Welcome to another issue of Defenestration, and the last issue until next year. And what a year it’s been. Defenestration has been around for 12 years now, and I can honestly say that this year saw a major shift in the number and the quality of the work we’ve received. Our slush pile has never before been filled with so many experienced writers, comedians, magazine editors, actors… the list was really staggering, and on more than one occasion I felt overwhelmed by it all. Eileen and I have had the opportunity to read a lot of really good fiction, nonfiction, and poetry this year, and while not everyone made it onto the site this year, I really hope everyone comes back and tries us again. We do this because we enjoy it, and you make our self-imposed tasks a lot easier by sending us such great material.

“Hello? Hello?”

(pause)

“Hi. This is Suzy.”

“Um, yes?”

“You’re receiving this call because you’ve been recommended by a friend who hates your guts!”

“I beg your pardon?”

Come on in. Ashley, isn’t it? No? Emily? Alexis? All you sorority girls look the same. I think you’re in one of my Tuesday classes. Hannah? That’s right. You usually sit in the back of the classroom, left side, and last week I distinctly remember seeing you order a striped bikini from Forever 21 during my lecture on affirmative action. Such forethought—and it’s only November.

It was a dull day, I wasn’t doing very much. In theory I was working from home, but that theory wasn’t working and neither was I. I tried looking out of the window but the sky was a smudged grey, like yesterday’s make-up, and it didn’t compel me out of doors or into better thoughts. I looked again at my work, but it could all wait a few more minutes. I didn’t know what to write. I was waiting for inspiration, and starting to feel stood up. The phone was silent. The clock ticked. A man came through the door with a gun in his hand.

They shot the Messenger, Tabitha said, and he wasn’t expected to survive.

“What was he even doing there?” Brad asked. “Breaking up a robbery, a drug deal? That doesn’t sound like him. Last I heard, he was stranded at the Cosmic Gates, lost in the Mists of Time, thinking deep thoughts about truth and justice or something like that.”

“Turns out he was in Poughkeepsie.”

It turned out, much to the shock of the gathered League, that the Messenger had been a fraud.