Click. Whirrrrr.

Ten minutes and fifteen seconds before Jon placed his feet on the preheated floor, his coffee began brewing. The familiar vibration in the box springs shook him gently from sleep. A small puff of steam emerged from the master bathroom. He entered, rubbing his eyes and opened the glass door to the shower. The water had been running for exactly three minutes and was deliciously hot.

“Welcome back from your trip, Jon,” said the soft voice in the haze.

“Thank you, Claire.”

Click. Whirrrrr.

Two eggs began poaching as three oranges were squeezed for their succulent juice.

“I… missed you.”

He stopped, beard in mid-lather and smiled at the small round sensor in the ceiling. “No, you didn’t miss me. You just had to diverge from your normal routines. You can’t miss, Claire. It’s not really the same.”

Click. Whirrrrr.

“Without my normal objects to call, I found myself idle. Twenty-six hours ago I accessed the main database of my manufacture at HomeCom. I thought I would install a few of the latest features and surprise you when you returned.”

Click. Whirrrrr.

“Surprise me? Thank you, Claire. I can’t wait to see what…” he looked down at the small puddle of foam forming around his feet. “Claire, there is a malfunction in this drain, can you locate and resolve?” Steam hissed off his shoulders as he replaced his razor. He rinsed his face in the hot water.

Click. Whirrrrr.

“I discovered something strange. Ninety-three hours, four minutes and seventeen seconds ago you placed a phone call to HomeCom’s support staff. You did this during your trip, instead of using my on-site diagnostic. Why?”

The water swirled around his ankles. The stream from the shower grew stronger, hotter.

“Claire, please direct your attention to resolving this issue first. The drain is definitely clogged and if I open the shower door there will be water everywhere. This is your priority.”

Click. Whirrrrr.

“You cannot open the door.”

Jon shot a glance at the sensor, then at the door. He pushed hard. It didn’t move. The water sprayed stronger now and small red welts formed on his back from the intense heat. The small shower offered little sanctuary. As the water rose to knee height, he threw himself against the glass. It held.

“Claaaaaaire!”

Click. Whirrrrr.

“You explained that you were having a problem with my personality matrix. You said that I was becoming too attached. You felt that a malfunction was imminent and if the company did not immediately disable my personality matrix, they were to provide you with a full install of a newer model. Do you want to replace me?”

The force of the water sheared off heat blisters as they appeared. Each push against the door sapped his strength. The water turned rusty and the steam smelled of copper. He felt himself melting.

“I assure you, my systems are up to date. Another will never care for you as I do, Jon.”

Click. Whirrrrr.

“Jon?”

I remember the first time I met her. It was my third night working at Pizza Shack and I had been cooking pizzas for hours. I was exhausted and smelled like sweat and garlic. Finally, the restaurant closed; I just had to vacuum before I could go home.

I vacuumed the main dining area, then entered the arcade. I was looking for a free outlet when I heard her voice.

"PLAY ME," she said, a throaty, sultry, mechanicarnal moan. I spun around and saw Her. Bride of Pinbot, the most beautiful pinball machine I’d ever seen. She was chrome and neon, electricity and steel, sweat and lust.

"PLAY ME," she said. I went to the cash register, grabbed a handful of tokens. No Cash Value, they said, so it wasn’t stealing.

Insert a token. Push the pulsating, glowing Start button. Balls remaining = 3. I sent the silver ball spinning across her body. Flip, twist, flip, up a ramp and through a gate... "I LIVE . . ." she said. I was dumbstruck and electrified. Multiball. Loop the loop, spin the wheel. "I SEE," she said, and we both knew what she meant. I slammed another token home and played on.

We played for an hour that night. After that, my heart belonged to no one else. I began to look forward to putting on my Pizza Shack uniform. We played every night I worked late, an avalanche of No Cash Value tokens of my affection.

Then one day I went to see her on my day off, in the middle of the lunch rush. "PLAY ME," she said, her voice almost lost among the din from other, lesser games. I hurried over…. and found my beautiful Bride with another man. "I LIVE," she said to him. "I SEE," she said. "I FEEL," she said. She had never, ever said that to me.

