Doug Hawley

Shower Of Power

Doug Hawley

I got a great deal on my house. I’d been a renter for years and houses had been out of my reach until I saw a listing for this place. The price was $50,000 under comparables because of its checkered history. All of the prior owners hadn’t stayed more than two years, and some had lasted less than two months. On top of all that, the last owner had drowned by accident in his tub and the mortgage banker wanted a quick sale. It came furnished, because that was easier for the bank than selling off his property. Because of the turnover, it hadn’t been well maintained, but I like projects like this.

A week later I was relaxing on the sofa after I had painted the interior. The chair seemed lumpy. Checking revealed the journal of the previous owner, Duke Hanley, under the cushion. I felt a little guilty about reading the words of the late home owner, but I was curious about how a seemingly pleasant, happy person had, according to my neighbors, become completely mental before his death.

After the first page, I read sporadically, ignoring the quotidian, and concentrating on the bizarre.

June 13, 20XX – I really like my new home. It suits my needs completely and is easy to maintain. The landscaping is natural, no need for fertilizers or continuing pruning. The yard is small enough to mow in ten minutes with a reel mower. I may want to paint, but not right away. Before winter, I might invest in better windows.

June 20, 20XX – There is a little leak in the shower. I’ll get a repair kit from Jergens Hardware.

June 21, 20XX – Proud of the fix I did. Got it done in ten minutes, and even remembered to turn off the water before I started. Ha-ha.

June 30, 20XX – Leaking again. May be a bad repair kit.

July 1,20XX – Repaired again.

July 3, 20XX – Dammit, leaking again. I’ll call a plumber.

July 6, 20XX – SOB plumber says it’ll cost thousands and he’ll have to remove drywall to get at the problem. Screw that. I can live with a little leak. It won’t affect my water bill much.

July 8, 20XX – The dripping at night is keeping me awake. That’s OK; I put down a wash cloth over the drain. That will quiet the sound.

July 11, 20XX – Now I’m hearing what sounds like whispers and cries from the shower room when I try to sleep. When I go to check, all is quiet. I’ve developed a tic in my left eye, and I can’t seem to concentrate at work or at home whatever I’m doing. My best friends are avoiding me and strangers are giving me looks.

July 18, 20XX – Just when I thought that I had experienced the worst, I woke up this morning with the memory of luminescent, multicolored things growing in my bathroom when I got up to urinate last night. This morning, nothing.

July 20, 20XX – Enough of this shit. I’m removing the shower head and capping the pipe. No more drips, no more sounds. I’ll just take baths. No shower is going to beat me.

That was the last entry. The late Mr. Hanley apparently had gone batshit crazy for some reason. I had replaced the shower head the first day that I moved in, and I’ve had no problem at all with the shower.

There have been electrical problems. This is just the project I’m looking for. I’ll upgrade the wiring while I’m at it. After all, I’m an electrician. Piece of cake.

Dig

by Doug Hawley

I’m a volunteer at Ryon State Park, named after an early settler, Aristotle Ryon. I’m a two-way guy in that I edit the Ryon Newsletter and do physical work in the park, getting rid of invasive species, improving the trails, and doing some planting. I’m retired now and love spending time in Ryon’s natural beauty. There’s always a chance that I might see a coyote, an owl, or maybe a salamander. It is no surprise that this place is so popular.

Recently, our executive director asked me to write a column in the newsletter about the most notorious episodes in our history—two brutal murders about a year apart. Each homicide stayed in the papers for weeks and caused visitors to avoid the park at night and to only visit while accompanied.

After a bit of research through old newspapers, and interviews with police investigators, I came up with this:

******************************************************************

There were a couple of things in common about the murders. Both occurred on an obscure dead end trail, Illana, where hardly anyone goes, and even though it is not polite to speak ill of the dead, neither of them were upstanding citizens.

Victim One was Charlie Talbot. The police concluded that he was on the trail after dark because he had been excluded from the park after repeatedly and illegally bringing his vicious dog, Caesar, off leash to the park. Caesar was known to attack wildlife, people, and other dogs, with impunity. Mr. Talbot was found with his head bashed in, after Caesar showed up the next morning at park headquarters and led a ranger to the body where it had been dragged, twenty feet off trail.

Victim Two was Chris Massey. She, too, had been excluded from the park because she had been caught digging up plants in the park to take home. Her murder was even grislier. She was killed a year after the first, in a similar location to where Mr. Talbot was found, but with her head cut off by some sort of curved blade. She was easy to find because she had told her daughter where she was going.

The park is in an urban area with many entrances and no way to register those that enter the park. Despite a plea to anyone in the metro area who had seen either of the victims in the park on the day that they were killed, or anything suspicious, there were no leads in either case. In both cases, there was no forensic evidence— identifiable footprints or DNA. The two victims had nothing in common except for being excluded from the park, so the police assumed that there was no connection between the two crimes.

Neither murder has been solved.

I didn’t mention in the article that no one checked the shovel that I use. It wouldn’t have been a problem, anyway. I got a new shovel.

Nobody messes with my park.

BIKE KILLER

Doug Hawley

I don’t drive. Everywhere I need to go I can walk, bus or taxi. I take a bus to my job at Hadleys Department Store in the Consumer Help Department. You should know that I am a highly valued employee based on my ability to resolve customer problems while still maintaining company policy. Trying to find a parent for a screaming child or dealing with someone whose credit card bounced without ruffling feathers or giving away the store is like walking a tightrope. Someone who wasn’t both reasonable and sensitive couldn’t handle it, believe you me!

There are a lot of places I can walk to. The library, post office, my softball field and a lot of shopping is within two miles. Mostly the weather is nice and walking is easy. Even when the weather is bad, you can still walk if you dress for it.

I don’t fight with anyone. Everyone who knows me could tell you that. In my volunteer position as citizen park commissioner, there are lots of controversial issues, but I am always the voice of reason keeping opposing parties civil. You should have seen the ruckus about a separate dog park! But I kept everyone cool.

I’ve been on jury duty three times and foreman once.

I like girls a lot and I think that they like me. If I weren’t a little overweight, I’m sure that I’d have a steady girlfriend by now. But don’t you worry, I’m on a new diet right now and I’ll be OK. I’ve got my eye on a girl in my Bible study class. I think that we would be a great couple. When I lose that weight it will be easier for her to see my inner glow and get over her boyfriend with the looks, money and a Jaguar. He isn’t even of our religion!

