April Fool's Day has long been a socially sanctioned occasion for lighthearted pranks. Like many traditions, the roots of this celebration of tomfoolery belie its modern celebration. In fact, April Fool's Day has a somewhat sinister origin that is seldom recognized today.

The genesis of the April Fool is said to have arisen some time during the early reign of Julius Caesar, prior to the adoption of the Julian calendar in 46 BCE. In those days, there was no month of April, and Martius (March) segued directly into Maius (May). As a means of testing the mental fortitude and gullibility of new recruits, Roman centurions used this time to perform a secret annual hazing of the rookies among their ranks.

On the last day of Martius, the greenest of the garrison were informed with great solemnity that Emperor Caesar's beloved dog, Aprilis, had unexpectedly died that morning. The young soldiers were further told that Caesar was subsequently so distraught that he had ordered a special day of mourning for his departed pet. All citizens were to stay indoors for the entirety of the next day, with business to resume as usual the day after that. Naturally, it was added, Caesar would be highly offended if he were to see anyone, even a Roman soldier, out and about on this day of collective grief.

It was gravely understood by everyone in the Roman military that insubordination of any sort was an intolerable offense punishable by death. To willfully disobey one's superior was to reserve one's cross at the next crucifixion. The dimmest of the fresh soldiers would swallow the tale of Aprilis without question and stay at home the next day, whereupon their official unexcused absence would be reported directly to Caesar. Because at least several new recruits would be missing, the emperor would perceive their simultaneous absence as a political statement of overt defiance. Naturally, he routinely had such offenders arrested immediately and put to death without trial.

The ancient historian Gaius Septimus wrote that no fewer than fifty unfortunate souls were executed due to this ruse over a period of fifteen years, with Caesar unaware of any duplicity the entire time. Among veteran centurions, any naive soldier who lost his life because he believed the wild tale of a day of mourning for Caesar's dog became known as stultus Aprilis, or an April fool. "Woe is the fool," observed Septimus, "who mourns the death of April."

Caesar was reportedly quite amused when he finally learned the truth about the violent hazings, especially as he had never had a dog named Aprilis (or any court pooch, for that matter). He was also impressed by the cleverness of his most loyal centurions, who had devised a way to effectively weed out soldiers who were unworthy of serving their emperor. In honor of their achievement, and in a rare display of his little-known sense of humor, Caesar incorporated Aprilius into the new calendar, inserting it between Martius and Maius. Because the existence of their cruel tradition became common knowledge, centurions moved on to other methods of hazing. The phrase stultus Aprilis, however, entered the public lexicon, whereby it became associated with exceedingly gullible behavior on the first day after the end of March. Hence, April Fool's Day was born.

The record of subsequent April Fool's Day observations is spotty for centuries afterward, and what little is known is of dubious credibility. The apocryphal Gospel of Mary debunks Jesus' first miracle at a Canaan wedding feast as a misunderstanding following her son's substitution of water for wine in a juvenile stultus Aprilis prank. Similarly, a very small minority of biblical scholars have advanced the theory that Lazarus helped his friend pull off another great gag some years later. Neither of these tales, however, are taken seriously in general academia.

The Dark Ages apparently put the kibosh on April Fool's Day, as the era did with most other nonessential elements of learning and culture. But Chaucer's Canterbury Tales reveals that the tradition did not altogether disappear, as evidenced by "The Miller's Tale," in which the character of Nicholas plays an Aprille Foolle joke on his rival (the bawdy incident involves literal arse-kissing and flatulence, which was the height of comedy in late Medieval times). Cervantes, too, references dia de los tontos de abril in Don Quixote when the title character successfully convinces Sancho Panza that the sum of 2 and 3 is 4.

Meanwhile, the artistic fervor of the Renaissance was interrupted by annual bouts of giddy buffoonery, most notably in the notorious sciocco aprile rivalry between Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. It was Michaelangelo who arranged an April 1st portrait sitting for Lisa del Giocondo and encouraged the Mona Lisa subject to adopt an enigmatic expression that Leonardo found maddening. Not to be outdone, Leonardo was discovered on a later First of April to have climbed the scaffolding within the Sistine Chapel in order to scrawl minute obscenities on the ceiling for Michelangelo to discover. Only the forceful intervention of Pope Julius II put a stop to the mischief.

