushu Kanihara. “From Gaggle Datebook™ to the Gaggle Metronome™ web browser, we have dedicated ourselves with monklike devotion to the concept of organizing and indexing all human knowledge and information. But sometimes, organization is the last thing you need. And that’s where Gaggle Chaos™ comes in.”

Promoted as the first “disorganization and entropy tool” for a mass-market audience, Gaggle Chaos™ will randomly delete and send emails or text messages, shuffle appointments in Gaggle Datebook™, produce thought-altering tones and radiation for Gaggle Glaze™ users, and a host of other effects that will be implemented at random, in secret. When asked if consumer really want this level of chaos in their lives, Kanihara laughed. “Did anyone know they wanted Gaggle Glaze™ before we made it?” he asked.

Consumer worries about Gaggle Chaos have been assuaged somewhat by the knowledge that the product will mostly likely be quietly abandoned like 90% of Gaggle’s initiatives, or have the plug violently pulled on it despite an active userbase like Gaggle Browser™.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“That isn’t the way to do it.”

“Oh?” said Don Nicostrato Mondadori. “How would you handle these insolent whelps, Tonino Crocetti and Alonzo Amatore, who take advantage of me to rat our liquor business to Volstead agents and Irish mobsters?”

The old Don leaned back in his creaking wooden chair. 1921 may have been his 75th year, but he was no less sharp for it, and he wouldn’t have accepted the older stranger’s impudence had he not proved himself useful already. The stranger, maybe five years younger than the Don himself, he proven an able organizer with an uncanny ability to predict the future. After all, he had been the only one of the Don’s retinue to predict that the 18th amendment would pass, and it had been his suggestion to use unionized drivers as a front to move profitable liquor shipments down from Canada immediately.

“If you kill someone, the heat increases and you give their loved ones certainty,” the stranger said. “Instead, they should disappear. Have your most trusted man kill them, burn them, and bury them in oil drums where no one will find them. Their disappearance will sow confusion as well as fear, and the thought that they might return will forestall acts of vengeance.”

Don Mondadori nodded sagely. “It is good advice.” He motioned to his consigliere. “Issue the order and start the Model T.”

“Yes, Don.”

“So, now that you have proved your worth, and your vision, will you tell me your name as we put your plan of disappearance into action this day of February 14, 1921?”

“James,” said the stranger with a confident smile. “James Riddle Hoffa. But you can call me Jimmy.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“Take him away. Dissect his brain and bring me his organs labeled and floating in formaldehyde. We’ll find out what makes him tick if we have to peel the chromosomes apart one by one.”

“Looks like he’s trying to say something, boss.”

“Oh, what’s that, Mr. Brighton? Something you’d like to add to the final report for this black op?”

“When I wished for superpowers, this is not what I had in mind.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!