“I bet it’s not real,” I said. “It looks like one of those little rugs you can buy, with a black hole on it.”

My boss Joey caught my bluff. “Oh, yeah, Ollie? If it’s not real, why don’t you step on it?”

I wasn’t going to, and neither was he. Nor were any of the dozen or so customers who happened to be inside Joey’s Creamery on that nondescript July afternoon, seeking some respite from the sweltering heat, when a hole, perfectly round and blacker than any black I’d ever seen, opened in the floor.

Rita sighed, already tired of the neighborhood grocery store. The products on offer were gray and rancid, and she turned away in disgust from a woman intently inspecting a package of ground beef with yesterday’s sell-by date.

Today was special, and Rita would not settle for anything less than a perfect treat.

I leave the pharmacy, wiping off snot with my sleeve, my head stuffier than a high-school locker room. I carry nose drops, antihistamines, and the good decongestant for which I must flash my driver’s license because lesser meth cooks than Walter White use it as raw material.