There is one thing that really burns me. There are all of these just beautiful boys and girls in their spandex running over the neighborhood with their expensive bikes. I don’t think that their clothes or their bikes are made in this country. They think that they own the place! Once a couple of years ago, a biker came close to hitting me in the dark. It might have been partly my fault because I was wearing dark clothes and jaywalking.

Those bike riders almost run me over every other day. Usually I don’t recognize them, but there is one guy who I see every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6PM as I come home from my bus stop. He has come close to hitting me several times and he cusses me out for being on his streets. This jerk never stops for a stop sign and I’m not the only pedestrian he has almost hit! He also swears at drivers. He thinks that if he spends enough on his tight blue spandex and super bike he just owns the road.

Last month he nearly hit me on a sidewalk going the wrong way on an overpass. “Get out of my way a**h**le”. There is only so much one can take. But I got out of his way. I have to admit to a bit of self loathing. Why do I let everyone walk over me? If only I had time for a plan of action, but he didn’t give me time to think. If I’d had time to think I would have held my ground. It’s my sidewalk! Pedestrians have the right of way.

Finally, he made a big, fatal mistake. I was still walking on the long overpass when he came back the other way. I could see a car far behind him. I acted like I was intimidated from the last time he went past me. I squeezed up tightly against the rail. I could see it work out just right. As he came up right behind me I turned around and faced him, taking up just about all of the sidewalk. He swerved off the sidewalk and his bicycle fell over on the road just in front of the car that had been overtaking him. It wasn’t pretty. The motorist couldn’t stop. The grille caught a leg and a wheel went over his head. He ended up in one piece, but extremely, immediately dead. The poor driver blamed himself. I tried CPR, but there was no hope.

Police took our statements. I told them that the bicyclist had startled me causing me to turn around suddenly. Everyone agreed that it was just a horrible accident.

About a week later there was an opinion piece in the newspaper written by Fred Janes, a friend of the deceased Sam Wilkins. The point was that bicyclists are so much superior than drivers and pedestrians and that their superiority made it OK to ignore all rules and etiquette. He wrote about how Sam Wilkins could have bought an expensive car but chose to do the right thing and bicycle everywhere. Fortunately, there was a picture of Mr. Janes.

As luck would have it, I recognized Janes as somebody who frequently rode the same circuit as Wilkins. One place was on a sidewalk between bushes and a busy road where they regularly terrified pedestrians and bedeviled drivers. It took several weeks, but finally I was in the right place to tip him into traffic from my position in the bushes.

There may have been some suspicion about the second death of a bicycle advocate in such a short period, but no one saw me and nothing came of it. I’m happy to report that bicyclists were strangely silent after Wilkins died. No more moral superiority in the editorial pages.

I don’t think that it is prudent for any more bike accidents in the near future. One doesn’t know what might happen in a year or so.

Don’t you just hate door to door salesmen? Always so pushy, won’t take no for an answer?

“Bike Killer” originally appeared in Nugget Tales, in 2015.

ELEVATOR

Doug Hawley

You probably read about it or saw it on television, but let me refresh your memory. I know quite a bit about it because I reported on the incident for Associated Press. The continuing mystery knocked the twentieth anniversary of Kennedy Jr’s supposed tragedy, and the civil war in the reconsolidated Soviet Union, out of the news for awhile. My reporting really made my career. Fortunately, I had been AP’s obituary guy, with a special interest in suicides. I had done think pieces about causes and frequency and high profile analyses of celebrity cases. I’d like to think that I know more about suicides than the so-called “experts”. My biggest year before the elevator case was the year when both Sean Penn and Penn Jillette did it. I consider that my Penn-ultimate accomplishment, ha-ha. I think that I even got people to cry over Dennis Rodman when he did himself in. I had my own talk show for two years. I didn’t last too long, but my initial ratings were at least enough to get one of the talk show hacks off the air. The country should be grateful to me for that if nothing else. Even now I’ve got several offers for syndicated radio programs and I may make it back to TV.

By the way, thanks for the drink. I’ve got awhile to kill before flying to CBS headquarters.

Five hundred people committed suicide in elevators in 50 countries on 5 continents at 5PM local time. Initially there was no common thread even though most had some sort of statement on his or her person. Some stats:

283 male / 217 female.

Of the 156 American suicides there were 106 Caucasians, 21 Hispanics, 18 Blacks, 9 Asian Americans and 2 Native Americans - in other words the demographics roughly match America.

88 Non-Russian Europeans, 20 Russians, 103 Asians, 25 Australians, 65 Africans and 43 Non-US North or South Americans.

The age distribution skewed both young and old—182 were under 19 and 153 were over 64. The middle aged only contributed 165, many fewer than would be expected in a random draw.

As might be expected, the suicides had a high incidence of physical and mental illness. 128 had been diagnosed as mentally ill—schizoid, bipolar or depressed and 165 had less than a year to live.

As would be unexpected, the economic status of the victims was pretty high. There were no homeless. It is difficult to calculate an average income for those outside America given the different currencies and income reporting, but the overall victim income seems consistent with the American average of $57,562.

The individual cases were all over the place:

The 18-year-old Algerian, Ahmed Ali, who died for a secular government.

The 19-year-old Oregonian, Doug Ivy, with acne.

The 65-year-old Quebecer who urged French to be adopted as the universal language.

A 54-year-old Republican senator from South Carolina, Grant Holmes, who had been married three times, and who didn’t want to be outed.

15-year-old Caucasian Australian, Jimmy Sanders, who died to promote ousting Euro Australians from Australia.

Prominent 75-year-old Chinese Communist, Wen Wang, who admitted to living a lie all his life—he entered politics to get a good car.

33-year-old Frenchwoman, Marie Simone, with ovarian cancer.

Their notes ranged from the short and direct “I hurt” to the rambling “I die for my country, I die for Islam, I die for the future. No one knows the anger I have. No one outside of Samolar [an extreme religious group with less than a thousand adherents] knows what I feel. I die that millions should live. I die for the hungry. I die for the oppressed. All should die or no one should die. History will record this day as important as the messenger’s birth. From this date all will change.”

The methods used for death were diverse. Most used guns, but some took fast-acting poisons such as cyanide. The elevators varied from rickety antiques to glassy wonders outside beautiful resort and hotel buildings. There was no attempt to kill any bystanders. One man in Morocco died of a heart attack during the excitement. Several people were injured in trying to get out of the elevators.

