What They Don’t Tell You

by Jason Erik Lundberg

1. You will be expected to renounce all worldly possessions, familial ties, and social connections so as to maximize your teaching performance at the School.

2. You will be expected to wear the assigned teacher’s uniform, eat the prescribed teacher’s diet, and sleep in the teacher’s wing of the School dormitories. Your head will be shaved each Sunday evening by the School barber.

3. You will be expected to deliver thorough and incisive comments on every student composition, no matter the length of the assignment, the number of students in the class, or number of classes you teach.

4. You will be expected to pleasantly endure the loss of your privacy thanks to the ubiquity of scunts, wiretapping, keystroke-tracking software, and an over-vigilant security guard named Ted.

5. You will be expected to self-install a minimum of twelve nanny arphids that analyze marking decisions, pedagogical preparation and delivery, lesson plan productivity, and sexual attraction to your colleagues.

6. You will be expected to give, via telepresence, three or more simultaneous extra tuition lessons per term to students falling below the established minimum quota for excellence. Teachers who fail to meet their Excellence Quota for two consecutive terms will be subject to Retirement.

7. You will be expected to downlink a minimum of five workshop improvement courses per term during your sleep cycle, and mentally transmit your progress to the Dean of Teacher Upgrading upon completion the following morning.

8. You will be expected to feel grateful for your cloistered employment and constant comparison to the progress of your more capable colleagues, including robots and administrative staff. Consultation of the Educational Ranking board is mandatory before entering your sleep cycle each night.

9. You will be expected to fear the loss of your job, the downscaling of pay, the withdrawal of course knowledge, the lowering of governmental status points, and the placement of your name on the educational blacklist.

10. You will be expected to love the School with all your heart, until the day you die from exhaustion or are Retired with prejudice.

Home ranges and habits of mid-Atlantic weresnails

by David

In this study we identified weresnails in human form on the basis of two criteria: giant slime trails in their dwellings and nascent eye stalks on the days preceding a full moon. We followed human-form weresnails and used a modified tranquilizer gun to implant tracking devices on their shells at the onset of gastrothropy.

*

Gordon hurried home, dodging snow mounded where the plows had left it. He did love Elaine, desperately, but he had sworn never to bring a child into the world. He was afraid that his fear of what his curse would do to any offspring must have looked a lot like rejection. She didn’t know, and how could he explain now, when it was too late?

Elaine had cooked a wonderful meal: clam chowder, a green salad, and a spry young California Merlot with an unexpected kick. Then she told him.

“I felt sick this morning.”

“I’m so sorry!” he replied, wondering at her odd expression. “You certainly shouldn’t have cooked for me when you didn’t feel well. You’re feeling better?”

“For now. I don’t know what will happen in the morning.”

She finally had had to simply tell him. Then he gave her that look, and he ran.

*

The shell of the first subject shattered when struck by the tracking device. The tranquilizer gun had to be further modified before successful implantation was possible. Ultimately, time and location data for three subjects were successfully collected for three lunar cycles (fig. 1). Figure 2 shows movements of all three subjects, superimposed on a high-resolution digital elevation model.

*

Gordon could not sit still. He walked, trying to believe his son or daughter would be normal. After all, the gastrothrope gene was recessive, so unless Rachel had snail blood, their children would look fully human. He pulled out his cell phone.

“Hello!”

“Rachel, listen. I was just so shocked, but I want…” Then Gordon paused, bathed in moonlight.

“Me too, and…. This morning you looked…terrified. You don’t feel that way now, do you? Gordon? Gordon?”

His cell phone shattered on the sidewalk as Gordon underwent a transformation made excruciating by the salty meltwater covering the ground.

*

Unfortunately, aggressive salt distribution by county road crews resulted in destruction of the three remaining experimental subjects. The study will resume, with new subjects, after the last frost date in the spring.

The end