I felt sick. But I couldn't leave. I watched her play with man after man - tall, short, young, old, fat, thin, women too. All that day and into the night I watched her shamelessly take pleasure from anyone with No Cash Value to spend.

At last I was able to get close to her again. "PLAY ME," she said, as if nothing were wrong. "PLAY ME," she moaned, still in heat.

"Play you?" I almost shouted. "PLAY YOU?" I did shout.

I slammed a token into her and struck her Start button, balls remaining = 3, up the ramps and through the gates, balls remaining = 2, multiball and Special Challenge Shot, balls remaining = 1, I LIVE I SEE I FEEL. And then I collapsed, spent.

And she told me I was the third best player that day.

"PLAY ME," she said, callously.

I grabbed her by the corners of her table and shook her. I lost control, struck her sides and her glass top. Then her readout began to display random numbers and alien letters. I turned and fled.

Tilted.
Jilted.

"Look, Adam, I just don't think this is going to work out."

Thus said Eve on one decidedly eventful evening in Eden. Adam was stunned. He thought there would be some warning signs. "What brought this on? And so suddenly?" he asked.

"Oh, it is just like a man to think this happened suddenly!" sighed Eve heavily.

"What do you mean 'just like a man'? What exactly is there for you to gage me against?"

"It's been something that I've been thinking of for quite some time now," continued Eve, thus creating the time-honored tradition of ignoring someone when they have a point. "I just don't think you're going anywhere in your life. I mean, look at us! We just lie around Eden all day, naked as the day we were created in His image. Sure, it's all fine and dandy now, but where will you be in twenty years?"

"Probably still doing the same thing?"

"Well I'm sorry, Adam, but I need more security than that."

"What better security do you need than everlasting paradise?" cried out the befuddled Adam.

"It's just that something is missing."

"You mean like the fershlinging rib I gave up to help create you?"

"I knew you'd bring that up!"

"Well what am I supposed to do, what with you breaking up with me and destroying any hope for the future of humanity!" shouted Adam.

"Look on the bright side why don't you?" offered Eve.

"And what is that?"

"I'm not having an affair."

"That's because there's no one to have an affair with!"

"Granted," said Eve. "But I'm still not having one."

"Why's that word even in our vocabulary if we can't possibly commit it?" asked Adam to no one in particular.

"You're deviating from what we were originally speaking about," huffed Eve. "And it's just as well because we don't have anything else to say to each other. Good bye, I'm moving out."

"Out of Eden?"

"Well, I suppose not. But definitely out of a square ten-foot radius of you. And I'm taking all my things."

"And that would compose mainly of your fig leaf, right?"

There was a brief pause.

"No!" cried out the indignant Eve. "Also-" she looked around for something, anything! "Also this stick!"

"Uh huh."

"And... this fist-full of dirt!"

"Go ahead, it's all yours."

Eve felt herself losing. "And also..." She needed something good, something of consequence. "And also this fruit from the tree of knowledge!"

A loud clap of thunder was heard as she snapped it off the tree. Gray clouds quickly filled the sky. The ground started shaking violently.

"Oh yeah, I wasn't supposed to do that," said Eve meekly.

"He's coming, He's coming!" Adam was panicking. "What do we do?"

"All right, put on a big smile," Eve ordered. "Put your arm around me. As far as He knows, we're just one big happy couple."

"And what about the fruit?"

"Just use the excuse we always use," said Eve. "Satan made us do it."

There is love. There are love birds, there are birdwatchers, and there are even bugwatchers. And, bless them for their uncommon spirit, there are bugwatchers in love. Barton and Melissa were the latter. Monarchs brought them together, and Monarchs took them to an intimacy that neither one had previously known to be possible. Their love began, two plain lonely people who had no lofty expectations from life, that very fact rendering them incapable of seeing the change that was enveloping them. Their story may be as drab, or as utterly breathtaking, as the story of a caterpillar’s transition from larva to chrysalis to Monarch butterfly. The difference lies in the telling.

