"Seriously?" I say.
"It has to be a real confession," the priest says, "a violation of the Commandments."
"Ugh. Fine.” I thought for a moment. “I took the lord's name in vain last night when I stubbed my toe. Happy?"
He gestured. "Your student debt is forgiven."
"This is ridiculous. Everyone has to?"
"Hey,” the priest shrugged, “you elected the Catholic."
Thirteen billion four hundred and fifty million years ago, a beam of light burst forth from the frothing rage of the universe's grandest explosion.
That beam just finished its journey - it struck a funny-looking hexagon.
Yawning, I put the yen into the strange vending machine slot and punch the button with a picture of onigiri on it. After a few seconds, a plastic-wrapped rice ball drops into the waiting chute.
I read the label — it's expired.
So is the next. and the next. and the next and the next
The succubus wore a sleek black dress, stiletto heels, and a brassiere adorned with an oleander.
Astonishingly, her first victim saw right through her intoxicating charms.
"How?" she demanded.
"It's simple," he said, shrugging. "I'm a biologist — oleander's poisonous."
The imp sits limp in front of you, waiting for instruction. The pentagram's candles cast shadows of its flicking tail onto the far wall.
"Now what?" she asks you.
"Now we give it tequila."
She laughed. "You're joking, right?"
"Where do you think demons come from?"
The ambit of personal rights increased with time; it did not stop with Homo Sapiens. When the third planet from the sun, colloquially known as Earth, was at last given its rights, it insisted on only one:
Freedom from Humanity.
The man sat up — naked, covered in ash, but, frustratingly, unburnt.
"Shit," he said. "Guess it's gotta be hotter."
He set off to find a bigger pyre.
In deep interstellar space, relative direction becomes meaningless - but even so, every space cowboy agrees: once you leave the Solar System, you're heading west.
His shadow became sentient, and he soon became friends with it.
Out of respect, he pooped in the dark.
His compass did not point north. Instead, it pointed the way to the holder's deepest desires.
Standing on the sidewalk, he pulled it out. It pointed him to his phone's compass app.
Nodding, he pulled out his phone, launched the app, identified north, and began walking.
A nation in twilight listens rapt to men who have perfected telling them what they want to hear.
The bespectacled man gets in the back of the taxi. The driver, a young woman wearing contacts, accelerates wordlessly.
As the man exits, he hands her an extra $20. She smiles, a little.
The next fare pops up. She pulls away.
He doesn't wave as his daughter departs.
They say that the crack of the fault line can be heard from many miles away, loud and pure and clear, if you listen with the right machine.
They say it's the opening note of an infrasonic, tectonic lullaby.
October was the tenth of twelve children, and she found herself often forgotten.
As the years wore on, she became progressively gloomier.
Her depression turned around when she discovered her true calling - candy-making.