Not long afterward, Galileo Galilei was finding himself under increasing pressure from the Vatican to recant his public support for a heliocentric model of the solar system. A partial page from his notebooks reveals that Galileo made an unsuccessful attempt to convince Pope Urban VIII that the whole thing was an April Fool's joke that nearly everyone had taken seriously, prompting the astronomer to perpetuate his statement as a means of avoiding embarrassment.

By the time of the Enlightenment, April Fool's day was an entrenched practice of Western culture, with numerous examples of its observation permeating the historical record. As Benjamin Franklin put it in Poor Richard's Almanack, "All hail the first of April, a boon for jesters, some say. Leave nothing to chance; beware that your pants may yield to thumbtack today." Not much has changed since then, as pranksters continue to welcome April with the ritual humiliation of gullible friends.

If you're not a fan of April Fool's Day, at least there is little more at stake in modern times than mild embarrassment. Should you fall victim to someone's mischief today, console yourself with the fact that the first stultus Aprilis had it a lot worse.

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When it comes to hitting the mark on test scores, one innovative educator at a San Diego charter school may be onto something. Ron Owens, a fifth-grade teacher at Cosner Exceptional Academy, has daringly defied conventional wisdom by putting pocket knives in the hands of elementary students. While many educators might cry foul at the very idea of ignoring zero-tolerance weapons policy, Owens has the full support of CEA's CEO and principal, Horace Cosner.

"The results speak for themselves," gloats Cosner. "Children who regularly participate in Mr. Owens' Mumblety Peg Club score anywhere from fifteen to thirty-seven percent higher than their peers on the Language Arts and Math portions of their state STAR tests."

Yes, mumblety peg, the quaint knife-tossing game that disappeared from schoolyards generations ago, is making a comeback thanks to Owens, and while no one can conclusively prove a causal connection, there is no denying that a correlation between the pastime and higher test scores apparently exists. What is it about this erstwhile bygone pursuit, a series of motions in which players fling knives from their wrists, elbows, shoulders and heads, that seems to sharpen student skills?

"Mumblety peg is all about the moment," explains Owens. Dressed casually and with a cherubic grin that belies his forty-three years, he produces a pocket knife from his desk drawer and pulls out its 5-inch blade. "You've got the tip of this blade resting on the back of your wrist, not quite heavy enough to break the skin but still sharp enough to remind you that it means business. One false move and you might be looking at a knife sticking out of your shoe. Not only that, but there's a lot of peer pressure to make that blade stick into the ground. I've never seen kids concentrate harder or longer than they do in the mumblety peg ring. And that's what you need to succeed on the STAR tests: sustained concentration."

He dismisses safety concerns with a wave of his hand. "Look, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that accidents never happen. They do. But it's nothing major, and I can promise you this: one puncture wound and a tetanus shot later, and you've got a kid who's never going to make that mistake again. In fact, the students who have had that experience are our highest-scoring test takers."

When Owens began the after-school club in 2006,  his first challenge was persuading skeptical parents of interested students to sign liability waivers releasing him, Cosner, and the school from legal responsibility in the event of injury. Once that hurdle was cleared, however, and especially after test scores started to climb a mere two years into the program, Owens had more applicants than he could accept. The CEA Mumblety Peg Club now has a waiting list of more than three dozen students hoping to secure the next open spot.

Wanda Johnson, a pediatrics nurse whose 10-year-old son, Kenneth, can be found tossing knives with Owens every weekday afternoon, vouches for the so-called mumblety peg miracle. "Kenneth started with Mr. Owens when he was in third grade. At the time, he was not, shall we say, a motivated student. That year, he became a mumblety peg maniac. He stopped wasting time with his iPod and video games. It was mumblety peg, mumblety peg, mumblety peg, all the time. And he became a voracious reader. By fourth grade, he went from 'Below Basic' to 'Proficient' on his STAR's. We're expecting to reach 'Advanced' this year."