In short, there is no immediate, obvious central theme to the suicides. They were obviously organized, since the common circumstances were beyond coincidence. One may infer that they were willing to kill themselves and wanted publicity. An ordinary solitary suicide gets noticed only locally unless someone famous is involved. These people should have known that 500 people committing suicide under identical circumstances would get world wide press and the individuals involved could all be famous or notorious.

No connection could be made between most of the victims. At most, a connection to one other party could be made in the case of a couple of Right to Life crusaders. No correspondence between suiciders could be found.

I have a theory that I was not allowed to report on. I think that the group was organized by email. My problem is that I could not establish any evidence other than that all of them had access to computers. Without evidence—and I think because of the fear that there would be copycat situations—my editor would not let me put my theory in writing.

I don’t think this group came together on their own. Someone got them started and told them the rules.

Two things that I wonder about the organizer. Did he / she kill himself / herself? I don’t think so, since none of the dead claimed credit and each one wanted either notoriety or maximum publicity for his or her purpose. Second, what did the organizer have to gain?

Thanks for listening. I’ve never seen someone so interested in my work on this story before.

I guess we’ll never know some of the answers, but I have my suspicions. Thanks for the drinks, I’ve got a plane to catch.

Marriage

Doug Hawley

Eric was complaining to Jeff at the next cubicle again. “Look, my wife is such a pain in the butt. She rags on me if a leave I light on when I leave the room. I follow too closely when I drive. If it’s not one thing it’s three things. I don’t know what to do about her.”

Jeff had the usual advice “When you were a kid, did your parents ever spank you?”

“Sure.”

“And didn’t that turn you into a good citizen? Did it turn you into some kind of monster?”

“No.”

“Think about it. Jane just needs some strong-handed discipline. Maybe you don’t need to get physical with her, maybe you do. You could start off by just putting her in her place. Explain the facts of life. You are the one bringing home the bacon; she just has to keep the house in order, right?”

“I see what you are saying. Things are going to be different around the house.”

After the weekend, Jeff asks “How did it turn out?”

A stricken Eric says “She’s talking about leaving.”

At lunch in the cafeteria, Lamar sits down beside Eric. “Hey, I know that you’ve been taking advice from Jeff. There are a few things that you don’t know. The ‘expert’ on relationships has been married three times, has restraining orders placed against him and has spent a little time in jail for domestic violence. I don’t think that you’ll get anything helpful out of him.”

“So you think that you know better?”

“Well, I’ve been happily married for thirty years, and hope for thirty years more.”

“OK, I can’t argue with that. Shoot.”

“Before I suggest anything, let me ask you a few questions. Do you kiss your wife before you go to work? Have you had a ‘date’ with her lately? Do you thank her for cooking your meals and cleaning the house?”

“Uhhhh, no.”

“Think about it, maybe if shown tenderness and thoughtfulness, she’d return it.”

“Worth a try, Jeff’s advice sucked, and I sure want my marriage to work.”

After a few days, Lamar asked Eric “How’s it going?”

A smiling Eric said “I can’t believe the change; it’s like when we were first married. She is so loving, the house is immaculate and the sex is like our honeymoon.”

The next month Eric asked Lamar to come over for dinner to see the wonders his advice had wrought. As they entered the house, Lamar encountered a terrible stench. Eric didn’t seem to notice. Lamar then was shocked to see a filthy house with a kitchen filled to the ceiling with dirty dishes. Eric was oblivious. A nervous Lamar asked “Where is Jane?”

“She must be taking a nap.”

When they went into the bedroom Lamar saw Jane decomposing in bed.

Eric said “Let’s just let her nap a little longer.”

Lamar started to shake, but did what he could to remain composed “Say Eric, she looks like she needs her rest, why don’t we just postpone dinner for a couple of days.”

Eric, who saw nothing out of the ordinary, said “Sure, but I really want you to have dinner with us soon.”

As soon as Lamar was out the door, he called 911.

The police investigation found some things which were surprising and some that were not. Jane had been dead for about three weeks. Eric was a diagnosed schizophrenic who could behave fairly normally when he took his meds. Like so many others, he did so well on his meds, he recently decided that he didn’t need them.

The surprising part is that he didn’t kill her. She died of an aneurysm, but he just could not acknowledge it and slipped into a dream world.

Eric’s detailed description of their fantastic sex life over the last few days troubled his interviewers for weeks.

There are some things that no marital advice will help, but it didn’t seem that way to Eric. His life got even better when some nice people found him a new home where he didn’t have to go to work anymore and a lot of friendly people took care of him. The best part came when Jane told him they would be parents.

“Marriage” originally appeared in Penny Shorts, on June 25, 2015.

Cell

by Doug Hawley

It seems like I’d been caged forever, but I’m sure that it was only a few days. I suppose that I might consider my imprisonment my fault, but I blame my family. They gave me a horrible example of how to live and I ended up just like them. But I must not dwell on that, I must think only of my present situation and how to escape my captivity.

The guards feed me a few vegetables, bread, and water a day. I get nothing but verbal abuse from them: “You deserve your treatment!” and worse.

I’m starving; I don’t know how long I can survive. If that weren’t bad enough, I’m forced to endure torture three hours a day. There is nowhere to sit, just a thin mattress on the floor.

Finally, I’m eligible for release. I’ve lost the twenty-five pounds that I signed up for. Sure, I could have stayed at the Hilton for less, but I’m sure I would have dined on steak and had four or five drinks a night, and ended up gaining weight. With the Guaranteed Weight Loss Plan, I can finally get into last year’s pants.

I’ve got to admit that the exercise machines were first-rate, even though they were killing me.

Better Than Nightmares

Doug Hawley

Day 1

The nightmares started shortly after we inherited a fortune from my in-laws. I would go to sleep and immediately go into a dream in which my late in-laws tortured me. Before the first dreams, I had started to adjust to a life of leisure and luxury, but it didn’t last long. These were not like normal nightmares, they were completely realistic. I heard all of the words spoken by me and my tormenters. I felt all of the pain inflicted on me. To try to make sense of it, I wrote all of it down.

The first night I was just continuously insulted by my former father-in-law Grayson Jennings. His remarks are imprinted in my brain:

“You miserable pig, what makes you think that you could possibly deserve my daughter. If she hadn’t gone slumming with bad boys, she never would have gotten pregnant, and ended up married to you. After that, you had her get an abortion which caused her to be infertile. She’ll never have a chance to have a baby with a real man, now that you ruined her life. What do you have going for you, a little muscle and a glib line? Once she was stuck with you, you treated her like dirt. Maybe you never left any marks, but you didn’t mind twisting her arm a little, maybe slapping her from time to time. She was so ashamed, Mandy and I could not talk her into leaving you.”

