The Old Blog in the Desert

Yesterday, Mary received her First Communion. Today, she’ll end the lives of 4,026 of her friends and neighbors.

They’ll never know it was her. They’ll never know it was a choice.

They’ll call it Prefrontal Cortex Combustion, the spontaneous ignition of the Craniostatic Vertex Node inset in every citizen’s forehead. Officially, it happens when a device becomes “unstable.”

Unofficially, it happens when someone remembers they’re still human.

The government’s slogan played on every public screen, every hour, every day: “One moment of doubt. One moment of defiance. One moment is all it takes for Prefrontal Cortex Combustion to turn everything you love to ash. The only safe head is the protected head.”

Mary had repeated those words since she could talk. They were a prayer, a pledge, a warning.

Yesterday, Mary received praise. The Communion marked her full synchronization with the State Grid.

The final step in “cognitive unity.” The Node above her brow, small, silver, pulsing faintly with life, was declared “permanently aligned.”

She was now a complete Citizen. But this morning, when she went to wake her mother, the bed was cold.

The body was there. The light wasn’t.

Her mother’s Node had gone dark.

The Department arrived in minutes. Two officers in white suits scanned the body, bowed mechanically, and recited the required script, “Your mother’s service to the Grid has ended. Her contribution strengthens us all.”

Then they took the body and left.

Mary stood in the doorway long after the transport faded into the smog. The house hummed with silence. For the first time, the steady background whisper of the Grid, the river of thought flowing through her mind, felt too loud.

When she looked in the mirror, the silver oval on her forehead blinked softly, like a heartbeat that wasn’t her own. She touched it as it pulsed under her skin, alive, mechanical.

And she felt, suddenly, disgusted. It was the moment of doubt.

Her breath quickened. Inside her mind, the Overseer’s voice flickered, always calm, always present.

“Citizen Mary. Unstable emotional reading detected. Please realign.”

She stepped back, shaking her head. “No, I’m fine,” she said aloud, though the words weren’t for her.

“Please realign,” the voice repeated, firmer now.

She stared at her reflection, at the thing that had been inside her since birth, the thing that had stolen her mother’s eyes and smile and warmth and turned them into compliance.

A flicker of rebellion, tiny, fragile, burned in her chest. That was the moment of defiance.

She grabbed the edge of the Node and dug her fingernails underneath the rim. Pain shot through her skull, hot and white, but she didn’t stop.

Blood ran down her face. The hum grew to a roar.

“Citizen Mary, cease interference!” the Overseer’s voice thundered inside her head. “Unauthorized extraction will result in termination.”

She screamed, not from fear, but from fury, and tore. The Node ripped free as a burst of blue-white light filled the room.

The pain was indescribable. Her vision shattered into static.

Behind her eyes, a thousand voices cried out at once, the entire Grid recoiling as one of its own tore free.

She fell to her knees, clutching the sparking metal in her trembling hand.

For a heartbeat, there was silence, then the world ignited.

The explosion started in her mind and rippled outward, invisible and instantaneous as every connected Node overloaded.

Streets turned to glass, buildings folded into dust. When the shockwave passed, nothing was left but a crater.

A day later, a calm, automated voice rose over the emergency frequencies of the neighboring sectors. The message was the same everywhere, spoken in the same gentle, emotionless tone that had once whispered in Mary’s mind:

ONE MOMENT OF DOUBT. ONE MOMENT OF DEFIANCE. ONE MOMENT IS ALL IT TAKES FOR PINEAL COMBUSTION TO TURN EVERYTHING YOU LOVE TO ASH.

THE ONLY SAFE HEAD IS A PROTECTED HEAD.

REPORT ALL MISSING OR DAMAGED CRANIOSTATIC VERTEX NODES IMMEDIATELY.

In classrooms across the surviving cities, children sat in neat rows while technicians inspected the silver implants in their foreheads.

“Breathe,” the teachers instructed softly. “Remember your duty.”

The students nodded. None of them dared to touch the shining metal inset between their eyes, but somewhere, deep in the silence, something stirred: a question, a thought, and a flicker.