None of this is surprising to Rafe Codell, president and founder of American Mumblety Peg Enthusiasts, a Florida-based non-profit seeking to restore the neglected game to its former glory. "This just confirms what we at AMPE have always known. Mumblety peg increases dexterity, fosters the growth of neural dendrites, and some preliminary studies we have funded indicate that it may also deliver up to fifty percent more oxygen to the brain. It's what we enthusiasts call a mumblety peg high. I think you're going to see a lot more knives on elementary school playgrounds really soon."

Codell may be right, at least if Owens and Cosner have their way. The teacher and principal have teamed up as educational entrepreneurs. Already they are finding success booking speaking engagements on the lucrative professional development circuit. This summer, they plan to introduce a series of workbooks targeted at teachers who are willing to try something new in order to increase student achievement.

"This is Mumblety Peg Math," says Owens as he holds up a pair of garishly colored trade paperbacks, "and this one is Mumblety Peg Reading. These are the foundational titles in a series that will gradually expand to cover all curricular areas. In fact, my wife, who has taught high school science for nearly twenty years, is currently writing Mumblety Peg Biology."

Meanwhile, Cosner takes care of the business end. "We're in the process of obtaining all of the necessary trademarks and domain names related to our venture. Mr. Owens has sacrificed a lot of time and effort developing the Mumblety Peg brand, so we have to be sure that no unscrupulous outsiders can capitalize on that. We really see this as just the beginning. With test scores expected to continue to rise, we'll be licensing Mumblety Peg Clubs across the country. I'm also reviewing bids from several leading manufacturers for the official Mumblety Peg Elementary Jackknife. It will be a quality product, properly weighted with a three-year warranty on the blade, so parents and children alike can rest assured that they'll benefit from the genuine Mumblety Peg educational experience."

If all of this sounds somewhat exploitative, Owens is quick to defend his endeavor. "Look, I'm an educator first and an entrepreneur second. You can't argue with the data. More mumblety peg equals higher test scores. And if that gets kids excited about learning, then I'm okay with that. Because at the end of the day, it's all about the kids."

And at the end of the school day, that's where you'll find Owens, cheering on his young charges as they flip knives from their wrists, elbows, shoulders and heads.

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NEWSCASTER:  And now, over to NewsForYou Nine's roving reporter Matilda Morris, who's standing by live at the Best Buy at the Big Shoppes at Birch Meadows.  Matilda?

MATILDA:  Thanks, Kent!  For the past several months, this parking lot has been a thriving community, a curb-to-curb sea of tents and shanties that have served as a home-away-from-home for several hundred of our city's most dedicated consumers.  They come from all walks of life, rich and poor, young and old, cyborg and android, but they are united in their passion for the latest in personal and home electronics at rock-bottom prices.  I have with me Scott and Sara Sanderson, who moved into Best Buy Bargainville in September when news was leaked that a limited supply of portable, self-adhesive wall mural televisions would be made available at the insane price of one thousand ameros.  Scott, is it worth it to put your life on hold for so long just to snag a great bargain?

SCOTT:  No doubt it's worth it.  Last year I waited until the end of October to get in line, and I came away empty-handed.  I'm not going to let that happen again!

SARA:  I told him he shouldn't even bother coming home unless he snagged one of those wall mural TV's.  Our youngest boy just has old-school, painted walls, and the kids at school have been teasing him about it.

MATILDA:  What's it like living here in Bargainville?

SCOTT:  Well, it's like one big, extended family out here.  You see the same people every year and get to know each other, so it's sort of our reunion.

SARA:  That's right, we consider these people to be family.

SCOTT:  Except in a few hours, when those doors open.  There's not a soul out here who wouldn't trample his own mother if that's what it came down to.

SARA:  And we wouldn't have it any other way.

SCOTT:  That's right.  You don't deserve it if you're not prepared to do what it takes to get it.

MATILDA:  Thank you, Scott and Sara.  And speaking of violence, I also have with me Sergeant Burt Brinkley, who is Tactical Commander of Big Shoppes at Birch Meadows security this year.  Sgt. Brinkley, you and your force of over a hundred private soldiers have been patrolling the area since Labor Day.  What is the mood of the troops now that Black Friday is just hours away?

