Murphy's Law.

Louis Shalako




It was a day like any other day.

Somewhere in the cosmos, a moon crashed into an ocean.

Three new stars were born, and two old ones flickered out.

A motorcycle hit a tree. A man jumped off of a bridge.

A tanker truck blew up. A baby robin jumped out of the nest.

A lady stepped in front of a bus. Somewhere, twins were born.

The fire trucks were lined up outside of the tenement. A ladder was extended, but it didn’t reach. A young father threw his baby, and then he jumped.

A tree fell in the forest, and it landed on a beaver.

Channel 49 was experiencing technical difficulties.

A clutch of reptilian eggs was laid in the cold, soft mud of autumn.

A bus crashed, a hotel burned, and the young lovers were oblivious.

A piano fell out of a nineteenth story window, and a man quit drinking.

A woman resolved to change, a youth repented, and mothers mourned.

The artist laughed, and no one cared.

I ran out of milk, and so I had to go out.

I stepped out onto the sidewalk, and that’s when everything went black.

***

I was watching a man in coveralls with a tool belt at his waist.

“Oops! Sorry.” He saw me then. “That’s not quite what I was looking for.”

“What?”

“I’ll send you right back, if you promise not to tell.”

“Wait!”

He stood there expectantly.

We stood on a thin white line. We were hanging in a great, vast void of pitch blackness. It was like a plank, painted white, and it wavered off into forever, a pale, attenuated tendril of something-else, in nowhere-space. The end of it floated around aimlessly, drifting about in little curlicues, as if questioning its own existence.

You could say it took a moment to sink in.

The words of the Beatles went through my head.

“…he’s a real nowhere man…”

All around were the white lines, going off into every which direction. They were all connected by cross-lines at regular intervals, and he had a wrench and he was doing something.

One of the adjacent lines dropped away, and the end hung there, limp.

“What are you doing?” I was absolutely astonished. “Who are you?”

“I’m Murphy. I do maintenance.” He was unfazed. “Are you ready to go yet?”

“No! What is this place?” I asked again. “Where in the hell is this?”

“You mean you don’t know?” He asked the question without any real curiousity.

He was a just a happy little worker.

He didn’t care either way.

“Why did you just disconnect…that thing?”

“I don’t know.” He scratched his belly. “I just do whatever I feel like. Whatever feels right.”

“But why?”

“It’s my job.”

This was the most amazing thing. I’d never heard of anything like this before.

“What’s all this…about?”

“Murphy’s Law.”

“What! Murphy’s Law?”

“Sooner or later, if something can go wrong, it probably will.”

“But why?”

“Well, someone’s got to do it.” Perhaps for the first time he sensed my disapproval.

“But…but…that’s just crazy! Where is this place, really?”

“The only constant in the universe is change.” Then, he reached out and grabbed the end of my line, or whatever. “If it wasn’t for Murphy’s Law, the whole cosmos would grind to a halt. That’s what makes everything go around!”

He did something funny with his tools and he sent me right back here.

And now, of course, I don’t know what the hell to think.

I don’t dare tell anyone, or they’ll send me to the loonie bin for sure.

I don’t know if I’m going crazy or what.

END

Louis has books and stories available from Google Play.

Thank you for reading.

The Secret Life of the Slug.

(Photo: Spleines at en.Wikipedia.com Wiki Commons 3.0)







The Slug locked his apartment door behind him and headed straight for the refrigerator. It had been a long day. He could hear his roommate in the bathroom, as the moist heat of the little flat hit him like a wave.


Cracking open a tall, cold Carlsberg, he took a long pull at it and gratefully contemplated the fact that tomorrow was his day off. His life was dedicated to untruth, injustice, and lobbying for the Canadian military-industrial complex, but sometimes a slug got tired. Defending the rich corporations from the law, protecting the bloated and morally degenerate bourgeoisie from the consequences of their own ignorance, was a tough job, but one he loved. Still, everyone needs a day off once in awhile.