It only takes one moment.

Jack Merriman had camped near Lone Pine more times than he could count, enough to think of the Alabama Hills as his unofficial backyard. There was something about that stretch of the eastern Sierra Nevada that always pulled him back: the wide-open desert below, the granite towers reaching for the sky, and the kind of silence that could make a man feel both very small and very free.

The trip wasn’t anything special. Just Jack, his old pickup with the camper shell, and a couple of nights under the stars. Maybe some photos, and a story to tell later if anything interesting happened.

Mostly, he was chasing quiet, but quiet has a sense of humor.

Earlier that day, he’d stopped to help a couple stranded on the shoulder, a pair of weekend warriors who’d mistaken a flat tire for a cosmic event. Jack, being the sort who couldn’t leave well enough alone, changed the tire, checked the fluids, and made sure they could limp back to civilization. By the time he waved them off, the sun was already sliding down the ridgeline.

No problem. Jack pulled up Google Maps, found a squiggly dirt road leading off into nothing, and thought, Perfect. Those roads had never done him wrong before.

It was a fine spot when he found it, too. A little clearing tucked into the foothills, overlooking Owens Valley below and the Sierra’s granite wall above. You could tell folks had camped there before, rings of old fire pits, a couple of flattened spots in the dirt, but tonight it was all his. He parked, unfolded his camp chair and table, and got dinner going: sausage and beans, the official meal of people who don’t like dishes.

As the sun dipped and the last light drained from the valley, Jack leaned back in his chair, full and content. Then the mood shifted.

It started small, an uneasiness, the kind you brush off with a laugh. But the longer Jack sat, the heavier it got. The mountains behind him felt alive, like they’d noticed him for the first time and weren’t sure they approved.

He’d camped alone enough times to know the difference between nerves and nonsense. It wasn’t nerves, it was something else.

Every gust of wind behind him felt like a whisper. Every set of headlights far off in the valley looked like they were aimed straight at him. He couldn’t shake the sense that something vast and dark was moving down the mountain, and he was sitting there like bait in a folding chair.

Then the clouds rolled in fast. One minute, the stars were out, then the whole sky was gone. Even the full moon couldn’t punch through the gloom. The darkness settled around him like a blanket made of lead.

Jack told himself to quit scaring himself. He even laughed out loud to prove he wasn’t scared, but the sound came out thin.

It took him all of thirty seconds to throw his gear into the truck bed, slam the camper shut, and crank the ignition. Gravel spat from under the tires as he bolted down the road. For a few miles, that feeling followed him, thick and cold, like he was driving through a fog made of pure dread.

But slowly, as the headlights picked up the shine of Highway 395, the weight lifted off him. The air cleared. His breathing evened out.

By the time he pulled over and stepped out, the stars were back, calm, bright, and pretending nothing strange had happened. Jack stood there for a while, hands on his hips, chuckling softly.

“Alright,” he muttered to the mountains, “message received.”

And with that, he climbed back into the truck and let the night have the hills all to itself.

Earl wasn’t a man who rushed things. In fact, his wife, Betty, liked to say he moved through life like a turtle on vacation. Earl figured that was fine, since he’d never seen a turtle die from stress.

One fine Saturday morning, he decided it was time to mow the yard, a task he’d been putting off since Tuesday, which, truth be told, was when he’d put it off from the previous Friday. The grass had grown tall enough to wave in the breeze like a green ocean, and the neighborhood kids were starting to wonder if maybe they could hide in it during games of tag.

Earl stood in the driveway, hands on his hips, surveying his little kingdom. The mower sat in the shed, waiting, like a faithful steed unridden for far too long.

He gave it a nod of respect and went to fetch it. When he yanked it out into the sunlight, he noticed the gas can sitting beside it, empty, of course.

He tapped it with his boot and sighed the kind of sigh that said, “My day’s about to get longer than I planned.”

Now, Betty had taken the truck to town, and Earl’s old pickup hadn’t started since last summer. But he wasn’t a man to be deterred by inconveniences, so he grabbed the gas can, slung it into his rusty wheelbarrow, and started down the road toward Jenkins’ Hardware.