SGT. BRINKLEY:  A little tense, Matilda.  No one has forgotten the Christmas Riot of '41.  It's my duty to secure the safety of our shopping public and to ensure that never again will so much retail acreage go up in flames.  To that end, we've spared no expense to stay on top of things.  Today's technology allows us to know precisely where each shopper is at every moment, the identity of whichever shopper first touches an item of available merchandise, and whether or not they've already exceeded their credit limit or, God forbid, if they have no credit at all.  In the event that merchandise is touched first by an ineligible shopper, the right to that item is forfeited to the next eligible shopper who has touched it.  Once an eligible shopper is identified, that shopper's ID is shown on the item display, and there's no disputing it.  Still, things can get out of hand, so you can bet we have a fully armored officer next to each display and every twenty meters in the aisles.

MATILDA:  What do you say to critics who claim that the shopper identification technology is vulnerable to hacking and therefore may allow inequitable highly-discounted merchandise distribution?

SGT. BRINKLEY:  I'd say, "Come on down here, and you deal with these nuts!"

MATILDA:  Thank you, Sergeant.  And finally, we have Best Buy Black Friday Regional Coordinator Gary Goins here to fill us in on the latest news behind the scenes.  Gary, are you ready for this crowd of hundreds who have been waiting so patiently over the last few months?

GARY:  Well, I certainly hope so.  I know that Sgt. Brinkley and his troops have secured the perimeter and are doing everything they can to prevent large-scale rioting both without and within the store.  For our part, we have reinforced the entrance windows and doors, installed additional padding at the ends of aisles and the vertices of all right-angled displays, quintupled the security cameras for 360-degree real-time-3D coverage, and strategically positioned a crack squad of sharpshooters in the rafters.  And we're handing out turkey-shaped sugar cookies to the first twelve dozen shoppers.

MATILDA:  Any concerns that your employees may not be up to the task?

GARY:  Not at all, Matilda.  Each of our associates is protected by custom-fit, crush-resistant body armor and has undergone a mandatory online training seminar in Black Friday crisis management.  We will be rotating shifts so that no one will be out on the floor for more than two consecutive hours, and we also have a Shopper Negotiations Team standing by in case things get ugly.  Really, it's all under control.

MATILDA:  How profitable do you expect today to be?

GARY:  Well, we'll move a lot of merchandise today, that's for sure, but anymore the actual Black Friday is just icing on the cake for us.  It's the three months leading up to it that puts us in the black, thanks to the various guest services that we have found our short-term residential customers have come to expect.

MATILDA:  And what sort of services are those?

GARY:  To start with, anyone who takes Black Friday seriously will see the value in becoming a Best Buy Bargainville Preferred Camper, which entitles you to a minimum four-by-six plot located somewhere on the property or adjacent leased lots starting on Labor Day.  Many of our customers know just how worthwhile it is to upgrade to a Plot License, which simply reserves your existing plot and gives you first dibs on its lease the following year.  But the greatest value over the long run for our most dedicated customers is to invest in our Best Buy Bargainville VIP program.  Those are the folks you see over there with priority Gold Circle Proximity Plots, featuring unlimited data streaming and complimentary recharging of all implanted personal electronics, plus the added bonus of being permitted to set up your living quarters and move in on the first of August.  And a ten-percent discount at the Bargainville Taco Trailer.

MATILDA:  Sounds wonderful, Gary, and good luck to you and your crew.

GARY:  Thank you, Matilda.

MATILDA:  And just a quick reminder to our viewers at home that it's not too late to come on out and join in the fun.  Doors will be opening in just a few hours.  Back to you, Kent.

NEWSCASTER:  Thanks, Matilda.  Great to see they're keeping the Christmas spirit alive down at Birch Meadows.  In other news, a local group of classic car enthusiasts will do just about anything to get their hands on the precious oil and gasoline that makes their historic vehicles run.  Details when we come back.

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An icy wind cut through the fabric of my jeans and numbed my legs as I paused under the streetlight at the end of the block.  When had it ever been so cold in October?  And where was everybody?  Our dark street was as deserted as it might have been on the bitterest winter night.  Even the dry and brittle leaves seemed lonely as they scratched along the pavement of the empty road.  My gloved fingers fumbled with the pillowcase that contained all that I had to show for the evening, a take that seemed disappointingly modest compared to the great hauls I recalled from Halloweens past.