“Too bad old man. She’s stuck with me, I’ve got your money and you are dead”, sleeping me said.

“There are worse things than being dead, as you will find out”, responded dream Grayson.

The first night could be chalked up to guilt or an upset stomach, but it seemed that dead Grayson knew things that he should not have known. I wasn’t too upset; I thought it was a onetime thing.

Day 2

It started with my late mother-in-law, Mandy.

“It is so funny that your name is Duke. You are about the furthest from royalty imaginable. Were you even able to get our daughter Jessie pregnant, or was that one of your friends when she was drunk. I know that all of the sluts that you hang out with wouldn’t get in bed with you if they weren’t drunk or high. You don’t have manhood, you have boyhood. Are you stupid enough to think that all of the quack doctors with their pills and surgery will do you any good?”

I had no response.

Day 3

In the morning, I started to be really worried, because I hadn’t actually called any doctors yet, but I had been looking at ads on the internet. My jaw was really sore, and I didn’t know why. I hadn’t been physically abused in my dream – yet.

Strangely, Jessie hadn’t noticed any disturbance during my sleep.

When I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. At night my in-laws didn’t talk, they tag-teamed me. I was unable to respond to their kicks, elbows, slaps. All I could do was yell at them to stop, but they acted as if I had said nothing, they just kept hitting me.

After the beginning of the dream torture, Jessie noticed bruises and welts all over my body. She thought I had hurt myself sleepwalking, and there was no way I would tell her the truth.

Days 4 - 10

Some nights I would wake up bleeding, sometimes I would have contusions, I never knew what would happen, but it was always bad. I can tell you, take the verbal torture, words don’t hurt like fists do. Pliers and knives are worse than fists.

They know my worst fears. One night they are all friendly and we go for a walk. It was a beautiful day. We come to a cliff and I am slowly pushed to the edge and then thrown down. I scream all the way to the bottom. After a little time in extreme agony I wake up sore in every part of my body.

Another night started friendly, at a picnic. We were having barbeque. Just before we started eating, Grayson squirted me with lighter fluid and threw a match on me. As I went up in flames, everyone laughed.

Day 11

I gave up and went to a doctor who guaranteed that he could stop my dreams. He prescribed six different pills. He wanted to tell me about the side effects, but all I could hear was “No more dreams.”

Day 12

Dreamless sleep is great. I’m back to my old life. I’ve just got a minor tremor in my left arm, probably the side effect doc talked about. I can live with that after what I’ve been through.

Day 13

I’ve got to fill out some forms and am having a little trouble remembering my social security number. No biggie, I’ll just look it up.

Day 14

cant anymore pretend. Stumbel, no reemebre. Say doc med stuf. Nitmare or zomby. Take zomby. Not last much. Wish no burn Grayson house.

Appeared in Jitter Press

Meds

by Doug Hawley

As they did for the last eleven years, Duke and Jane packed up for their two week vacation at their secluded cabin at Frog Lake in the Cascades. As always, Duke told Jane to pack his xydox. And as always, he cautioned her, “Taking my meds is a matter of life and death.” Jane said nothing, despite being sick of the routine.

After they got to the cabin, Duke said “I’m an hour overdue for taking my meds, and I can’t find them.”

“That’s because I didn’t bring them.”

“What?”

“I can’t stand you anymore, and I saw my way out. There is no way that you can get your meds before you die.”

“Did you plan on marrying Jason after I’m gone?”

“That’s right. I’ve got him in the palm of my hands. After you’re gone, I’m moving up to an exciting guy that doesn’t think that watching TV for four hours after coming home from the insurance company, and then going to bed at nine, is a good time. How did you know about Jason?”

“There are a few holes in your plan.”

“Like what, smart guy, soon-to-be-dead guy?”

“First, Jason talked to me about you. He thinks that you are pathetic and crude. He shudders every time you rub up against him. What you thought of as affection was just Jason being polite.”

“Even if you are right, I’ll still be happy to be rid of you. No one can prove that I deliberately forgot your meds.”

“Let’s look at mistake number two. You have totally misunderstood the meaning of ‘life and death.’ It is your life or death. Years before I met you, I killed several people in a tavern brawl. The shrinks said I had ‘extreme anger issues.’ Rather than go to jail, I was placed in an asylum. After a few years there, they found that with xydox, I could be very mild-mannered, or as you put it, deadly boring. With the understanding that I would always take my meds, I was released. Without my meds, under provocation, I’m likely to kill again. You are so self-centered that you never asked me what the meds were for. You just made a faulty assumption.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me; you love me.”

“You bring up your third mistake. I know that you only married me because the rich guy you tried to entrap by getting pregnant was sterile, and the real father was a meth-head loser. I was supposed to be a second choice meal ticket for you and your kid before you miscarried. I admit that I was mesmerized by your hourglass figure and felt lucky that I could land a prize like you. That was before your hourglass turned into a fireplug, and your using sex to manipulate me caused me to look around. I found someone who loves me and wants to marry me as soon as I’m out of your clutches.”

“You’ll never get away with it.”

“What is this, some bad TV show? For the most part, I will get away with it. Jason will be happy to testify that you had hinted I might not be alive long. You will be blamed for denying me my meds. I’ll do a little time at my former institution, followed by being cured again, and in the arms of my curvy young beauty. Now, why aren’t you running?”

Jane didn’t make it to the door.

“Meds” originally appeared in three paperback issues of Down in the Dirt in 2016 (June 2016, Jan. – June 2016, and 2016 Chamber) and also appeared in the 2016 electronic version.

Violators

by Doug Hawley

Tommy first saw the trucks unloading things at the old warehouse when he was riding to high school. “The Old Warehouse” was what everybody called the building at 1100 SE Clay that had been used as a distribution center for furniture ten years ago. Ever since distribution had moved to Seattle, the building had stood empty. Now not only was something moving in, but broken windows were replaced and graffiti was painted over.

At school Tommy asked his friend Joseph (never Joe or Joey) what was happening. Joseph said “I’ve asked everybody around, but nobody seems to know. There are a lot of tech firms moving into the neighborhood, so maybe that’s what it is. Maybe if there are some unskilled jobs, my lazy-ass dad can get some work.” Tommy worked the angles in his head. He was getting low on cash, and it was getting harder to steal anything that was lying around in his neighborhood. It seemed that crime stoppers has wised up everybody for miles around before he and his friends had taken everything easy to grab. There could be something of value in the new ‘Old Warehouse’.