He must’ve made quite a sight, straw hat, suspenders, and a wheelbarrow rattling along like a one-sided parade. Folks waved from porches, and Mrs. Dodd called out, “You moving, Earl?”

“No ma’am,” Earl hollered back. “Just fueling up for battle.”

By the time he got to Jenkins’, he’d been passed by three cars, a bicycle, and one particularly smug jogger. Inside the store, young Tommy Jenkins, who was neither young nor particularly bright, grinned when he saw Earl.

“Mowing day, huh?” Tommy said.

“Looks that way,” Earl replied. “Unless I find a sale on artificial turf.”

Tommy chuckled, filled the can, and handed it over. “Don’t forget to check your oil this time. Last time that mower sounded like a chain-smoking cat.”

Earl thanked him, wheeled his prize back home, and poured the gas like a surgeon, slow and steady. He gave the mower one good pull, then another, then a few more for good measure. On the eighth pull, it sputtered to life, coughing out a small cloud of blue smoke that drifted toward Betty’s begonias.

“Smells like summer,” Earl muttered, easing into the first row.

It was halfway through the back yard when Betty came out, iced tea in hand, watching him like he was performing a delicate experiment.

“Did you check the oil?” she asked over the roar.

Earl cut the engine and wiped his brow. “Course I did.”

“Good,” she said. “’Cause last time, it sounded like a chain-smoking cat.”

He squinted at her. “You and Tommy been talking?”

She just smiled, handed him the tea, and went back inside.

When done, Earl stood there admiring his handiwork, the grass even, the lines straight mostly, and the mower still in one piece. He felt that quiet satisfaction that comes from finishing something you’d rather not have started in the first place.

Later, sitting on the porch swing, he looked at his freshly cut yard in the evening light. He took a sip of iced tea and thought maybe tomorrow he’d trim the hedges.

Then again, turtles don’t rush.

Now, I’ll admit right off the bat, I haven’t the foggiest notion why I did what I did. There I was, perched on my porch like a wise old owl with my morning coffee, minding my own business and feeling respectable.

And then I heard it, our neighbor’s cat, a furball with more attitude than sense, yowling at their front door like it was auditioning for an opera. Ten minutes passed, and twenty minutes felt like a century.

The cat’s insistence began to gnaw at me, like a mosquito with a vendetta. And that’s when the idea, plain and ridiculous as a chicken in a top hat, struck me: I would ring the doorbell for the cat.

Now, don’t ask me why I thought this would help. Logic and I had taken separate vacations that morning.

But there I went, across the way, up their porch, and I pressed that doorbell as gently as if I were coaxing a sneeze from a ghost. Then I sauntered back to my own porch, poured myself a little more coffee, and sat down, feeling terribly pleased with myself.

A minute later, the front door swung open with all the subtlety of a jackhammer, and there stood my neighbor, eyes wide, pointing at his cat as if it had just solved the stock market. “Holy crap!” he shouted to his wife. “The cat jus’ rang the doorbell!”

I swear, I almost spilled my coffee laughing. The cat, of course, strutted inside like it had been planning this all along, probably judging me the whole way.

And me? Well, I learned something vital that day: never underestimate the power of feline ambition or your own complete inability to resist mischief.

And that is how a simple porch visit turned into a story I’ll be retelling until the cat learns to drive.

Sampson never liked the word hitman. Too clinical, too clean. It sounded like a profession, something you could list on a tax form.

He preferred killer, as it had honesty and weight. The kind of word that didn’t need an explanation.

He’d been at it twelve years, long enough to know the texture of dying, how air left the throat, how the eyes adjusted to the final surprise. He told himself the money was what kept him going, but that was a lie he stopped believing around year three.

The money was fuel, nothing more. What Sampson loved was the stillness that came after the chaos, the way a life’s noise collapsed into silence.

Tonight, he was in a fourth-floor walk-up that smelled like fried food and mold. The mark was named Denny Cole, a gambling man with debts and a mouth that had insulted the wrong people.