Tomorrow, he would take little Jimmy to the zoo, buy a bag of peanuts and eat them in front of the elephant enclosure. The elephants were not going to get a single peanut, he resolved. God damn them all to hell! But if they didn’t like it, they could break out, take the zookeepers hostage, hijack a river barge and sail home to Africa if they didn’t like it. He never worried about little Jimmy, the progeny of a previous opposite-sex-same-species-marriage being seized, abducted, and adopted by some insane old lady. The fact is, little Jimmy, dumped on him by an ungrateful spouse, was a royal pain in the ass. He was always asking for money, got sick about once a month, and couldn’t seem to do his homework in quadratic equations, without The Slug’s help.

The Slug hated mopping up fresh or even slightly-dried kid puke, and wasn’t much good at math, although integers and vector theory were okay. Hopefully Jimmy was having a long walk home from school in the rain. Lately he seemed to be taking his time coming home. This behavior should be positively reinforced in some way. Perhaps a nice plate of liver, and some broccoli; maybe even some eggplant for the boy. That would get the message across.

Tapping on the bathroom door, he received no response, so he put the beer down on the end table in the living room, and picked up the remote control device for the big screen television. His rubbery, prehensile lips were agile in their quest to find the worst show on TV. You could say The Slug was a bit of a self-abuser, a real intellectual masochist. They say TV rots the brain. So far, no joy, but he kept trying, and kept hoping.

Clicking on the power button, he was rewarded with the usual Canadian journalist, spewing out the official party line, which was about the farthest thing from truth you could get.

Apparently the government was doing a good job of bailing out extremely-profitable Canadian banks, and another poor motherfucker on disability had starved to death, being unable to pay rent and eat on the same monthly cheque. The newscaster kept that insane grin, jolly and fatuous, for people loved bad news.

His fluffy-headed blonde fellow newscaster was smiling her perfect smile while reporting on an earthquake in Istanbul, where apparently two hundred and twenty-five thousand people had just been killed by falling debris. He hoped the professional charity workers would come to his door and ask for a donation. He would tell them off! Yes, he was quite looking forward to it.

“Same shit, different day,” he murmured in contentment and with a sense of social injustice flooding through his tired body. His hero, Steve Wilkos, was not on at this hour. No Maury Povich. No CTV Newsnet; i.e. no dogs on Harleys, no dogs on skates or dogs on surfboards. No dogs on skis. No dogs in parachutes or dogs flying fighter jets, or running the quarter mile in a blown, nitro-burning funny car. It was disappointing, and he was not a philosopher. He hated the world at that moment, a love-hate-love-hate-hate-hate relationship.

What would Darwin have done differently? If they can’t take a joke then fuck them, and in his opinion life was a joke indeed. It could even be hilariously funny—to an objective observer, one not involved in the outcome.

Just then a loud knocking came at the door.

The Slug undulated over to the door, expanding and retracting his body length in his hazy, lazy, crazy form of locomotion, and looked out the peephole. His landlord, Miss Kitty Johansen, was to be seen out in the hallway, standing there with a cross look on her face.

He stared at her in a kind of tired amusement. Every evening, the same old routine, both grating to the nerves, and yet also kind of reassuring. For a moment, he considered shifting into human form, going out there with a baseball bat, and smashing her head in. But he was just too much of a dead-beat. And who would he torment tomorrow evening?

“Mister Wilson! Mister Wilson,” she bellowed at the closed door.

“There’s no one here but us darkies,” he bellowed right back.

He knew it was wrong, somehow, but he did it anyway. One of the many benefits of narcissism.

“How many times have I asked you to mop up the hallway after you come in?” she shrieked.

He tried not to stifle a giggle, and enough leaked out for her to hear.

“You’re not fooling me, you lousy fuck, you son of a bitch,” she yelled, then headed down the hallway out of his sight, presumably to get the mop.

She was always complaining about his slime trail. But what could he do? No one could help who they really were, in the final analysis. If she didn’t like it, she shouldn’t have rented the place to him and The Centipede. He giggled again at the sight of her, swiping the mop angrily back and forth, cussing him out pretty good, too, by the sound of her muttered threats and imprecations.

