“My husband is a great collector,” said Kit, stirring her drink with one fingertip and smiling up at the CEO.

“Does it look okay?” I asked my girlfriend as I examined a large billboard advertisement across the street from our car that prominently displayed a new beard balm. She wasn’t paying attention really, as she flipped through Reddit and Facebook in an amorphous blur, like she was simultaneously fact-checking statements made by politicos on either media platform. She wasn’t. She was verifying whether the latest celebrity belly photo indicated a baby bump or too much ice cream. Meanwhile, I was looking at the advertisement and then back at my own face in the sun visor mirror. She knew I wasn’t asking about the beaming gentleman on the advertisement.

“We journeyed through the forest of the frenzied fists,” Armella said. She had her hands on her hips, frowning. “I got punched in the eye by a maple.”

Gabe’s been super annoying ever since he got back from studying in 1952. Just the worst.

There’s a fish on my desk and it’s weirding me out. It’s just sitting there. Where did this thing come from? How could it have possibly gotten on my desk? The damn thing isn’t even cooked! It’s not baked, or sautéed, or pan fried, or pan broiled, or grilled, or poached, or deep fried, or prepared in any way that would be beneficial to me. It’s just raw, and not in a creative or delicious way, like sushi. Raw!