With every exhalation I could feel my breath condense against my perspiring face, which was concealed behind the stifling latex of a full-head Frankenstein mask.  I pushed back the bulky cuff of my heavy coat to reveal my watch.  7:09.  Still nearly an hour of trick-or-treating left.  As I trudged onward, a rivulet of sweat trickled from the back of my mask and descended between my shoulder blades, causing me to shudder.  I let out a short gasp against my unforgiving mask, adding more moisture to the rubbery enclosure that was turning my expedition into an alternating series of smothering heat and quivering chills.

Where were the Reilly kids?  Where was Chuck Martin?  Did everybody just give up this year and go home early?  I reached Wiltshire and peered up and down the street in search of house lights and other signs of life.  Not a soul haunted the sidewalks, and only a smattering of homes had their porches illuminated, spread out down the block like cold and distant constellations.  I thought about turning around and going home, but then I raised my pillow sack and noted how little resistance was provided by the weight of its contents.  Mom had said that this year was it;  trick-or-treat was for kids, and next year I would be too old to put on a costume and walk around asking the neighborhood for candy.  This wasn't the way I wanted to remember my last year.

I didn't really know anyone on Wiltshire, except for Mr. and Mrs. Runyon, whose back yard ran right up against ours, and I knew they wouldn't be home because Mom had told me they went out to eat every year so they wouldn't have to hand out candy.  I was supposed to stick to only the houses of people I knew, but that was hardly anybody.  What was the point of even going if you didn't have a decent chance of filling your pillowcase?  Finally my parents got tired of hearing me complain and agreed with me that if I would be old enough to call it quits next year, then I was old enough now to walk alone around my own neighborhood.

I lumbered toward the nearest house with a lit porch, keeping my head down and peering through the narrow slits of my mask.  There was a really bad, uneven part of the sidewalk somewhere along here, and I didn't want to trip over it in the dark and smash up my face like Joey Metcalf, who once got seventeen stitches in his lip when he missed it.  When I finally reached the house, I walked up to the porch and discovered a large, empty wicker basket.  Taking a step backward, I noticed a little sign with someone's dirty shoe print on it under the bushes.  HONOR SYSTEM, it read in big, curly letters.  Take ONE and have a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

The next home with a light on was eight houses up the street, and when I got there, I remembered that I did know some people on Wiltshire besides the Runyons.  It was the Lewis house, and even with a sweaty Frankenstein mask on, I had a good enough head on my shoulders to know I should avoid it.  The Lewis boys were juvenile delinquents, in trouble all the time.  The older one had actually tried to poison their little sister, or at least that's what Chuck told me.  I stayed away from that family, and I sure wasn't going to accept any candy from them.  If anybody was putting razor blades in their Snickers, it was the Lewises.

By now I was in the middle of the block, and since I hadn't yet profited from my venture down Wiltshire, it seemed silly to do anything other than hit the homes between here and the corner.  I would actually be closer to home that way, so long as I continued around the block.  The next stop was a house where the curtains were still open, and I could see a television with some sort of game show playing on it.  I heard a very loud ring  when I pressed the doorbell, but it seemed to take forever before the door creaked open.

"Well!" croaked an old, white-haired lady with a kind, wrinkled face.  "What have we here?  Ooh, it's Frankenstein's monster, well I'll be!"

"Trick or treat," I uttered into my mask.

The old lady reached for a bowl brimming with popcorn balls.  "I haven't had many visitors tonight.  Maybe it's the cold.  Or maybe you're scaring all the other monsters away, eh?"  She laughed at her joke.  "Here, you go on and take as many as you like.  I can't eat them, you see, what with my dentures."

I couldn't tell her that I didn't like popcorn balls, and it seemed rude to take only one when she seemed so pleased to offer me as many as I wanted.  "As many as I like?"

"Why, certainly!" she crowed, her eyes darting momentarily toward the droning television.  She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and smiled at me patiently.