It was a good question. He thought about it for a while, staring out the little peephole with one of his stalked, simple eyes. The Slug had no answer for her. He had lived here for two years, three months, nine days and a few hours in total. Last year had been a leap year. Some months had thirty days, some had thirty one. February had twenty-eight. Thoughtlessly, he moved away from the door, wondering when he would get a crack at the bathroom. A rising sense of impatience crept over him. His sidekick was quickly outliving his uselessness. It would be wise not to misunderestimate The Centipede.

Besides, The Earwig has been making eyes at me lately, he thought inconsequentially, and I’ve had the hots for it for years…then his thoughts characteristically drifted onwards.

The Slug wasn’t big on mathematics, in fact education of any type just tired him, and caused him to resent what the world was becoming. Why couldn’t they just freeze time at about 1958 and have done with it? He would have been a fucking genius, by 1958 standards. If it was good enough for the Prime Minister, it was good enough for anybody.

“I don’t fucking know,” he bellowed towards the thick wooden panels of the door, with its jambs cracked and nailed back together after being kicked in one too many times on drug raids. How often had his little sister, The Bitch, kicked that door in looking for a fix while he was away on a job?

Too many times to count, he reckoned lazily. Some days it just didn’t pay to be a bigoted, verbally abusive, child-neglecting drug addict, he thought with some small resentment. That was the first time in a long time he had had that thought, so perhaps things weren’t so bad after all. Speaking of drugs, it was high time he had his injection.

That crawling sensation in the neck and shoulders, or what passed for neck and shoulders in one built like a segmented barrel, told him that the last one, which he had taken a half hour ago in a bus station, with little old ladies, nuns, and children under five years old watching, was wearing off. He suddenly realized with apathy that he had left his pants, or pant, there at the bus station.

He also realized that he was showing some patience. That simply wouldn’t do.

The Slug slithered down the tiled portion of the spacious, airy, one-room bachelor apartment, and knocked in no uncertain terms on the bathroom door.

“What the hell is taking so long?” he shouted with no regard to the blind man who lived in the next pad. “I got to take a shit, you lousy fuck.”

“I’m sorry,” he heard the thin, high, lisping voice of his life-partner. “I’m shaving my legs, and I’m only halfway down the left side.”

“You fucking faggot, get the fuck out of there, or I’ll shit on your side of the bed,” howled The Slug, in false bitterness and resentment.

The truth is, he really didn’t have to go, but lately he had become increasingly abusive to his same-sex-but-different-species sexual partner. The Slug was a ‘top,’ and The Centipede was a ‘bottom,’ and that was a choice that had been made long ago. The Slug pounded back the remains of his beer, and headed for the refrigerator to get another one. All in all, life was tolerable, and he wouldn’t change a God-damned thing if he didn’t have to.

Later, if he felt ambitious, he could swap five-star reviews with some folks who couldn’t write their way out of a wet paper bag.

That always made him feel better.

(Jesus Christ, Louis, some day maybe you could tell us how you really feel. -ed.)

My New Girl.

Man with no future seeks woman with no prior history. -singles ad.


There’s this Weather Network promo. It’s a shot of people walking down a street. One girl caught my eye. She’s a tall girl, with long straight hair, kept neat with a band at the back.

She’s wearing a long dark coat. She has glasses.

Whenever I see that commercial, I think, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a girlfriend?”

Really, it’s been a long time; and they are nice, and everything. Girlfriends are fun, right? So now I want a girlfriend. And strange as it may seem, I even want one with glasses. That way there’s a better chance for me. I am kind of an old gomer these days. Secondly, when she doesn’t have her glasses on, I’ll be better looking.

The only weight restrictions I would suggest would be to say, “At that weight, you’d better be pretty tall.”

When I take my glasses off, she’ll be better looking too. Right?

I wouldn’t mind having a joint bank account, if it means I can keep my own place.