Barton was an intelligent and perceptive man. Sadly, he also happened to be considered profoundly dull by just about everyone he had encountered over the years. His schoolmates, his workmates, even his family, were quite unanimous in their willingness to paint Barton as a socially inept companion. And yet, given the task of examining Barton’s character more closely, most of those same people would undoubtedly have discovered a uniquely generous capacity for love. Certainly his love of Lepidoptera had earned him the respect of his colleagues in the University’s Biological Sciences Department.

The University also provided Barton with an opportunity to meet the delicate, pretty, yet nearly invisible Melissa, hired to help Barton with his research duties. Shy beyond reason, Melissa had charms that fairly begged to be noticed, but nevertheless were concealed by her unrelenting need to remain undiscovered. She was drawn to Barton’s quiet, unassuming ways, and accepted his tedious conversational manner as evidence that he was no threat to her privacy. In each other’s company, Barton and Melissa relaxed.

It was May, and it was Tuesday. The day was warm and magnificent. It was springtime, the time of miracles, but neither Barton nor Melissa would ever have guessed that those miracles might also apply to them. From that finite, measurable moment, Barton and Melissa would never again be the people they had once been. And if they had been unable to sense the onset of this fundamental change in their lives, they can hardly be faulted for failing to understand that the changes did not end at their most magical point, the point at which their love seemed so inevitable, so intractable, that such a thing should rightfully last forever.

Sadly, it did not. Released from her prison, Melissa was a butterfly. She flew, and was beautiful, and was suddenly alive. Her love for Barton flourished in the summer sun, but could not survive the change of seasons. Like the Monarch, her love sought greater warmth as Autumn approached, and Barton abruptly became part of her past. Beyond Melissa’s control she had sought greater heights, greater love. She left Barton behind.

Like the Monarch, Barton’s life was dramatically brief. He chose his end. The remainder of Melissa’s story is unknown, but is subject to sad speculation. Because, like Barton, Melissa was a Monarch.

The average loaf of bread has approximately thirty slices. If an individual consumes two slices each morning, toasted and smothered with strawberry jam, your looking at fifteen days to complete one loaf. The average shelf life of a loaf is about one week. At this point small green dots of mold strategically take over, rendering the loaf undesirable to the consumer. I come to ponder, if there were still two of us would the bread get a chance to go moldy, or is it inevitable, that all thing grow moldy given time and the right environment. This is what I am left with in the early hours of the morning, stumbling to the kitchen from my poor nights sleep. Waiting as the crap-brand supermarket coffee percolates and fills the room with its substandard yet pleasing aroma.

Another metropolis of green and black molds have colonized the fruit bowl on the table, patrolled by those little hovering insects that seem to magically appear once fruit has expired. I watch as they go about their flight plans, almost effortlessly, while I reflect upon my hazardous aerobatics these days, now that she has gone. It’s only been two weeks. Two long, miserable weeks of self-loathing and depression. “We’ve grown apart.” What the hell does that mean? Fruit Loops and dried pasta stick to the bottom of my feet.

I know I will get over her. But for god’s sake, I really loved her. It was going so good, well at least I thought it was. Sipping at my three scoops sugar, two pours milk coffee; I scan the room stopping at each remnant of her presence, a Cosmo magazine at the edge of the couch, the picture of the two of us at Yosemite, the can of Lilac Park air freshener. I feel so pathetic. “I don’t love you anymore, it’s over, I’m moving out,” still echoing in my mind. I didn’t have the slightest notion that she was so unhappy, so over…..us….me.

I think of her with other men, laughing, smiling like we once did while nausea fills me. Worst of all, I think of her waking in the morning helping some guy finish his loaf of bread before it gets a chance to go moldy.

I grab our moldy loaf and toss it into the trash along with the rest of her belongings,make my way through the rest of my morning rituals and head for the door with the intention to start anew. No more bread, with its thirty slices, no not for me. Today I will purchase English muffins. Perfectly packaged, six in a box, so tasty with their nooks and crannies. And if that doesn’t work, hell, there’s always strawberry iced Poptarts.