"Gee..." I stammered, unsure how to proceed.  She seemed very nice, and I didn't want to offend her.  I thought about taking two popcorn balls, but I wondered if that was as insulting as taking only one.  Three seemed like it might be the right number, yet the way the old lady pushed the bowl toward me and stretched her smile even wider across her wrinkled face made me think she wanted me to take even more.  Another stream of sweat ran from my mask down my back and caused me to shudder.

"You'd better take some quickly," she added as she glanced yet again toward her TV.  "I wouldn't want the cat to get out, what with the door open like this."  Again she pushed the bowl toward me, tilting it forward so that a single popcorn ball rolled off the top and dropped into my open pillowcase.  I peered upward through my mask and saw that she hadn't even noticed.  She was watching the game show.

I don't know what got into me at that moment, but suddenly the whole idea of beggar's night seemed ridiculous to me.  Here I was, chilled to the core yet sweating feverishly, holding out my sack for something I didn't even want.  And there was the old lady, starting to lose her grip on the quivering bowl and now totally absorbed in whatever was coming out of her television.  Judging by how ancient she looked, I guessed that it was just as likely her last trick-or-treat, too.  As another shudder rippled down my spine, I knew it was time for both of us to call it quits.

Before I could even consider the wisdom of my actions, I reached deep into the bowl and scooped the popcorn balls over the rim and into my bag.  I needed only two scoops to get them all.  At last the bowl stopped quivering, and the old lady turned from her television and stared down at the empty container.  Then she looked at me expectantly.

"Thank you, ma'am," I offered.

"Happy Halloween," she smiled, closing her door quickly.  The porch light went off, and through the window I saw her settle down on the couch.  The clock above her television showed 7:25.  I hefted my bulging pillowcase over my shoulder and headed for home.

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"Take that, Satan's minion!" cried Moe.

CHAPTER I

Three Days of Darkness!

            “Good grief!” exclaimed Moe Hardee as he perused the latest Parish Post.  He ran his fingers through his blonde hair and cast a worried glance toward his brother, Hank.  “It says here that Padre Pio has prophesied Three Days of Darkness!”

            “Gee,” remarked Hank, dark-haired and one year older than seventeen-year-old Moe, “that will sure put a crimp in our boating plans!”  Hank and Moe were the sons of famous detective Denton Hardee, and they had been looking forward to a weekend expedition on Bartlett Bay with their Mayport High chums.  “Read me the details.”

            “Well, according to Padre Pio, an enormous cross in the sky will signal the imminence of three days of darkness, during which the sun will not shine and demons will run loose throughout the streets.”

            “Holy moly!” reacted Hank, whose customary reserve and lack of impulsiveness had been rattled by the startling news.

            “And that’s not all.  The faithful are required to take shelter in a windowless room stocked with adequate provisions, lest they accidentally make eye contact with one of the demonic marauders or personally witness God’s wrath, which will condemn even believers to an eternity in hell.”

            “Gosh!  We better tell Dad!” concluded Hank.  The boys rushed through the house on their way to Denton Hardee’s second-floor study, but their progress was halted by their superficially tart yet fundamentally affectionate Aunt Bertrude, who would always put the kibosh on anyone running through the kitchen.

            “And just what do you two boys mean by tearing through the house like a pair of reckless hooligans?” demanded acid-tongued Miss Hardee, sister to Denton.  Though she had no tolerance for nonsense, Hank and Moe loved her, for they knew that underneath her crusty and rather unattractive exterior beat a heart of gold.

            “Why, Aunt Bertrude,” explained Moe, “we’re only on our way to tell Dad some vitally important news!”  He turned to his brother and gave a sly wink.  Hank grinned secretly behind a façade of non-grinning.

            “Not just now, you’re not!” thundered the old witch.  “Your father left for New York this morning on another important case.  So you can take your spoiled behinds right back where they came from, only this time walking.”  The boys drooped their heads and trudged out of the kitchen.  “And no sleuthing!” added Aunt Bertrude lovingly.