My old man says, “There is no such thing as boyfriend-girlfriend these days, you have to shack up. Yeah, and them shacks cost five hundred grand.”

“I’ve got that all figured out,” I told him. “As soon as I tell her my crazy old man will be living in the back bedroom, I’m sure she’ll see it our way. Yeah, when I tell her you sat on Santa’s lap and asked for a life-size Cabbage-Patch Doll with Greek features, I guess that will be it for us.”

I’m looking for a woman who will love me and then leave me the heck alone. I just have to find a really hot-looking chick, one who has her own money, one who is stuck looking after her elderly mom or dad; because she’s not going to want two more mouths to feed, right? You don’t have to be forty or fifty years old to apply, younger prospects may apply as well. You just have to be a little bit desperate.

I hate cooking myself, but I had to learn. I plead self-defense. I learned to cook for my own safety, all right? I growl like a tiger when I cook. I just decided to start a little earlier. That makes things a lot easier. I have time to wake up and smell the coffee burning. The other day I came in the back door, and I smelled toast, burnt toast. For a minute there, I thought my old man was having a stroke, but then I saw he was just making a tomato sandwich. It was a pretty close call, though.

I think I’m going to write, ‘girlfriend’ into my retirement plan.

If I start saving now, I might be able to get myself a top-of-the-line Sony. We can cruise around in my hydrogen fuel-cell powered convertible. I might even get a hair transplant.

I’m not kidding. They got them now, these little robot girls, okay, they do still kind of walk funny and stuff like that. I imagine they’ll be kind of expensive at first, like the first video-tape decks. As time goes on the makers will upgrade them, and then they will quickly become obsolete. Then you’re stuck with one of the older models. It leaks fluids, takes a while to warm up in the morning and at some point the repairs get out of hand. There’s still a year and half left to go on the lease, and you’re already over on your mileage. All new technologies are like that. They quickly make themselves indispensible. And you can’t beat that new-car smell the first time you take her out for a spin.

If you’re looking for companionship, get a dog, right? But you have to feed a dog, a dog can get sick. A dog needs to be walked. You can’t switch a dog off and stuff it into the back of a closet. Women will want robots too, take my word for it. A lot of married men would love to buy the wife a robot: “Now let the God-damned machine help you paint the freakin’ dining room, Honey.”

I’ll bet there are a lot of other people whose primitive emotional needs could be quite adequately met by a robot. It’s no more infantile than an imaginary friend, a virtual avatar, or any kind of role-playing in online game-spaces. You could probably even program it to do a little housework once in a while. I mean seriously, it’s a robot. There’s no reason for feminists to be outraged, right?

Speaking from a purely technical point of view, a robot has no actual gender.

It’s true equality, state of the art, top of the line, cutting edge, right out of the box. What could be better than that? The thing might even be able to cook. What the machine really needs to have is a good onboard coffee-making system. (I like double cream in mine.)

Hey, I just thought of something, and this is truly brilliant, so you know it’s my idea: you could make the robots run on hydrogen fuel-cells. They’re, ‘green,’ and everything. And if it falls off the back when you’re cruising on your Electro-Harley, no one gets hurt. It’s just a freakin’ robot, right? If that happens, better for it to happen under warranty.

Just tell them she walked into a door.

Just put your arm around her, and tell them, “My new girl, she’s real clumsy. Right, Honey?”

Then squeeze her real hard, and give her a soft, slow, gentle, symbolic little punch in the cheek with your closed fist.

You have to admire the Japanese, though. I think it has something to do with the teachings of Kung-Fu-Tzu, or Confucius.

“If you see a need, fulfill it, and the world will beat a path to your door.”

Now that guy knew what he was talking about.

The Shopping Planet.

(Photo by Thomas Phillipi.)

It is a hundred years in the future. Whale-Mart has grown so big that now it rules the planet, in a benevolent, halcyon world of production and consumption. Wars are scheduled on a seasonal basis, with the clockwork precision of a clearance or white sale. That old stock simply must be liquidated. With accelerating climate change, and the long-term effects of high levels of toxic constituents in a fragile ecosystem, Whale-Mart is the only international corpus with the power to effect change. But, can they do it at a profit? And is it their job? Do they even have the right to impose moral choices on the ignorant masses of humanity? 

