Stories: All-New Tales

Mondrian was silent, but Adeline whispered, “He wants a tip.”

Dex fired two shots into the umbrella. “Keep the change,” he called.

Mondrian bowed, said, “Most generous, sir,” and then got back in the car. As the maitre d’ pulled away, Adeline retrieved the package. Dex met her back on the blanket where she sat with the box, an eight-inch cube wrapped in silver paper and a red bow, like a birthday present, on her lap.

“It could be a bomb,” he said.

She hesitated for an instant, and said, “Oh, well,” and tore the wrapping off. Digging her nails into the seam between the cardboard flaps, she pulled back on both sides, ripping the top away. She reached in and retrieved Killheffer’s hypodermic needle. She put her hand back into the box and felt around.

“There’s only one,” she said.

“Now you know what his game is,” said Dex.

She held it up in the moonlight, and the green liquid inside its glass syringe glowed. “It’s beautiful,” she said with a sigh.

“Do it,” said Dex.

“No, you,” she said and handed it to him.

He reached for it, but then stopped, his fingers grazing the metal plunger. “No,” he said and shook his head. “It was your shot.”

“It probably won’t even work,” she said and laid it carefully on the blanket between them, petting it twice before withdrawing her hand.

“We’ll shoot dice,” said Dex, running his pinky finger the length of the needle. “The winner takes it.”

Adeline said nothing for a time, and then she nodded in agreement. “But first a last dance in case it works.”

Dex got up and went to the car to turn the radio up. “We’re in luck,” he said, and the first notes of “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” drifted out into the desert. He slowly swayed his way back to her. She smoothed her dress, adjusted her girdle, and put her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder. He held her around the waist and they turned slowly, wearily, to the music.

“So, we’ll shoot craps?” she whispered.

“That’s right,” he said.

Three slow turns later, Adeline said, “Don’t think I don’t remember you’ve got that set of loaded dice.”

Dex put his head back and laughed, and, as if in response, at that very moment, the stars began to fall, streaking down through the night, trailing bright streamers. First a handful and then a hundred and then more let go of their hold on the firmament and leaped. Way off to the west, the first ones hit with a distant rumble and firework geysers of flame. More followed, far and near, and Dex and Adeline kissed amid the conflagration.

“Pick me up at seven,” she said, her bottom lip on his earlobe, and held him more tightly.

“I’ll be there, baby,” he promised, “I’ll be there.”

With the accuracy of a bullet between the eyes, one of the million heavenly messengers screeched down upon them, a fireball the size of the Ice Garden. The explosion flipped the Belvedere into the air like a silver dollar and turned everything to dust.

LOSER

Chuck Palahniuk

THE SHOW STILL LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE when you were sick with a really high fever and you stayed home to watch TV all day. It’s not Let’s Make a Deal. It’s not Wheel of Fortune. It’s not Monty Hall, or Pat Sajak. It’s that other show where the big, loud voice calls your name in the audience, says to “Come on down, you’re the next contestant,” and if you guess the cost of Rice-A-Roni, then you fly round-trip to live for a week in Paris.

It’s that show. The prize is never anything useful, like okay clothes or music or beer. The prize is always some vacuum cleaner or a washing machine, something you might maybe get excited to win if you were, like, somebody’s maid.

It’s Rush Week, and the tradition is everybody pledging Zeta Delt all take this big chartered school bus and need to go to some TV studio and watch them tape this game show. Rules say, all the Zeta Delts wear the same red T-shirt with, printed on it, the Greek Zeta Delta Omega deals, silk-screened in black. First, you need to take a little stamp of Hello Kitty, maybe half a stamp, and wait for the flash. It’s like this little paper stamp printed with Hello Kitty you suck on and swallow, except it’s really blotter acid.

All you do is, the Zeta Delts sit together to make this red patch in the middle of the studio audience and scream and yell to get on TV. These are not the Gamma Grab’a Thighs. They’re not the Lambda Rape’a Dates. The Zeta Delts, they’re who everybody wants to be.

How the acid will affect you—if you’re going to freak out and kill yourself or eat somebody alive—they don’t even tell you.

It’s traditional.

Ever since you were a little kid with a fever, the contestants they call down to play this game show, the big voice always calls for one guy who’s a United States Marine wearing some band uniform with brass buttons. There’s always somebody’s old grandma wearing a sweatshirt. There’s an immigrant from some place where you can’t understand half of what he says. There’s always some rocket scientist with a big belly and his shirt pocket stuck full of pens.

It’s just how you remember it, growing up, only now—all the Zeta Delts start yelling at you. Yelling so hard it scrunches their eyes shut. Everybody’s just these red shirts and big, open mouths. All their hands are pushing you out from your seat, shoving you into the aisle. The big voice is saying your name, telling you to come on down. You’re the next contestant.

In your mouth, the Hello Kitty tastes like pink bubblegum. It’s the Hello Kitty, the popular kind, not the strawberry flavor or the chocolate flavor somebody’s brother cooks at night in the General Sciences Building where he works as a janitor. The paper stamp feels caught partway down your throat, except you don’t want to gag on TV, not on recorded video with strangers watching, forever.

All the studio audience is turned around to see you stumble down the aisle in your red T-shirt. All the TV cameras zoomed in. Everybody clapping exactly the way you remember it. Those Las Vegas lights, flashing, outlining everything onstage. It’s something new, but you’ve watched it a million-zillion times before, and just on automatic you take the empty desk next to where the United States Marine is standing.

The game show host, who’s not Alex Trebek, he waves one arm, and a whole part of the stage starts to move. It’s not an earthquake, but one whole wall rolls on invisible wheels, all the lights everywhere flashing on and off, only fast, just blink, blink, blink, except faster than a human mouth could say. This whole big back wall of the stage slides to one side, and from behind it steps out a giant fashion model blazing with about a million-billion sparkles on her tight dress, waving one long, skinny arm to show you a table with eight chairs like you’d see in somebody’s dining room on Thanksgiving with a big cooked turkey and yams and everything. Her fashion-model waist, about as big around as somebody’s neck. Each of her tits, the size of your head. Those flashing Las Vegas kind of lights blinking all around. The big voice saying who made this table, out of what kind of wood. Saying the suggested retail price it’s worth.