            Hank and Moe decided to take refuge in their well-equipped crime laboratory on the second floor of the detached garage.  Here they could formulate a plan without further intrusion from Aunt Bertrude.  “We could tell Mother,” offered Moe.  Mrs. Hardee was a small and attractive woman who quietly went about her business keeping the Hardee house.  Often she would pack delicious picnic lunches for the boys when they were about to embark on an afternoon of detective work.

            “We could,” allowed Hank, “but we better not.  I think demonic marauders and condemnation to an eternity in hell would only upset Mother.”

            “Yeah, you’re probably right,” admitted impulsive Moe, who was grateful for his brother’s habit of thinking things through before acting.  “Let’s ask some of the gang what they think.”  The young amateur detectives raced down the steps and mounted their motorcycles.  With the enticing aroma of a fresh adventure in the air, they kicked their starters and zoomed off toward the outskirts of Mayport.  Soon they were pulling up the dusty drive at the Horton farm, home to their friend Shep.

            Shep happened to be squatting down on the front porch studying an array of small objects spread around him.  He was so absorbed in his task that even the roaring of the Hardee boys’ motorcycles did not distract him.  When Hank and Moe neared the porch, they both grinned at their stout friend’s inattention.  At length, Shep looked up and noticed his company.  “Oh, hi fellows!  You’re just in time for the first-ever display of my newest collection:  food that resembles other things!”

            “Why, who would have guessed that you would take up an interest in food?” joked Moe, and all three chums laughed heartily.  Shep was known throughout Mayport as an enthusiastic eater.

            “Ah, but not just any food, you see.  Consider this potato, which I dug out of the ground myself.  See how it looks quite a bit like the head of our principal?”

            “Say, he’s right!” smiled Hank.  “What else do you have, Shep?”

            Their porcine pal rummaged among the other foodstuffs.  “Well, there’s this carrot that reminds me of a Saturn rocket, and you can see how this gourd is not unlike my jalopy’s carburetor, and that stubby little zucchini over there is just like my —”

            “Hey!” interrupted Moe.  “Look at this rhubarb!”

            “Oh yeah,” said Shep, “it’s like a little cluster of red Ticonderoga pencils, right?”

            “No, Shep, I mean the leaves.  Look at the vein in this leaf!”

            “Holy moly!” exclaimed Hank redundantly.  “It looks like a cross!”  Shep’s bulbous eyes darted quizzically between Hank and Moe, both of whom had suddenly become quite solemn.

            “What’s wrong, fellas?” queried the rotund one.

            “Listen, Shep,” explained Hank.  “This rhubarb leaf reminds us of why we came here in the first place.”  Both brothers recounted the news they had just learned from the Parish Post.  Shep’s frightened eyes protruded even further from their sockets, and were it not for the constraint of his skull, they might have popped entirely out of his head.

            “G-g-gee w-w-w-willikers!” stammered Shep.  “I better grab my scapular collection!”  Breathing laboriously what with his accumulated layers of fat, he disappeared into the house and returned shortly with a shoe box filled with various sacramental scapulars.  “There’s enough for everybody!  This one gives you the Sabbatine Privilege, which will get you out of Purgatory so long as you’re wearing it on the first Saturday after you die.  Oh, and you have to be pious, too.  This one is a fivefold, so in addition to the Sabbatine Privilege, you get more plenary indulgences than you can believe.  This one —”

            “What’s all the fuss?” came a gentle voice from behind the screen door.  Moe looked up to behold Shep’s sister Viola, who was as slender and pretty as Shep was not.  Viola was Moe’s favorite date, and it occurred to him that should he be confined in a windowless room for three days during an apocalyptic conflagration, he could do worse than to spend it at the Horton farmhouse.  Hank was having similar thoughts, though he envisioned himself piously ensconced within the fortified home of pretty, blonde Keri Pshaw, whom he dated regularly.

            Suddenly Viola cast her gaze above and beyond her brother and his chums.  “Say!  Look up there in the sky!”

            Shep, Hank, and Moe turned around and looked up at the cloudless summer sky.  There, plainly visible against the vibrant blue atmosphere, was an enormous white cross!

CHAPTER II

Confounded by Contrails!

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An early influence?