Besides, Whale-Mart is a big account to the ad boys. They have the power to survive the end of the world, and management has taken steps to ensure the succession. What good is it if no one survives to buy the merchandise? In a world of automation, robots buying products and services from other robots may be the solution to the company’s woes. Whale-Mart doesn’t even need human beings to remain a profitable, forward-looking company, poised to take advantage of changing opportunities in an agile marketplace. Perhaps the reader would like to buy shares in the company. Think of your children’s financial prospects. A little money never hurt anyone. Don’t worry about the future. Factories will continue to hum; shipping containers will continue to cross the sea, trucks will still move on our roads. Whale-Mart will still have the best prices in town, which is inhabited by no one but little machines, designed with obsolescence in mind in order to continue production of widgets and grapple-grommets. Whale-Mart continues to provide strong leadership in a challenging and growing marketplace.



Nanobots in the lawn.

Simone peered out the front window, wishing she was dressed. The yard man had arrived, disrupting the quiet serenity of her staid but upscale neighborhood. He got out and slammed the door as usual. Even through the walls she could hear the crackle of the radio speakers. Drat that man! But she was in no mood to be hurried, and if nothing else, their lawn was well looked-after.

While the service was expensive even by her standards, the people they sent around left a little something to be desired in the couth department. Suddenly, unable to control the impulse, she opened up the door, and stuck her head out awkwardly.

“Sir! Sir! Mister Fred!” She called out, but the man couldn’t hear her, apparently. She glumly closed the door, being fairly certain that the fellow wouldn’t have had the nerve to simply ignore her. With one more glance out the little peep-hole, she watched as he prepared to get to work. Then the lady of the house went back to her toilette; as this morning routine held great significance in determining her mood-of-the-day.

Outside, Fred as usual ignored the red-plastered stickers all over the tanks and equipment. He had been a licensed sprayer for ten years. Everyone had to sit through interminable safety meetings when they were hired, and once a year in the springtime, just before the season really got going. Usual nonsense; don’t drink it, don’t get it in your eyes, stuff like that. Do not apply directly to skin. Don’t snort it, he thought with a rueful grimace. In this job there was just no way you weren’t going to get some of the chemicals and stuff on you from time to time. There was simply no way around it. Thank the good Lord that it wasn’t liquid pig manure or something old-fashioned like that. Yesterday Fred had gotten splashed in the crotch, and it had been windy and cool, downright uncomfortable it had been. Luckily he kept a spare pair of coveralls in the truck, rolled-up under the seat.

The stuff he was applying to the Wheatley’s lawn today was the latest rage among suburban clients; who placed a high priority on carpet-like swaths of greensward. Some of them could be a little unreasonable in fact; expecting thick grass right up to the base of tree, where shade and a lack of rainfall made it almost impossible. Some of these people were nuts about the patchy sod up under the dry, leeward side of their homes. Fred couldn’t be expected to be there every day to water it. The homeowner had to do some work.

He winced as it came on the radio again, every twenty minutes so far this week.

Baytown was a small marketplace and radio air-time came cheap in a recession.

“Nanobots, nanobots, happy are we,

“Buy us once, and we work for free,

“Nanobots, nanobots, in your lawn,

“We kill the bugs, and their spawn,

“No more weeds, on a sunny day,

“Nanobots, nanobots, service all the way!”

“Buy ‘em once and never have to weed or spray your lawn again!” The announcer concluded, as the music faded away.

