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Fiction
Not Quite Our Sort
“Anything,” I say. “Anything but that.” They were trying to make me eat chicken. As an intelligence agent I had been through the wringer many times — torture, torture, forever torture. But I hate chicken. I detest chicken. I would tell them anything if I had to eat chicken.
November 1977Paul And The Finger And Steely Dan
He was no one you’d pause to stare at; it was what he said that belied his craziness. Ask him any question; he would answer it as perversely as possible, every time. “Paul, what’s it like outside?” “It’s a perfect day for a rape.” “Paul, what’s for dinner?” “Children’s genitalia, in red clam sauce.”
October 1977The Vampire Of Menitz
The people of Menitz could never remember a time when there had not been a vampire. So of course it was hard for them to remember the details of the good old days.
July 1977Six Stories
The life insurance salesman will be here soon. He will put it to him bluntly: he has responsibilities. In his case, there are photographs of the funeral. He is a handsome corpse. He feels flattered.
May 1977Spies Don’t Kill Each Other
Fletcher E. Driscoll felt the day getting warmer. He was in the back seat of a Land Rover, blindfolded. It must be noon, he thought, bouncing along what seemed to be a crude jungle road.
May 1977How To Cook Chevrolets
“But man must live in his environment. So our solution is simple. We alter the digestive system, replace it with a treatment plant. Then anybody can eat cars, cement, you name it.”
April 1977The Magus
I walked back over the dry earth to that gate. I stood in front of those two men. I was going to say to the one who seemed capable of understanding that I had no choice, I must do this terrible thing to him. But I left a fatal pause of a second to elapse.
April 1977Hot Dogs
I was compiling a list of what I would take with me in the coffin when along came a dog wearing a hat.
March 1977Ninety Nine Big ’Uns
Henry Huggins was one of the best liars in the county. He was a short, stocky, red-faced man with squinty eyes and a waxed handle-bar mustache. He wore bib overalls and a dirty broadbrim hat pulled down so far it bent the tops of his ears over. He read nickel Westerns and sat around the general store telling elaborate lies.
February 1977Seventh Heaven
Every time Arthur Wazu got sexually excited his ear lobes turned lavender. This had just happened in the central power station, so he roller-skated back to his captain’s quarters to rest.
February 1977