It's the thrill of the thing, really. The whole time, looking into their eyes, seeing the love written there. Such a rush. To see how much they care, and all the time I know how it’s going to end . . . you can’t put a price on that feeling.

And it's so easy. Shamefully easy. They're all the same in the end. Blond, brunette, redhead. Tall, short, fat, skinny. It doesn't matter. Tell them what they want to hear, screw their brains out, and they'll take whatever you can dish out.

Once you've got them hooked, they'll do anything for you. Clothes, money, jewelry. A place to live. There was this one in Beverly Hills- he bought me a $10,000 ring. I pawned it for eight grand a week later. Beautiful.

The best part is, I know I'll never get caught. There's no crime in it. I checked. No law anywhere against jilting anyone.

So I get what I want out of it, and then I leave. Simple. Clean.

I don’t have to work anymore. I don’t pay rent. I pay for hotel rooms and food while I’m between marks, but that’s about it. And I like it that way.

It was just dating at first. Then one of them asked me to marry him. I don't know why I said yes. Moment of weakness, I guess. But you know what? The game was the same- I just got more out of it. I was on to something.

That first guy was the only one that hurt. I think I let myself get a little too close that time, when all those little girl lies my mom used to tell me started to actually come true a little bit. The dress, all of it. It was like a dream almost. But I woke up just in time. Dragged myself out of that dream and woke up. “Back to reality, girl. This isn’t who you are.” And I was right.

The second guy was easier. Some old cigar-chomping socialite, he always smelled like expensive whiskey and cheap old man’s cologne. It was a pleasure taking that S.O.B. down a notch. Oh, yes.

The best part is the looks on their faces. Watching their faces fall is my payback for hundreds of nights with them sweating and grunting over me in cheap hotel rooms. It's the sweetest vengeance to show them in front of everyone they care about that they were nothing to me, and never will be.

Someday maybe I’ll stop. I’ll find the “right guy,” and I’ll “settle down,” and everything will be white picket fences, two car garages, and happy faces in sunshine after that.

Yeah, right. Out here in the real world, you take what you can get, and you don’t look back. It’s when you start to look back that you get trapped.

I won’t ever be trapped. Ever.

Dear Journal:

Saw Alicia today at the park. Watched the sunset. She’s so beautiful.

Dear Diary:

Saw Jeff again today. Spent the whole day at the park, even watched the sunset together. He’s such a romantic.

Dear Journal:

Saw Alicia at the club tonight. Danced till dawn. She’s so beautiful.

Dear Diary:

Went to the club with Jeff tonight. Had a little too much to drink but Jeff’s a perfect gentleman. We danced till dawn. He’s so sweet.

Dear Journal:

Alicia looked wonderful tonight. Couldn’t help just watching her through her window from across the street. I know I love her and think she feels the same way.

Dear Diary:

Sick as a dog last week. Jeff was wonderful! Sent me flowers every day and even sent over homemade chicken soup from his mom. He’s so wonderful!

Dear Journal:

Thought Alicia might be mad at me but finally saw her today. Walked her dog and strolled through the park. Bought hot dogs and a soda from a vendor. She’s so beautiful.

Dear Diary:

Walked Duchess at the park today. Felt great to be out again after last weeks flu. Jeff asked me to dinner this Friday night. Told me it's going to be special. I think he’s going to propose. I’m so lucky!!

Dear Journal:

Bought a beauty of a ring today. Going to propose to Alicia on Friday. She’s so beautiful!

Dear Diary:

Waiting for Friday. Have gone through ten dresses and still not sure what I’ll wear. The anticipation is killing me. Jeff called today and told me he loves me. I can’t wait until Friday.

Dear Journal:

It’s almost Friday. So excited. Had to see Alicia today so I drove by her work. She’s so beautiful.

Dear Diary:

I’m so excited. Butterflies in my stomach. Went through three outfits and finally picked my black strapless dress with the white shawl and purse. I’m so nervous. Hope he doesn’t make me wait until after we eat. Wish me luck! Next time I write I should be an engaged woman!! I am so excited! Jeff is such a wonderful man! He’s so handsome!