Fred Thorsen couldn’t get the company’s crazy little jingle out of his head. The forty-something single father of two little girls had a pretty naïve mental picture of a pill-capsule-shaped critter, complete with six metallic, double-articulated legs, and a couple of lenses on the front end. Tiny, mechanical, robot things, with funny-looking waving antennae. Yes; curved mandibles for gripping, and some kind of a stinger on the back end. The notion that they were built of molecule-thin structures was only of limited interest to the beer-guzzling, football and TV-poker watching Fred. Their spring radio blitz had just hit the airwaves, and the truck Fred had been assigned to could only pick up their local AM station, as the antenna was busted off. The guys at the shop said the things were so small they could crawl around inside your blood vessels and you would never know the difference. It was all just product to Fred.

This wasn’t the greatest job in the world, but it was the only one he had. When the company bought the franchise, they were supposed to switch over to shiny, specially-cooled metal tanks to keep out heat and sunlight. Okay, those tanks were very costly. But they didn’t do it—the owners were too cheap, or too stupid. It wasn’t Fred’s problem if the stuff went bad or something. Anyhow, it seemed to work pretty well so far, and if the customers were happy, then so was Fred.

All these thoughts went through Fred’s mind as he puttered about, getting gloves and funnels, wrenches and oil cans out of the big bin on the side of the truck. None of this was actually needed, but if you finished up your day too soon, they might find you another clutch of work-orders; and then you were sure to be late home for dinner. Fred would be having a couples of frozen Salisbury-steak TV dinners, eaten off of a plate instead of out of the shiny foil trays. With a couple of cold Black Label’s, a dinner a man could look forward to. Truth is, he liked those dinners.

Every freakin’ Friday, he had to attend the obligatory sales meeting, complete with coffee and doughnuts, as well as genuinely stupid motivational talks. Every week, one department or another had to put on a sketch, or a skit, or some kind of comedy act.

Banjo-playing clowns were pretty much done to death. The client service department’s turn was coming up in two weeks. Fred felt a sick sense of dread at the prospect. The company’s management wanted them to be like one big, happy family.

“A mom and pop atmosphere in the workplace.” It was in their mission statement.

As he unrolled the air hose to charge the tanks for the applicator; a nice green power source for the rotating distributor heads, he reflected for the seventeenth time that he wanted out. No one ever questioned it, but the air was compressed by electricity, which came from the very same place as everyone else’s did.

In spite of all the scientific, high-tech talk, it was one of the most boring jobs in the world after a while. Nanobots were the result of decades of scientific research, he knew, lifting the wide-mouthed screw-cap off of the semi-transparent white plastic tank. The slurry, or “applicate,” as it was referred to in lawn-care jargon, looked and smelled pretty much as it always did. It was its usual dull, olive or mossy green colour, and the reassuring aroma of fresh, wet, humus wafted up to his nostrils. There was just the slightest hint of ferment.

All seemed well, as he opened up the valves, and engaged the pump. He filled the tank on the remote unit right to the brim. This account, the Wheatley’s, had a frontage of seventy-five metres, and composed at least a hectare of beautifully kept turf, stretching out behind the long, lean, brown-brick ranch house, deceptive in its low lines, but it had to be twenty-five metres across the front, and almost cathedral-like inside. He had once been allowed to stand in the hall, and a rather imperious lady of the house had given him a tall glass of lemonade as if to prove that the plebeians were never far from her heart and her thoughts.

“Yes, she probably prays for me.” He chuckled at the thought.

The unmanned, powered applicator moved off the end of the ramp of the trailer, as he carefully guided it with the infra-red hand-held controller device; not unlike a modeler’s radio control unit. He could make it go anywhere and apply just about anything. The mid-range blaring of its pumps and rotors cut through the late May stillness. Fred lowered his hearing protection, grateful for the new lightweight hard hats the company was providing this year. Arriving at the nearest corner of the lawn, he paused the machine after careful alignment. Fred rolled up his sleeves, as the day was quickly warming up. That was the way of it, he thought, idly scratching an itchy spot on his left forearm, and continuing to meditate. First thing in the morning, it’s as cold as hell, then you get to sweat your backside off. Picking up the controller from on top of the applicator unit’s shrouding, Fred got down to brass tacks; and began to run the machine back and forth, around and around on the Wheatley’s extensive lawn. The itching on his left arm was still there.