Sampson sat in the dark across the street, watching Denny through the window. The man was pacing, sweating in his undershirt, drinking from a bottle he couldn’t afford.

Sampson waited for the moment when routine turned to vulnerability. Everyone had one: lighting a cigarette, answering the phone, leaning in to check a reflection.

When it came, he moved. He crossed the street, climbed the stairs slowly, like a lover sneaking home.

At the door, he knocked once.

“Yeah?”

“Delivery,” Sampson said, voice low, steady.

A pause. The door opened halfway, chain still on.

A sliver of Denny’s eye and shoulder.

“I didn’t order…”

The chain snapped under a shoulder hit. Denny stumbled backward, the bottle smashing against the floor.

The gun made a sound like a sigh, and Denny dropped, twitching, then still. Sampson crouched beside him, not because he needed to, but because he wanted to see.

There it was, the look he liked, the disbelief in the dead man’s eyes. The understanding that everything ends, and always faster than expected.

He felt it rise in him, that quiet, familiar thrill, like the hum of a train before it passes. He stayed a minute longer than he should’ve, studying the scene, then he pocketed the gun, wiped the knob, and left.

Outside, the city was thick with rain. Neon lights bled across puddles like cheap watercolors.

He ducked into a bar a few blocks down, the kind that didn’t ask names. He sat near the end, ordered whiskey, no ice.

The bartender was a woman with sharp eyes and too much lipstick. She looked at him like she was trying to guess what kind of trouble he carried.

“Rough night?” she asked.

“Not rough,” he said. “Too loud.”

She laughed, poured him another. “You look like a guy who likes things quiet.”

“I do,” he said. “That’s the problem.”

She didn’t get it, and he didn’t expect her to.

By the third drink, he was thinking about the next job. There was always a next one. They came like dominoes, push one, and another falls.

Sampson didn’t even know if he wanted to stop. The idea of quitting felt like dying, and he wasn’t ready for that yet.

When he stepped back into the rain, the street was empty. The air smelled of rust and cigarettes. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed, climbing higher before dissolving into nothing.

Sampson stood there for a moment, hands deep in his pockets, feeling the city breathe around him. He thought about Denny Cole lying on that stained carpet, the light from the window still flickering over his body.

For a second, he almost felt sorry. Then he smiled.

The night was quiet again.

He told himself every morning that today would be different. No bottle, no bar, no slurred confessions to the same God he kept disappointing. But by dusk, he’d always find himself walking that slow crawl toward O’Malley’s, a little corner bar that smelled of old wood, sweat, and second chances.

He wasn’t a terrible man, not exactly. He just drank like one. Somewhere along the line, whiskey had become his communion. He said grace before his first shot and begged forgiveness by the third. He never stayed sober long enough to know if God was listening.

The bartender, Maggie, bore a striking resemblance to the Virgin Mary. Not the painted kind, but not all light and purity, either, but the kind you’d imagine if Mary had seen too much, loved too hard, and learned how to pour a perfect gin and tonic. She had calm eyes, mother’s eyes, and when she smiled at him, he swore she was granting absolution.

“Rough night, preacher?” she’d tease, sliding him a glass.

“I’m not a preacher,” he’d say. “Just a sinner who talks too much.”

And she’d laugh, this low, tired laugh that made him think maybe she understood. Perhaps she had her own prayers to whisper after closing time.

He always started with beer, something gentle, something to convince himself he still had control. But control was a myth, like sobriety or salvation.

Before long, the whiskey would arrive, and he would cross himself before drinking. Whether out of habit or guilt, the man couldn’t tell anymore.

“Christ, I’m sorry,” he’d mutter into the rim. “You know I mean well. You know I’m trying.”

The regulars left him alone. They all had their own ghosts to drink with. But sometimes he’d catch Maggie watching him with that quiet pity that stung more than judgment.

“You ever think about stopping?” she asked one night, after the last call.

“Every day,” he said. “Same as praying. I just don’t seem to follow through on either.”

She nodded, poured herself a shot, and clinked his glass. “Then maybe tomorrow.”