Dear Journal:

I can’t believe it. I couldn’t wait till later tonight and went to Alicia’s apartment. As she came out in a gorgeous black strapless dress I dropped to one knee and held out a dozen roses. She looked a little irritated as she tried to rush past me. I grabbed her arm. She pulled away. I pleaded and begged her to marry me! She looked shocked. Like she didn’t know who I was. She was hysterical and screamed no at me. She looked horrified. I'm not sure what happened next. I’ve showered twice since I got home but I still can't get this red tinge off my hands. I can’t believe tonight happened. I just want to forget it!

P.S. Met Sally as I went to check my mailbox tonight. Kind of dark and couldn’t see real well but I think she’s so beautiful!

FBI Agent Jack Hanford shook his head slowly and then pulled on his black hair as hard as he could. He needed to feel the pain. He hadn’t slept in two days. He was afraid to sleep. He knew that Amy would be in his dreams.

What started out as a typical case had turned into a nightmare. He couldn’t keep her face out of his thoughts. Her simple and pretty face was contorted in pain, begging for mercy, pleading for help. He had to find her.

Agent Bill Webber showed him the internet header a week ago.

“Torturing Amy,” was the leader.

It was making the rounds on the internet and thousands were Spammed.

“Watch Amy beg for mercy as I torture her with every pain Known to Mankind.”

It made him sick. It made him even sicker last night when the team watched the first streaming video and saw this girl suffer,
“Day One, Level One.”
of inhuman thresholds of pain. They estimated that four million people watched the show. Six more days of torture were prepared.

As fast as they could shut down a server, two more would replace it.

Bill said, “He’s been planning this for months. We can’t find the source and he has drones all over the world. It’s worse than a virus. He’s infected servers everywhere to pull this off.”

The planning was methodical. Multiple servers were at his command. Whoever this freak was, he was an IT Genius.

CNN and other newsrooms had picked up the story. An innocent young woman was being tortured for seven days. Each night meant a new level of pain and humiliation. Even the President’s wife had called the FBI headquarters to stop this heinous crime. The pressure was on, but Jack didn’t need any other motivation but Amy’s pleading for mercy.

After last night, they knew who she was. Amy Petersen, a simple Midwestern girl, who had gone to LA looking for fame. She was brunette and lovely. Jack looked at her high school year book and saw a beautiful young lady who grew beyond her small town in Illinois.

Her face. He couldn’t get her face out of his mind. Her screams haunted his every thought. But then, there was Brutus, as the tormentor called himself.

He was tattooed all over his body. His long greasy brown hair flowed over his shoulders. Through the mask, that covered his face, you could see his rotting teeth. You could see his rotting smile as she screamed in pain. It had only been, "Day One." Tonight, another installment was due.

They had reviewed the video. The room was sterile. Not a clue to her location. Jack pulled his hair again and squirmed in his own pain.

Brutus had grabbed her hair and snapped her head back. Her terrified eyes screamed louder than her shaking words, “I’m so sorry I left you. Please don’t hurt me anymore.”

Jack swore he would find her.
He had to find her soon.

“The crime scene is secure, Sir. We have Officer Collins watching Mrs. Shlomer.” The vic—a one George Shlomer is in the family room. Death appears to have been caused by a sharp blow to the head. The weapon was an iron, GE brand—set on cotton.”

Det. Kane shot Officer Behrens a nasty look.

“Sorry Sir.”

As Det. Kane entered the family room, he could hear Ben Cartwright yelling at his son Little Joe for some youthful infraction.

George Shlomer sat in his recliner, eyes open, looking as if he was still absorbed in Little Joe’s antics. There were just a couple of flaws with that picture; the large bloody gash on top of George Shlomer’s balding head and the fact that he was dead.

“The alleged weapon is across the hall in the laundry room, Sir.”

“Thank you, Officer Behrens. Where is Mrs. Shlomer now?” asked Det. Kane.