Probably an early-season mosquito, the hard-working lawn-care man reckoned, not paying it another thought. The fact that when showering this morning; he had noticed a pretty big pink patch, the beginnings of a rash on his left thigh; had been completely forgotten. A big handful of Gold Bond had cured up that itch pretty well.

Poor old Fred didn’t know it, but he was already a dead man. The nanobots were built of organic and inorganic molecules. In order to be able to recognize organisms, the nano-computers that made up their brains were based on organic models. They had to be able to smell their prey, and differentiate between grass and weeds. In order to self-replicate like good little von Neumann machines ought, they had been designed to breed and to provide nesting and brooding care to their offspring. And it was crucial that they did not mutate, under the excess heat of the sun, with the sun’s rays filtered by the translucent plastic of the old-style tanks. Left too long in the heat of the day, their little nano-brains had become just a little bit scrambled, and their normal appetites had changed, to the extent that they were capable and even desirous of taking down some bigger game.

***

Simone heard a crashing thump against the outside wall of her private dressing room. She leapt out of her chair in front of the vanity. Clutching her peignoir closer around her throat, the lady stumbled a bit as she trod on one of Hank’s tattered slippers, always left in the same place when he was through dressing. She peered out through the sheer white nylon window covers of the back bedroom window, but could see nothing.

She clothed herself with one of Hank’s thick bathrobes, and headed for the kitchen, and the rear dining room doorway. She could hear the lawn man out there. The distinctive note of the cute little robo-tractor he used was close by the house. Sliding open the patio door, she idly wondered if he had hit a tree, meaning to speak to him about it. Simone’s landscaping efforts had recently been rewarded with an Honourable Mention in the local Master Gardeners annual photo contest, sponsored by a nursery in the local area. She had made page four in the lifestyles segment of the local daily. Quite a feather in her cap.

The yard man was nowhere to be seen, and nonplussed; she regarded the chuff-chuffing machine, as it rocked and vibrated about a half-metre away from her bedroom wall. While still running, it seemed to be in some kind of pause or readiness mode.

Shading her eyes from the glaring hot sun, she peered about. Where in the name of blazes was the lawn-care guy? Good help was so hard to find these days.

Her attention was drawn by a blood-curdling snuffling and moaning noise, guttural sobs, and incoherent mouthings from behind their three-car garage. Just as she was looking around for a stout stick, a weapon of some type before going out there, the whimpers rose to a crescendo. She stepped back through the open doorway.

“Hank? Hank!” she barked, hoping her husband would be a little quicker on his feet than usual…God, Hank was getting so slow and stupid these days.

The blood-curdling moans from the back yard made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. She felt a cold flush quiver through her from head to toe. The rush of fear quickly turned to anger.

“Hank!” she bellowed, infuriated. No response from the other room, barely nine metres away. Suddenly came the thud of footsteps on damp turf, and bursting out from behind the cover of the garage, what had once been Fred Thorsen ran at breakneck speed.

Simone stared, rooted to the spot.

Fred covered about twenty metres, and smacked face-first into the trunk of the biggest tree in the yard with a sloppy sound, like a gob of pudding falling out of the bowl and onto the floor. She gasped as the man flopped down into the grass. Simone was stunned by the fact that he had bounced. She noted her own objectivity in a kind of horror, as the man just lay there, so still, so limp and so flat—as if he were dead. She had never thought a man could bounce like that. The horror of it was numbing. She realized vaguely that she was in shock, and she thought maybe the lawn care man was dead…Oh, God!

“Hank! Hank!” She shouted at her husband, dozing in his chair in the front room, with yesterday’s and this morning’s papers all scattered around on the floor beside him.


End

This story also appears in the Spanish-language Axxon, as 'Nanobots en el Cesped.'   Top Photo: Wiki Commons. Willow Gabriel and Bob Goldstein. http://tardigrades.bio.unc.edu/   Lower: Wiki Commons. DBCLS. http://lifesciencedb.jp/resource_icon/icon.cgi?i=Echiniscus&t=L