Three days later, there was no more obvious activity at what people called “The Mystery Building”. The next night Tommy went over to the building and knocked on windows and rattled doors without finding any signs of life – no security, no employees, and no alarms. There was a sign that seemed inappropriate - “Trespassers Will Be Violated”. Tommy laughed out loud and said “With no security and no alarm, how is that going to happen?” The place was clearly easy pickings.

A very confident Tommy showed up after dark the next night with a pry bar and a sturdy bag. He was amazed to find the door unlocked. Inside the building had very low intensity lights which seemed just about right for his pillaging. Before he could look for valuables, he heard a very sultry voice say “How about a kiss and a hug, you beautiful boy.” He looked in the direction of the voice and saw a woman built along the lines of Sofia Vergara. “Hell yes” he either said or thought, he wasn’t sure which. Maybe there could be more than kissing and hugging – based on what he saw and heard, he was game. When he got close, her arms extended ten feet towards him, and her tongue fell out of her mouth to the floor. Her appearance morphed into Roseanne Barr. As he backed away, he felt something against his back. He turned around to see what appeared to be cobras dangling from the rafters. Vergara-Barr said, “You’re no fun, forget you.” After she got his attention, he turned around again and the cobras were gone. When he looked for Vergara-Barr, she was gone. He must have imagined them, but he was still unsettled.

After looking around awhile for things to take, he noticed lights were coming up on a twenty-foot by twenty-foot enclosure in the middle of the building. When the enclosure was fully illuminated, he saw something chained up at the back through the enclosure’s window that looked like a monster six-legged dog with a giant head filled with teeth like knives. The ‘dog’ seemed to see him and started to strain at his chain. To Tommy’s horror the beast broke his leash and jumped at the window. The window bulged and cracked, but held. The animal didn’t immediately try to attack again, but circled the enclosure while making strangled barking sounds. From time to time it would look at the window again as if planning another assault.

Tommy started to sweat, but he remembered he came there to see what he could lift. Mostly speaking to himself he said “You must have something really valuable here if you’re working that hard to scare me away. I’ve got news for you – it won’t work.”

As soon as he said that, the beast hit the window again. The window was so close to breaking through that the ‘dog’ was sticking his nose through. Tommy’s stomach was tied in knots, his intestines turned to water and his mouth was hanging open. Before his brain started working again, something with bright red eyes, a green body and big fangs flew past his face screaming as it went. After that he heard an even more horrifying sound. It took him a minute to realize that he was screaming.

Tommy no longer cared about stealing anything, he just wanted out. As he started towards the door, he heard a chittering sound. Worse, he felt something like small appendages probing his ankles and calves. He could barely make out huge spider-like animals all over the floor and on the walls. He forgot an orderly retreat and ran out the door as fast as he could, whining and swearing all the way. He had nightmares about monsters of various sorts for the next month. When he was able to think about what happened, he wondered if the “Mystery House” was some sort of advanced genetic laboratory, maybe run by some general. He didn’t know much about biology beyond his raging hormones, but he half believed what he had seen in horror and science fiction movies and what he had seen looked a lot like those movies. In fact, the non-human monsters in “The Mist” resembled what he had seen that night. Vergara-Barr looked like the before and after women that needed to feast on youth to become young and beautiful that he had seen in old movies on the “Creature Show” on late-night TV. Tommy’s mother was surprised that after his encounter, he always left the room when a science fiction or horror movie came on TV. They used to be his favorites.

* * *

The next day, three people in business suits reviewed the footage.

“I think we’ve got a hit,” Jim said. “We can double admission over other venues. Of course, if they will know it’s a Halloween House of Horrors, they’ll be better prepared than the guys we see on film. Jane, how do the financials look?”

“Well, our show will be a little more expensive than most, but since we’re franchising, we get a break from mass production and amortizing capital expenditures over a wider base,” Jane said. “We’ve got patents on many of the animatronics, so we can’t be copied without their paying us royalties. What about marketing, Henry?”

“We’re golden,” Henry said. “We’ve got all the outtakes from filming over the last few days. Legal says we don’t have any problems with our ‘testers’ because they don’t want to admit to trespassing, anyway. To be safe, we’ll blur their faces. The guy last night was great. You can see that the crotch of his pants is wet. He pissed himself. Anything else we need to cover, Jim?”

“Before we finish getting ready to open on October 1st, I’ve got one thing that might amuse you,” Jim said, smiling. “Both ‘Sofia’s’ & ‘Roseanne’s voices are from an eighty-year-old woman that weighs 250.”

Fly

Doug Hawley

Locals from Igaluit on Baffin Island north of mainland Canada found what appeared to be odd pebbles which were exposed when the recent heat wave melted a layer of snow. As the sun warmed the “pebbles”, their shells broke and flying insects flew out. The first poor unfortunates who examined the insects were stung and died from the multiple venomous stings. The terrified survivors barricaded themselves in their houses.

The biologists and exterminators from the mainland were quickly overwhelmed. Nothing in the exterminators’ toolkit had any effect on the insects, and the mainlanders that didn’t die were quickly run off.

Out of any other options, the remaining human population of Baffin was evacuated to mainland Canada. With only 6,532 survivors from the original 11,000 human inhabitants, the resettlement was not too difficult.

During and after the resettlement, flyovers revealed the bones of polar bears, foxes, rabbits, caribou and wolves picked clean. Because Baffin didn’t amount to much, the invasion of the insects was just viewed as a small problem of global warming. It was assumed that the insects, now called Death Flies, would die out with nothing left to eat, or that they would form cysts again and become inactive.

Professor Emil Yancy from the University of Laval in Montreal assured the public that the flies were adapted to cold temperatures and would not venture south. A month later, the flies had invaded Hall Beach in northern Nunavut on the Canadian mainland. Yancy and his colleagues backtracked quickly, suggesting that the flies were reproducing extremely fast and mutating like a virus, adapting to warmer weather. They were no longer consulted.

Siberia then reported its first Death Flies. The governments of the world became serious and seriously scared about the threat of human extermination. Homes could be sealed, but no one could leave, and a truly safe sealing kept out fresh air and ended in the occupants’ asphyxiation.

The capriciousness of the miles-wide cloud of death flies made the invasion even more frightening. The horde skipped Edmonton, but hit Calgary in Alberta.

All radio and television was preempted by the film of the plague taken by helicopters. The world was told that the only poisons strong enough to kill the flies would kill even more people than the flies would.