It was the kind of thing people said when they didn’t believe in tomorrows anymore.

He walked home that night through streets that looked washed clean by the rain, humming a hymn he half-remembered from childhood. The words stumbled, like he did, but the melody stayed, soft, cracked, alive.

He dreamt of Maggie dressed in blue light, her bar towel draped like a veil, whispering prayers over him as he slept. When he woke, he felt a strange peace, fragile and temporary as the morning sun.

For two whole days, he didn’t drink. He even bought a Bible from a secondhand store, thinking maybe he could start fresh. But by the third day, the silence in his apartment started crawling up the walls, and the guilt, that old companion, came back hungry.

When he returned to O’Malley’s, Maggie didn’t say a word. She just filled his glass.

He wanted to thank her for not preaching, for not giving him that look. Instead, he whispered, “Forgive me, Mary.”

She smiled faintly. “I’m not the one you need to ask.”

“I’ve been asking Him for years,” he said. “He never answers.”

“Maybe He does,” she said, “just not in ways you expect.”

He looked at her, her steady hands, her weary eyes, and thought maybe she was right. Maybe God’s mercy wasn’t in churches or sermons, but in the quiet kindness of someone who kept serving you, even when you didn’t need another drink.

When he left that night, he crossed himself again, not out of guilt this time, but out of hope, but when the door closed behind him with a soft chime, Maggie wiped the counter clean, like erasing a prayer she’d already heard too many times.

The man woke up to the sound of the neighbor’s dog vomiting in the hallway again.

It was the kind of noise that made you question who really had it worse, the dog or him.

The light from the window was thin and gray, the kind that didn’t promise much of a day ahead.

He sat up, wiped the sweat off his face, and found his shirt on the floor, half under a bottle that had rolled itself into a corner during the night.

The kitchen smelled like smoke and wet newspaper. The man had fallen asleep at the table again, scribbling on a notepad, and couldn’t find it now.

He remembered writing something about how everyone’s an actor, even the honest ones. Maybe it was genius.

Maybe it was trash. Probably both.

He poured himself a coffee and added a shot of yesterday’s whiskey, stirring it with his finger. The cup had a chip on the rim, but he drank from it anyway.

There was a comfort in using broken things. They made you feel less alone.

By noon, he’d dressed, which just meant wearing pants that didn’t smell too bad. He checked the envelope on the counter, the rent notice.

The landlord’s handwriting was too neat for a man who’d once threatened to break his kneecaps. He laughed at that, though it wasn’t funny.

He’d borrowed money from a woman he didn’t love but had pretended to. It wasn’t much, just enough to get through another week.

But last night, she’d come by and said she wanted it back, or something else instead. He didn’t remember how the conversation ended, just that the glass ashtray wasn’t where it used to be, and she’d stopped talking before she reached the door.

He finished his drink and looked at his hands. There was a dark smudge on his left one.

Could’ve been ink, or something else, but he didn’t care to check. The room was quiet except for the hum of the fridge, that tired, constant sound that reminded him of breathing.

He thought about calling her, saying something, anything really. But what was there to say?

That it wasn’t supposed to happen? That he didn’t mean to?

He didn’t think about meaning anymore.

He just did them, then waited for the morning to decide what kind of man he was.

Outside, the sky had turned a dull silver.

He poured another drink, this time without the coffee.

It went down easier than the first.

He opened a window and let some air in.

The street below smelled like rain and diesel smoke.

He thought of her again, her perfume, her silence.

Then he looked at the ashtray.

It sat clean and heavy in the center of the table, catching what little light there was. Lighting a cigarette, the man balanced it on the edge, watched the smoke rise, and waited for it to disappear.

When he came home from his first appointment, Harold felt lighter than he had in months. “I think I’m going to get along well with her,” he told his wife, kicking off his shoes at the door. “She’s funny, in a strange sort of way.”

His wife, Anne, smiled over her shoulder as she stirred a pot on the stove. “That’s good, Harold. You’ve needed someone who could make you laugh again.”

