Another year is drawing to a close, and that means we’ve got another fresh issue of Defenestration to share with you (and possibly your family, but not small children, thank you). But we’ve also reached the end of a decade, which is unbeleivable to me, because (1) I have no concept of time and (2) I don’t age. I’m almost exactly like Santa Claus, except don’t have a beard or a belly or a red suit, and I’ve never met an elf except for that one time at the Lord of the Rings convention.

In Third Grade, we all hated arithmetic until Mrs. Podolski, with her heavy Polish accent, showed up and briefly cast a numerical spell on us. Mrs. Podolski was a short, stout woman who replaced our regular teacher for two weeks. She wore brilliant floral print dresses and prefaced almost everything she said with, “And now, children.”

“This is Clonazepam, the generic for Klonopin. We’ll start you off on 5mg and you can just take it any time you feel that wave of anxiety coming on.”

Pinocchio had never heard of Klonopin before.

Kelsey was dead now, but it was supposed to be a Christmas surprise.

The billionaires gathered inside their special room, the hermetically sealed one with piped-in HEPA air, aromatherapy diffusers, and personal attention chambers. The room, rarely used, was reserved for emergencies only, and nobody present would dispute that this was an emergency.