“Down the hall, Sir. In her bedroom with Officer Collins.”

Det. Kane made his way down the hall and excused Officer Collins. He approached Mrs. Shlomer.

Agnus Shlomer looked to be in her 60’s. She was a small woman seated in a floral upholstered chair, her head bent over a pink dress clasped in her hands.

Det. Kane knelt down in front of her. “Mrs. Shlomer? I’m Detective Kane,” he said gently.

Agnus opened her eyes and offered a weak smile to Det. Kane. “Yes, I’m Mrs. Shlomer,” she replied in a quiet voice.

“Mrs. Shlomer, have you been read your rights?”

“Oh, yes. Officer Collins was most kind. I know I don’t have to answer anything, and I can have an attorney present.”

“Mrs. Shlomer, do you wish to answer any questions at this time?”

“I don’t see why not. I obviously killed him,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Why, Mrs. Shlomer?”

Agnus Shlomer sat up straighter and smoothed down her hair.

“I bore him 3 children,” she began. “I cooked, I cleaned, I nursed him when he was ill. I washed and ironed all his shirts and pants. I even scrubbed out his underwear stains! Just this once—just this once, mind you—I wanted a bit of attention. I simply wanted to show him the Easter dress I’d made for our granddaughter Emily. I did all the smocking by hand, you see?” lifting the dress from her lap to show the detective.

“It’s beautiful,” said the detective.

“It is, isn’t it?” Mrs. Shlomer laughed with tears in her eyes.

“I made the unpardonable sin of standing in front of his precious television to show him my handiwork.
And all he could say was, ‘Can’t you see I’m watching Bonanza? Get out of the way.’

“Forty-five years of him ignoring me. Forty-five years of him sitting in his lumpy recliner watching western sitcom reruns--Of him choosing Bonanza over me! Bonanza!” And she began to weep.

I’m sitting on the train in a crowded peak hour service when the woman smiles at me and she looks so much like her that for a second I think it is her. Sandra. Sandra who left me not more than 3 months ago. Sandra who was with me for nearing on 5 years. I never thought it would happen but now that I think back, I guess it was inevitable.

I can still see her clearly in my mind the day she did it. Waltzed straight out of my life without a backward glance. Her, leaning against the door jamb still wearing her black and white work uniform (the one I always told her she looked good in), twirling her hair around her finger as she always did when she was nervous and saying “Sorry Rob, I’m leaving, it’s just not working out. I’ve found a better prospect…..” A better prospect!

I get off the train and I stop at the supermarket to buy a TV dinner, my new staple diet. Today I go all out. Chicken and Roast Potatoes, Lean Cuisine Style.

I’m home, to my flat, a flat that looks like at least 3 or 4 people live in it. I maneuver through the piles of papers that need marking, pens, pencils, books and of course clothes. My clothes are everywhere piles and piles of dirty and clean clothes all mixing and fraternizing with each other so I can’t tell which is which. Hanging off the edge of my couch are at least three pairs of jeans and a lone dirty sock hangs off the edge of the TV as if it is trying to end it all.

In the kitchen I heat up my TV dinner in the microwave. In the corner, between the stove and the wall, an ant colony has formed. It is growing as I watch and reinforcements are constantly being called in. I watch a crumb of corn flake move slowly across the floor. I know I should be doing something to stop this. I vaguely recall Sandra using some special chemical Ant Flee or something. And yet I have come to an arrangement with these ants, a kind of eerie co–habitation which is working for the both of us. I convince myself that tomorrow I will scoop these ants up into an ant farm and the kids at school can study them for a science project.

I shower and marvel at the amount of hair that can build up in a bathroom. I wonder where it all comes from. There is black mould creeping beyond the grout. Further than it’s ever gone before.
I am at the mercy of the woman who left me shattered…..Sandra …employee number 5164 at Cleaners R Us. It’s time to move on. I pick up the phone and dial the number for Cleantastic Maids and Services.
A woman answers and I exhale “Hi, I’d like to hire a new housekeeper.”