“She’s sharp,” he said. “I told her I didn’t understand where all the stupid crap I say comes from. And you know what she said?”

Anne chuckled. “What?”

“She said, ‘Probably your brain. If not, I can schedule you for surgery and have your throat cut so we can look down at the other end.’”

They both laughed, though Anne’s laughter faltered when she noticed the way Harold’s face lingered.

He grinned, but it wasn’t the easy grin she knew. It looked rehearsed. “She’s got a dark sense of humor.”

“Sounds like it,” Anne said, stirring again. “You didn’t take her seriously, did you?”

“Of course not,” he said, but the words sounded like a question.

That night, Harold dreamt he was sitting in her office again. The fluorescent light hummed above them, steadily pulsing like a heartbeat.

The walls seemed to breathe, swelling with each intake of air, exhaling softly through the vents. Dr. Malin sat across from him, her thin hands folded on the desk, glasses reflecting no light; eyes a pool of still darkness.

“You still don’t understand,” she said.

“Understand what?” he asked.

“Where it all comes from.”

She tilted her head, and the motion was too smooth, like the hinge of a machine rather than the movement of bone and tendon.

“The words that aren’t yours. The things that bubble up when you speak. Do you think they belong to you?”

He wanted to answer, but couldn’t, as his throat felt tight, swollen. The room smelled like antiseptic.

“Maybe,” she whispered, leaning forward, “it isn’t your brain after all.”

She reached across the desk and touched his neck, just below his jawline. Her fingers were cold and slick, like the skin of a deep-sea creature. “Maybe it’s coming from somewhere deeper.”

Harold woke with a jolt, gasping for air.

His neck ached, and when he touched it, he found faint impressions, as though fingers had pressed there. He told himself it was a dream, but the ache persisted throughout the day.

When he saw Dr. Malin again the following week, her office was different. The walls were darker, and the corners less defined.

He tried to shake it off as anxiety, but she noticed his distraction.

“Something on your mind?” she asked.

He hesitated. “I had a dream about you.”

She smiled slightly. “That’s common in therapy. The mind projects.”

“In the dream, you said the words that come out of my mouth might not be mine.”

Her expression didn’t change. “And do you believe that?”

He wanted to laugh it off, but her eyes pinned him in place. “Sometimes, I say things I don’t remember thinking. Like someone else pushed them through me.”

Dr. Malin nodded slowly, as if confirming something. “Would you like to find out where they come from?”

He blinked. “You mean what, hypnosis?”

“Something like that,” she said, rising. “Lie back on the couch. Relax your throat. Let’s take a look.”

He laughed nervously. “You’re joking again.”

But she wasn’t smiling.

The next thing he remembered was a light, bright, and sterile. He was lying down, staring up at a ceiling that seemed to stretch on forever.

His throat burned, and there was a metallic taste in his mouth.

“Don’t speak yet,” Dr. Malin said softly. Her voice echoed strangely, as if she were speaking through a tunnel. “You’re all right.”

He tried to sit up, but his body wouldn’t move. Only his eyes darted, wide and panicked.

“I didn’t cut deep,” she said. “Just enough to let it breathe.”

She turned to a tray beside her. Something squirmed on it, a slick, writhing mass the size of a child’s hand, pulsing faintly with veins of light.

“This,” she said, lifting it with tongs, “is where your words were coming from.”

The thing made a faint clicking noise, like teeth chattering in the cold.

“I’ve seen many like it,” she continued. “They root themselves in the host’s throat and whisper up into the brain. Most people never know they have one. But you,” she smiled, almost proud, “you listened.”

Harold tried to scream, but no sound came. His throat felt hollow, a void stretching into something vast and cold.

Dr. Malin leaned close, her eyes black and endless. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “The defective one is gone, and we have another to replace it.”

Her mouth opened wider than any human’s should. The thing in her tongs twitched, then leapt, and he felt it wetly slide down his throat, wriggling into place.

Darkness bloomed in his vision, and he felt himself sinking, not falling, but descending, as if pulled down by invisible threads.

