‘Well, someone’s sure as hell spooking the blue-beaked noddies’, Greg said.

We remained quiet, of course.

‘Gibbering wrecks, the lot of them. The island jungle is a fragile ecosystem. They only exist on this island because there aren’t any other predators. Rats . . Cats . . Humans . .’.

I was a human, and so was Liam. It was hard not to take this last remark personally.

I never thought I’d use an online Muse service, but there I was signing up on one, paying for premium features, adding my photo and profile to dozens of other aspiring writers. My writing block was impenetrable, my slump insurmountable, my misery inescapable.

As an experiment, a very rich man gave me one hundred million dollars, with the stipulation that I’d let him kill me in ten years, about ten years ago. For some reason it kind of slipped my mind. That’s how I am: taxes catch me by surprise every year; I forget plans until the last second and rush out of the house; once I left my private jet in the Cayman’s because I went back commercial by mistake. The only thing that was on my mind when I got the text reminding me about my agreement was the excruciatingly drawn-out remodeling of the left side of my mansion (when facing the mansion). It was a fairly nice text, as texts about your eventual murder, from your eventual murderer, go.

The sounds of fervent, vigorous shouting vibrated through the office walls and into the lobby where Sloane sat waiting for her Alternative Therapy appointment. When the shouting reached a rhapsodic zenith, the slapping sounds started. She’d never opted for physical violence as a form of treatment, so she wasn’t sure if the therapist was slapping the patient or the patient was slapping the therapist. Either way, it was unpleasant, and she was relieved when Dr. Marcie’s office door swung open, and she ushered another patient, bald and breathless, from the room. 

Congratulations on sneaking into my secret lair. That took a lot of guts, judging by how hard my minions are having to scrub to clean what’s left of yours out of that secret passage. I hope you’re enjoying dangling precariously over an active volcano.