Unit X-397 said, “Yeah, but this doesn’t fit the standard pattern at all. I don’t even know if you can legitimately categorize it as an apocalypse.” The mid-45th-century repurposed sex-bot waved one silvered, gleaming hand vaguely at the rift, and what lay beyond.

Bobby peered through the tear in spacetime at the acres of rolling hills and the distant mountains. The sky was blue. The effect was bucolic. He felt his heart sink, if possible, lower than it already was.

Bears stole our garbage at the cabin that year. One bear in particular, recruited others from the wilds, from circuses and from zoos. This was the last big score, or so he promised.

Earnest was in kindergarten when Jackie the Janitor got fired for “choking the chicken” in the girls’ bathroom. That phrase, along with his best friend Bradley Watson’s accompanying hand gestures, stuck in Earnest’s head so hard that whenever he looked at the thing between his legs, all he could see was a bald, pointed bird head, like the ones attached to the roast ducks hanging in the window of a Chinese restaurant.

He didn’t learn what “euphemism” meant until the third grade, and by then it was too late. His chicken had grown feathers and a beak. When it started to open and close its mouth, he asked his mother if he could take showers instead of baths; he didn’t want it to drown.

I’ve already been working on a one-act play: A woman comes home from work to discover her Pomeranian has been appointed U. S. Ambassador to Maldives. The very model of canine sexuality, Monsieur Barque-Barque inexplicably attempts suicide but, fortunately, his weapon is one of those ultra-realistic looking squirt rifles and he succeeds only in heinously matting his fur, making him look more than a little bit anorexic. He eventually resigns his post and runs away to join the Peace Corp, where he not only stumbles upon the irrepressible enjoyment of smoking pickled aphids in a beer bong but also the proper etiquette when passing gas through prison bars.

The aspirants lounged restively within the open chamber in paired seats, twelve across and twice as many deep. Bands of mist drifted throughout. At the lectern before them stood a display easel bearing the chalked inscription: Life 501: Unperfected Entities. Species Human. Group L7911933. Release Date Var.

An unclothed bipedal figure materialized out of the mist and went directly to the lectern where he spread open the mammoth book set there and leafed forward several pages. He glanced over the assemblage and intoned, “All right, pay attention please. And no drifting about.