Anne found him the next morning sitting at the kitchen table. He smiled when she entered, although his eyes seemed glassy, unfocused.

“Morning,” she said softly. “Rough night?”

He blinked once, slowly. “No,” he said, his voice lower than usual, almost two voices overlapping. “I think I understand where the words come from now.”

Then he smiled again, and something deep within that smile twitched.

Harold Benton never put much faith in premonitions, signs, or “feelings.” His wife, Louise, however, treated them like the morning weather report, worth listening to if you didn’t want to get caught in the rain.

That evening, while Harold was checking his shotgun and whistling for Rip, his old hound, Louise stood by the door wringing her hands.

“I don’t like it,” she said. “There’s something in the air tonight. Feels wrong.”

“Lou,” Harold said, smiling as he slung the gun over his shoulder, “the only thing in the air is supper smoke and mosquitoes. Don’t you worry. Me and Rip’ll be back before you can miss us.”

“I already do,” she said softly.

That made him pause a second, but Rip gave a bark that sounded like a dare, so Harold kissed her cheek and headed for the woods.

The hunt went fine until it didn’t. Rip caught the scent of a raccoon and tore off through the trees like his tail was on fire.

Harold hollered after him, laughing, “Don’t you go embarrassing me by losing to a coon, boy!”

But the laughter died when he heard the splash. When Harold reached the pond, the water was still rippling. He waited.

“Rip!” he called. “C’mon, now! Ain’t no coon worth a bath!”

Nothing. Just the soft rustle of the woods settling in. Then, out on the far bank, a raccoon hauled itself up, shook off, and waddled into the brush, smug as sin.

“Now, where’s my fool dog?” Harold muttered, kicking off his boots.

He dove in before reason could talk him out of it.

The water hit him like ice. He gasped, calling Rip’s name, but the only sound was his own splashing. Then everything went black.

When he came to, the sun was up, and Rip was beside him, licking his face like nothing had happened. “Well, I’ll be,” Harold said, rubbing the hound’s ears. “You scared ten years off me, boy.”

Rip wagged his tail, tongue lolling, perfectly pleased with himself.

“Don’t you grin at me like that,” Harold said, chuckling. “You probably chased that coon clear to the next county.” He stood, stretched, and pointed homeward. “C’mon, let’s go tell your mama we’re still alive.”

But home wasn’t quite right when they got there. Two young fellas were in the yard digging a hole. Harold waved. “You boys get lost or somethin’? That’s my garden patch you’re tearin’ up!”

They didn’t even glance at him. Just kept digging. He stepped closer and froze. The shape they were lowering into the hole looked mighty familiar, a dog.

“Rip,” Harold whispered, “that there looks an awful lot like you.”

Rip tilted his head and gave a low whine.

Then Harold saw Louise on the porch, dressed in black, the Reverend beside her, hat in hand. “Louise!” he called, waving. “What’s all this foolishness?”

She didn’t look up. Not even when Harold was ten paces away. The people moved around her like he wasn’t there at all.

The whole group walked up the hill to the churchyard, Rip and Harold trailing behind. They lowered a coffin, his coffin, into the ground.

“Well, that explains the cold water,” he muttered to Rip. “Guess we didn’t make it after all, huh?”

Rip just wagged his tail.

At the edge of the cemetery stood a gate that hadn’t been there before. A man in bib overalls and a book in his hand waved him forward. “This way, Mr. Benton. You’re welcome to enter Heaven. But—” he added, eyeing Rip—“the dog can’t come. There’s a nice place for animals up the road.”

Harold frowned. “You’re tellin’ me Heaven won’t take dogs? That don’t sound much like Heaven to me.”

“Rules are rules,” the man said.

“Well, rules are stupid,” Harold replied. “C’mon, Rip. We’ll walk.”

They followed the road for a long while until another man came into view, boots dusty, eyes kind, carrying a walking stick. “Morning,” he said. “Name’s Pete. You lost?”

“Not lost,” Harold said. “Just turned away. Fella back there said this was Heaven but wouldn’t let Rip in.”