On October 31, a few days after Calgary was deserted, the retired couple Duke and Sally, in Lake Oswego, Oregon, discussed the situation. Sally said “We gotta get out of here, go as far south as we can, our lives are at stake. Just leave everything and save our lives.”

Duke, who like a former president was always certain, but frequently wrong, said “There is nothing to worry about. They aren’t in the US and they will never get here. I’ve got that from an unimpeachable source. The best thing that we can do is turn off the TV. All it does is depress us and none of our shows are on.”

Partly because she had deferred to Duke through many years of marriage and partly because he was so convinced, Sally decided to accept his word that they would be safe.

At 6pm Duke looked out the window and saw his neighbor, who was his best friend and tennis partner, running around his yard. Duke said “I see Jim is wearing a black Ninja outfit for Halloween and practicing some martial arts routine…ooooh shoot!” At that point Jim collapsed on the ground, twitched and died. Duke saw that the sky was black and heard the buzzing roar grow louder.

Tears rolled down Duke’s face and he said “How could I ever have listened to that crackpot evangelist Samuel Sanctum. He said ‘The US is special. God would never allow the plague in our holy land’. I’ve been such a fool for so many years. I’m so sorry. Get the gun.”

“The gun won’t stop the flies.”

“The gun isn’t for the flies, it’s for us.”

Sally thought “Bloody heck, I’m going to die soon, but at least I lived to hear Duke admit he’s wrong.”

[Acknowledgment: “Fly” originally appeared in Commuter Lit in November 2017.]

A Life Examined - Found in a Recorder of the Deceased

By Doug Hawley

Well, that felt like the big one. At least the first jolt. Okay, I had been warned. The docs said I should stop with the alky and pills, but I thought I knew better. Isn’t modern medicine supposed to fix all of our mistakes? Especially at 48? I guess not. I had never been introspective. This may be my last shot at explaining myself to anyone who cares. What could I have left, maybe an hour or so?

I suppose it would be fair to say that I wanted to get ahead the easy way. In grade school I wanted to get attention and the easiest way was to be the class clown. As long as I picked my spots right and stayed in bounds, the teachers even liked it. I didn’t get good grades, but I won all the class offices.

In high school the stakes were much higher. The cool guys were bad boys. I smoked plenty of grass and lied my ass off about using the harder stuff. I partied hardy with all of the popular kids, but was discrete enough to not offend the parents. Okay, I was in school to have a good time. I had no plans and no thoughts. The idea was to get loaded and get the best babes. And I did just that. One of my best moves was getting a job for an insurance agency getting leads for the agents to follow up. I learned all that I needed in that job. High school taught me jack. People didn’t succeed by being smart; they succeeded by being great with people. More cynically, you got ahead by being manipulative. Can we say sociopath? I think so. Let the geeks in the back office understand the premium rate structure. Salesmen know the latest joke, the best gossip, and what the trends are. I got so I could say “Impact the bottom line at this point in time” without blowing chunks if that’s what it took to sell the biz droid.

Of course, I was too young to be an agent, and the pay sucked, but it was enough to get me a car, which is what you need in high school. I may or may not be the daddy of a couple of bastards out there. A girlfriend, Betty Boobs if I recall correctly, left town for a year ostensibly to visit with her aunt in Utah. She never said anything to me, but then I don’t think that I projected a domestic image. I appreciate her discretion. I just can’t imagine daddyhood. Did I mention that I might be a bit self-centered? There was also a one-night stand with the girl from Century High School across town. I just have a feeling that it took, I don’t know why, I never saw her again. I know that Jane got an abortion. It was easy, and I might not have even been the father. She got around and her family was rich enough to take care of it.

Marsha is the one I never understood. She just hung around. Didn’t appeal to me at all. I mostly told her to go away. Women, I can’t understand them at all. Why do they think that a good-looking guy like me is any better than some honest, ugly dude? I never wanted to get in the sack with Sister Teresa.

The point is that high school was great for me. I got C’s, didn’t study much and made out like a bandit.

I wanted to become an insurance agent immediately after I graduated, but they made me go to Carman Community College for a couple of years while I worked part time. Fortunately, CCC was just high school revisited. I could handle that. Real college would have been way too much work. As a beginner, I got the lower class leads. I still did pretty well. It’s amazing what you can achieve as long as you have limited regard for truth, beauty and the American way. In the cosmic sense the sucker clients got what they deserved. If they believed me and ignored all the clearly worded warning and fine print, it’s got to be their own fault.

Since I’d learned about condoms, at least I didn’t have any more kids. You’re not likely to buy insurance from the guy your wife is pregnant by.

After a couple of years, I’m doing pretty good. Got a suit for every day of the week, vacation in the Bahamas. I found a company that pays 150% first year commission. Hey, all I got to do is pay the first year premium for the “client” and make an easy 50%. Doesn’t make any difference what happens after the first year. Sure, after a few years Idiot Life (actually Ideal Life, but I like my name better), figured it out so I had to move on, but by that time I had “sold” $5,000,000 in premium and cleared $2,500,000. Idiot Life could have tried to get some of their money back, but then they would have looked like, what can I say, idiots. A scandal like that would have cost the honchos their jobs, which were more important to them than their company’s losses.

When I changed insurance companies, I got the high rollers based on my previous “success” (my new employer only cared about how much premium I sold, not that the business was crappy). This required that I go to the best restaurants, drink a lot and stay up all night. Rich people are funny that way. In order to keep up, I started taking uppers and downers. It seemed smarter than crack or injected drugs and it worked for Elvis, at least for awhile. My ability to party all night, catch a little sleep and be sharp the next day was widely admired. I’m the company’s best agent on the coast. Of course, I had to make some sacrifices. Never got married, never had a family, never read the great works of Western Civilization. The women I go out with are great-looking and as shallow as I can find. They are just out looking for a good time, maybe a few thrills.

I’ve never done a thing to help man or mankind. I’ve only looked out for myself. God, I wouldn’t change a thing.

“A Life Examined” originally appeared in Fiction on the Web, on May 15, 2015.

Bhopal 2

By Doug Hawley

“Hey Jane, you are sure to get a Pulitzer and lots of awards for the Louisville Times. Your story on the deadliest industrial disaster in America may be bigger than India’s Bhopal poison gas disaster.”

“Yeah, but at the price of thousands dead in Kentucky and Indiana, Duke? We are just lucky that we live a few miles out of range of the leak. You didn’t see the many horribly contorted dead foaming and the mouth and bleeding from their noses as I did. Anyway, we just started, don’t think about awards now.”

