This is not a Story about Greed

by Edd

Six days ago I rubbed the lamp Jenna brought back from the East. I knew what I was doing. She would tell me at night of the experiments they were running on it and the other munitions left over from the Mana Wars.

Five days ago the Djinn brought me every magical lamp he could find. A few, he says, are hidden even from his senses. Each contained one of his brothers or sisters. He was eager to serve once I explained my goal to him. His laugh was a subsonic rumble.

Four days ago my first aide and two others finished sculpting the Moon into Jenna’s headstone. To say there is panic would be an understatement. I am being sought.

Three days ago my agents fought a new magical war with the world’s remaining mages and magical beings. Battles raged across the globe from the stroke of one midnight to the stroke of the next.

Two days ago we counted our dead. A Djinn can grieve as powerfully as any man or woman.

Yesterday my remaining survivors caused the seas to rise. They melted the glaciers and blew up a rain that will last the weeks it will take to drown a world.

Today I stand on the now-airless Moon in a clever suit of Djinn-design. I look up at a world shrouded in white, clouded from pole to pole.

The surface of the Moon rumbles faintly through my suit’s boots. It is, I imagine, the rumble of laughter. Tomorrows there will be, but tomorrows without Atlantis.

Pursedog

by Ken Brady

Pursedog doesn’t like you. Forget that he belongs to Kitty, your semi-long-term girlfriend, or that you’ve run into her apartment to retrieve the little yapping piece of accoutrement because she asked you to.

Forget that you paid for the diminutive bag of fur. He hates you and there’s nothing you can do to change it.

Pursedog knows your innermost secrets. Somehow the little fucker always walks in at the worst times like:

– Using Kitty’s toothbrush to clean the toilet bowl

– Practicing solo forms of tantric yoga you found online

– Whacking to pics of Martha Stewart and/or George Wendt

He knows more about Kitty than you do. There are things a girl just won’t tell her somewhat significant other, but she’ll damn well tell her dog. Especially Pursedog. You know why? Because he listens.

Pursedog was grown to be a woman’s best friend, zipper running tail to ears, insides warm, cushioned, welcoming. He holds mobile phones, apartment keys, identification, emergency makeup. Maybe an extra tin of mints or deodorant. Occasionally, you suspect, a dildo. You’ve seen him vibrating on his back on a restaurant floor in obvious elation, and you’re pretty sure why.

Pursedog is smarter than you. And he knows it.

He sends snaps to Kitty’s phone if he catches you not washing your hands when you leave the bathroom. He posts videos of you masturbating to a popular web forum. You’re reasonably famous there.

Under Kitty’s bed, there’s Pursedog, growling an ominous warning. He backs up and his eyes glow red to augment his pervert alarm. You always set off his defenses, raise his hackles. His zipper clasps tight, double-locks. You reach in and snag Pursedog by the scruff of the neck, avoiding his snapping jaws. It’s unclear why Kitty wants protection from perverts when she’s dating one.

He’s freewheeling in the air, trying to bite your hand when it hits you. You’re being replaced. Kitty’s too chickenshit to tell you. Instead, she’s taken up with a modded pooch, locked her important things away from you.

You’ve already been replaced. And you paid for your own replacement.

Pursedog thinks you’re a dumbass, and he’s right.

“Look,” you say. “At least tell me what I did wrong?”

Pursedog stops struggling, like he’s contemplating your question. Like he cares. You consider setting the four-legged hellbeast down, forgiving him for taking your place. You could walk away without a parting shot at Kitty and never even look back. Bow out gracefully. You loosen your grip, and like a coiled spring the little rat spins around and clamps his teeth into your hand.

You drop-kick the little bastard out the window.