Pete smiled. “That first gate? That wasn’t Heaven. Happens all the time. They try to trick folks right up ‘til the end. Up ahead’s the real place. Dogs included.”

Harold grinned down at Rip. “Hear that, boy? You’re in good company after all.”

Rip barked once, sharp and happy.

Harold hesitated. “Louise, she’ll be along, won’t she?”

Pete nodded. “Soon enough. And don’t worry, she won’t be fooled.”

Harold scratched Rip’s ears, feeling lighter than he had in years. “Well, partner,” he said, “let’s go see what Heaven looks like when it’s got room for dogs.”

As they stepped through the old wooden gate, Pete called after them with a chuckle, “Funny thing, Harold, man’ll walk straight into hell with both eyes open, but even the devil can’t fool a dog.”

Eddie wasn’t the kind of guy to make history. He was the kind of guy who made coffee nervous. Third-year math major, shirt untucked, hair fighting a losing battle with gravity, one of those bright students who understood everything except how to stop talking to himself out loud.

It was a late afternoon in the old lecture hall, the kind that could double as an echo chamber. The chalkboard was full of equations that looked like ancient runes, and Eddie, still there hours after everyone else had gone home, was pacing back and forth like a man trying to outwalk his own confusion.

“The integral of D of X over cosine to the N of X is…” he muttered, waving his chalk like a wand. “Sin X over N minus one times the cosine to the, no, no, that can’t be right, damn it!”

He slammed the chalk down, sending a puff of white dust into the air.

“I’d sell my soul to get this thing right.”

Now, most people say things like that, and all they lose is a few minutes of peace. But this was an old university built back when “foundation stone” meant “may contain traces of curse.”

The fluorescent lights flickered, the air went cold, and from the back row came the distinct sound of someone clearing their throat. Eddie froze.

“Two words, babe,” said a voice smooth as silk and twice as smug. “Eternal damnation. We in business?”

Out from the shadows stepped a man in a charcoal suit so sharp it could’ve cut glass. He had the smile of someone who’d been in sales a long, long time.

Eddie blinked. “Did I say soul? I meant, uh, solution. Slip of the tongue.”

Sam, because of course his name was Sam, gave a slow grin. “Happens more than you’d think. Poets, songwriters, grad students. You people are gold mines.”

“I didn’t mean it!” Eddie protested. “You can’t just…”

“Oh, I can,” said Sam, snapping his fingers. The chalkboard erased itself with a squeal. “See? Perks of the job. Now, let’s make this official. You summoned me, I’m here, and the paperwork’s already in motion.”

Eddie rubbed his temples. “There’s paperwork?”

“Of course. Eternal contracts don’t just sign themselves. Now, because I’m a professional, you get three questions about my powers before the main event.”

Eddie sighed, resigned. “Fine. Question one. Can you really do anything?”

Sam puffed his chest. “Anything. Past, future, sideways in time, you name it.”

“Question two. Are there any limits? Like, physics, laws of nature, that sort of thing?”

“None,” Sam said, admiring his cufflinks. “I can break every law there is and still show up for brunch.”

Eddie leaned on the desk, eyes narrowing. “And question three. Is there any place in the universe you could go and not find your way back here?”

Sam smirked. “Nice try. No. I could hop to the Andromeda galaxy and back before you finish a yawn. You humans always think you’ve found a loophole.”

“Good,” Eddie said quietly. “Then I’ve got my command.”

Sam spread his arms. “Hit me, babe. Make it count.”

Eddie pointed at the door. “Get lost.”

There was a pause, long, cold, echoing. Sam blinked. “Cute,” he said. “But that’s not…”

The lights flickered again. The air shimmered, and then, with the faint smell of ozone and paperwork burning in triplicate, Sam was gone.

Eddie stood alone in the lecture hall, chalk still trembling in his hand. He looked at the board, sighed, and muttered, “Still doesn’t help with cosine.”

Then he packed up his notes, turned off the lights, and went home, the first math student in history to win an argument with the devil using nothing but technical grammar.

Moral of the story? Never underestimate a man who’s been talking to himself long enough to win the debate.