“Sorry, but damn, it is so big that I really can’t get perspective. Anyway, how did the interview with Harrison go?”

Jane frowned “I’ve got a feeling that there is something wrong about the boss at Kentucky Chem. Read the transcript of my interview out loud, Duke.”

Jane Price: “Mr. Harrison, this must be the absolute worst thing that you can imagine, your family dead and your company the cause of the horrible disaster.”

Sam Harrison: “Ms. Price, you’re right about the loss of my family. I grieve for them and all of those that died or were injured in the Kentuckiana territory. I may seem brutal to mention it at this time, but I’m not convinced Kentucky Chem is at fault. There are two other entities that may have greater blame than us – the subcontractor for the containment unit, and the US government.”

Jane Price: “How so?”

Sam Harrison: “Isn’t it obvious that the containment unit failed? I think that Zimco, the subcontractor, is to blame or at least shares much of the blame.”

Jane Price: “Any chance of sabotage?”

Sam Harrison: “I can see why you might think that somebody evil and crazy, or one of our foreign enemies might have done it, but our security cameras suggest otherwise.”

Jane Price: “You mentioned the government.”

Sam Harrison: “Our business is harmless agricultural chemicals, not poison gas, and I can’t say anymore about it. We are subject to non-disclosure agreements.”

Jane Price: “What is your next move?”

Sam Harrison: “For the company, it will be to do what we can to help our community heal. I’m afraid that the courts will determine what, if any, legal responsibility we have. For me personally, I think that I’ll retire and try to live with the pain.”

“What’s your take, Duke?”

“He acts like a guy trying to sound like he wants to do the right thing while’ protecting his company. He seems to be implying that the Feds screwed up a poison gas project. Other than the government angle, I’m not seeing anything unexpected, Jane.”

“Here’s what you don’t get out of the transcript. If I had not been doing interviews for a lot of years, I would not have seen it. Harrison was acting. He had prepared his answers in advance, knowing what I would be asking. When he didn’t think that I was watching, he looked at me like someone who didn’t care that his family had just died.”

“You mean like I look at you all the time, Jane?”

“Shut up and get serious. Don’t try my patience, Duke”

“Sorry, levity uncalled for. Have I ever told you that you do really good stern?”

“Will you let me finish, Duke? By the end of the interview, I felt like I was watching a monster. I hope that I didn’t give my suspicions away.”

“So you have a lot of feelings, which for an extra five dollars would buy you a cup of coffee in a cheap San Francisco joint. But don’t worry about him catching on; Jane Price’s poker face is famous.”

“One more thing. He was off fishing miles from the Louisville epicenter during the disaster, but his family was at home just within the diameter of disaster. Coincidence?”

“If you didn’t get anything else, I like the sound of ‘Diameter of Disaster’.”

“Need I repeat, ‘get serious, Duke’”

“OK, boss. What do you want me to do, Jane?”

“You’re stronger on research. You should do a thorough check on Harrison’s background. I’d be amazed if you didn’t find literal skeletons. Meanwhile, I’ll see if the military backs him up. And it’s ‘colleague’, not boss.”

Jane reported: “Let me tell what I got first, or I should say didn’t get. All of my military contacts said something like ‘no comment’ about poison gas production or boilerplate like ‘The U.S. honors all of our treaty agreements relative to that subject’. I interpret that as validating Harrison’s implication that Kentucky Chem was producing poison gas for the military.”

“What did you get on Harrison’s background, Duke?”

Duke reported: “There are so many things that I suspect he did without being able to prove any of them.”

“When he was in high school, a girl disappeared. Police suspect that she was murdered, but no body was ever found. One little detail – she had made fun of Sam Harrison’s acne when he asked her for a date. No one thought anything as trivial as that would have been a reason for murder.”

“His first wife died from food poisoning. No foul play was suspected. His ‘grief’ led him to build a park and name it in her honor. He then went on an extended leave from his job and returned to work with the wife that died in the disaster. With a little digging, I found out that wife two was pregnant when wife one died.”

“His former business partner was discovered with three prostitutes in his room when police went to arrest him for embezzlement from Kentucky Chem. He always claimed that he had been set up on the embezzlement charge, something easy for Harrison, and that the hookers had just barged into his room before the police showed.”

“Just last year, Harrison put out feelers about becoming the Democratic candidate for governor, but couldn’t get any support.”

“He quietly increased insurance on Kentucky Chem and began to sell his company shares over the last three years.”

“The friends and family of Mrs. Harrison indicated that Harrison was a control freak at home who scared their boy. She had not mentioned divorce, but the family thought she would have filed for one soon.”

“Putting everything together, I’d say that he had thoroughly plotted revenge against his wife and all of the Louisville area with a convenient poisonous gas leak.

Jane considered Duke’s report before responding “You are painting a guy who ruins or kills anyone who irritates or offends him in any way – a sociopath that makes Ted Bundy look like a choir boy.”

“Yeah, but no proof of anything. With what I found in just a few days makes me think that the ‘Diameter Of Disaster’ is just the latest and worst of his many crimes. With his combination of perverted brilliance and money, what can we do? I don’t think that we or the police can do anything. What do we do now, Jane?”

“OK, we check and double check all of our facts. Cooperate with the police on this. On the off chance Harrison makes a mistake; show him the story before we run it.”

“We were right, Harrison laughed at us and the police told us we have nothing, but I’m still glad that we ran the article. I just got a letter from a concerned, but anonymous citizen. Want to hear it, Duke?”

“Shoot.”

“I believe the implications of your article about Harrison. Someone had to act, so I did. He’s gone on his last fishing trip. You can find him floating, or maybe on the bottom of the lake. I don’t know how long bodies float. This is for all of his past and future victims.”

Jane said “I think that this is justice. How about you?”

“I Agree. It calls for drinks and dinner. My treat.”

Serial

Doug Hawley

The man in the dark knee-length trench coat had travelled miles from his home on that moonlit night. Along the way he smiled. “The world is better off without those sluts. They are all sluts. I will make them pay. They are all like the one in high school who shamed me because I didn’t give her what she wanted. She was the pervert, not me. And why did she think she was so hot? She was a pig and thought that she was so smart. So smart she died of an accidental broken neck. The ‘good girls’ wouldn’t even give me the time of day. If a guy dies along with the girl, it’s his fault for hanging out with one of the sluts.” There was no one to listen to his soliloquy which was how he liked it.

After these happy moments of reflection, he started to whistle “You Are My Sunshine”. After whistling it all the way through, he chuckled at his inappropriate choice of songs. He then sang “Jezebel”, something fitting for the occasion.

He knew his way well from experience. A mile down the road he spotted his target. His luck was good as always, there was a couple in a new sedan, her with her hand in his lap, kissing him on the face. Perfect. I’ll get two tonight.

He pulled open the door and as she pulled away from the man, he saw the blade in the man’s chest. She moved so fast that he barely saw her pull out the blade and stick into his gut. Next, he was on the road, bleeding out. She smiled down at him “Silly man, did you think that you were the only serial killer in town?

“It looks like you have a little time to kill. Get it? Time to kill? Except you are the one being killed this time. I’m really glad to meet you. From what I hear, you are the big-time lady killer in these parts. I suppose that you are doing this because you can’t get it up, so you take it out on your victims. It’s a sad old story. I think that you are called incels now. I liked the old days when we called you dickless wonders, but I must keep up with the times.”

The man on the ground mumbled something incoherent.

“Did you say something?”

He responded in a barely audible voice “Doctor.”

She asked the fallen man “What, are you a doctor?”

He whispered “Get me to a doctor.”

“So bleeding man is also a comedian? You make a great trophy. Why don’t you just relax? Your short miserable life will be over soon.

“You are probably wondering about me and how you screwed up so badly. The second part is easy. You are stupid. Sure, you got away with a few kills, but your stats are kind of puny. I’m guessing no more than five. Me? More like seventy-three as best I can tell.

“If you aren’t dead yet, you probably want to hear my life story. I think that I can hear you moaning, so I’ll take that as a yes.”

“It started when I was left alone with my uncle when I was twelve. No, that’s not it, but people expect that I’ve been raped or abused. I’ll tell you the real story. I rebelled against my strict parents. Be home by eight, say your prayers, go to church. Not for me.

“When I was a freshman in high school, I got a crush on the school bus driver. To get his attention, I’d innocently touch him on the way off the bus. He got the idea quickly and shortly thereafter I moved out of my place to his. I think that my parents were glad that I was gone. After a week or so of straight sex, he introduced me to kink. Things got wilder until he started erotic asphyxiation. You probably don’t know what that is. Some guys get off by being hanged and then cut down at the last moment. Ah, but then he made a mistake. When I spilled some coffee, he called me a stupid bitch. The next time he roped himself up something tripped in me and I let him die. I found out that I got off on his death.

“After that I started my nationwide tour. I move from town to town. Picking up guys in bars and then moving on is easy. There is always some fool ready to let me take him for a ride. If I like a guy, he gets a treat. If I don’t, he gets a trick and I get a treat. Got to say, you are my favorite all-time score. You are more deserving than anyone else I’ve run across.

“You probably think that I’m a great public speaker. I’ve got this speech down through repetition.”

The sound of the man’s breathing slowed to a stop.

“You aren’t listening anymore are you?

“Oh well, off to my next hunt. I’m thinking Cincinnati. I hear the police there are incompetent and the weather is great this time of year.”

Mortuary

by Doug Hawley

Coroners Neil and Judy perform an autopsy on a recent death.

Neil: It looks like another victim of Euphoria.

Judy: Yeah, the husband said she had eyes shut, arched back, and had apparently just died when he found her. Plus, she had orgasm face and residual vaginal engorgement. All symptoms of Euphoria overuse. Suppose the husband couldn’t get her off? He seemed clueless about what had happened or didn’t want to admit what he suspected. Looks like another case of better living through chemistry gone wrong. Can too much pleasure kill?

Neil: You are probably right about the husband. That’s the eighth death from Euphoria. A lot of people can’t get off solo or otherwise, without the help from pills.

Judy: Are there any leads on the manufacturer? This has been going on for months now.

Neil: The cops say they have some ideas, but they won’t divulge anything publicly. You’d think that they would know more since this started last year. We only hear about the deaths. I suspect that people are taking too much Euphoria. The ones that die are probably the same ones that think that if one donut or one beer is good, ten are better. People have no damn sense.

A plus for the cops is that they did get some lower-level distributor, but that guy didn’t know the next level up. As we know, the marketing is some underground pyramid scheme.

Judy: I’ve got a little secret. I tried it solo, and it shook my world and that was with a half-dose. It was a whole-body orgasm that lasted for hours. I tried it on a Saturday morning and had aftershocks until Sunday morning. It was a good thing that I didn’t need to leave the house until Monday.

Neil: I know what you mean. Sally and I use it sparingly. We use half a pill each and get multiple orgasms for hours. Can you imagine somebody using Euphoria while out in public?

Judy: Should we shut down our little sideline? We’ve already made plenty of money from Euphoria production. The penalty for what we are doing is life in prison, and we already got and spent plenty of money.

Neil: Nah, let’s just cut back on the dosage and add some caveats. We’re already guilty of serious crimes, and I don’t want to lose that cash flow and you shouldn’t, either. You don’t want to have your Tesla repossessed and give up your expensive dinners where you tip big to impress your friends.

I’ve got my Mercedes payments to keep up and high-end “gentlemen’s” clubs aren’t cheap. I don’t want to even think about living on a coroner’s salary.

If you don’t want to think of yourself, how about showing concern for our many distributors and their families? Don’t you have any empathy or concern for the economy?

Hold it, here’s another thought. We could try to go legitimate. It would require covering our tracks and changing the formula and the name. Then it would take us a while to get some big drug company to tweak it more for safety and do the clinical trials. The legitimate market for a revised Euphoria could be in the billions of dollars. I can see the TV commercial now—first the satisfied customers, then the list of all of the fifty side effects like they do on those ubiquitous TV commercials.

Judy: Let’s go with the second plan. I’ve still got enough money saved for my expenses short-term, so I can put off the riches for a little while. You made me think of something else: Full strength-Euphoria for those states that allow assisted suicide. There would be happy endings for terminal patients who would be coming and going.

Doug Hawley is a former mathematician turned actuary (mathemortician) who writes, snowshoes, volunteers and hikes. He was a volunteer wheelchair jockey (pusher, role model, unpaid escort) at a hospital, greeter at the Marine Mammal Center, “normal” in a balance study at OHSU, and docent at China Camp in California, and now is a volunteer bookseller in support of his local library, and a killer of invasive species at his local park. He lives with editor and musician Sharon. He currently resides in Lake Oswego, OR and has lived in Manhattan (KS that is), Atlanta, Louisville, Denver, LA, and marvy Marin CA.

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