When children express their boundless imagination in writing, the results can be bizarre.  I am regularly reminded of this as a teacher of elementary-age students.  It is my privilege to observe their literary development at a formative stage, when their novice attempts to emulate various styles sometimes merge with their limited background knowledge to surreal and unintentionally humorous effect.

What I try to remember when evaluating student narratives is how incredibly strange my own attempts at storytelling were at that age.  As unusual as some of the student work I've encountered has been, none of it has surpassed some of my juvenile efforts in their breadth and depth of sheer weirdness.  Take, for example, The Glass Eye, a macabre stab at humor that I wrote circa second or third grade.  Its off-kilter flavor is apparent even in its byline, as I attributed the work to Edward Cramer.

Whatever compelled me to adopt a pseudonym is now beyond my ken.  All I can say is that I'm certain the moniker had almost no significance to me other than having the vague authorial ring I thought my own name lacked.  Did I think a pen name would increase the likelihood of readers taking my work seriously?  Who can say?  As evident in the following paragraphs, it's hard to get inside the head of Edward Cramer.

The Glass Eye

By Edward Cramer

One day a man was fixing some pipes.  He was a plumber.  Suddenly, he heard something rolling down a pipe.  He picked it up and saw that it was a glass eye.  “Now how did that get there?” he said, puzzled.  He finished his work and asked everyone if they had lost a glass eye.  They all said no.

I love that second sentence.  There's nothing more endearing in a child's writing than totally unnecessary exposition.  Incidentally, this mysterious setup is about as realistic as the story gets.  It's all high-concept from here on out.

            “I feel like a stupid Cyclops!” he said to himself.  The plumber didn’t know what to do.  He put the glass eye in his pocket.

I'm sure I must have felt quite clever inserting this mythological reference.  A youthful fascination with monocular creatures and prosthetic eyes was probably the kernel from which the entire story grew.

            The next day he was fixing some pipes when he heard something rolling down a pipe.  He picked it up.  It was a glass eye.  Now he had two glass eyes.  He asked everyone if they had lost a glass eye.  They all said no.  He put the glass eye in his pocket and forgot about it.

Just what might the plumber place in his pocket that he would not forget?  It would have to be something pretty weird... 

            Now the same thing happened over and over again, day after day, week after week.  The plumber had forty-eight glass eyes.  The plumber finally took up collecting glass eyes.

Well, why not?

            The next day he was fixing a sink and he heard something rolling down a pipe.  The plumber picked it up and saw that it was a head with no eyes, ears, teeth, hair, or nose.  He took the head home and put two eyes inside.

Good heavens.  I don't think a human head could make it down one of our heating ducts, let alone clear the water pipes.  Must have been an industrial-grade utility sink.

            Now each day he worked, he got more heads rolling down pipes.  Finally, the plumber had twenty-four heads.  He put the forty-eight eyes in the twenty-four heads.

It's a bit like Sesame Street, no?

            Two days later, he was working on a sink, heard something rolling down a pipe, and picked it up.  He had one hundred teeth.  This happened for four more days, and the plumber had five-hundred teeth.  He put the five-hundred teeth in the twenty-four heads with the forty-eight glass eyes.

Apparently I had no idea how many teeth are in a typical human head.  The average number is 32, and if we multiply that by 24, we produce a product of 768.  A collection of 500 teeth, assuming sufficient variety, would provide only 15 complete dental sets.  Now you know.

            Now the plumber decided to start collecting body parts.  So, as he collected body parts, he got more excited.  Two month later, he had twenty-four heads with twenty-four noses, forty-eight ears, five-hundred teeth, one million hairs, and forty-eight glass eyes.

That second sentence is particularly disturbing, isn't it?  It's the sort of thing you can get away with writing when you're under ten years old, but after that, beware the men in the white coats.  By the way, the hair estimate is also grossly insufficient.  With an average of 100,000 individual hairs on your garden-variety human head, a million strands would cover a mere ten heads.  Rather ruins the story.

            Now he wanted to get rid of the heads, so he flushed them down the toilet.  Two months later, the plumber was fixing his own sewage pipes when they suddenly broke in half.  All the heads he had flushed down the toilet came tumbling down.  The plumber was stuck with twenty-four heads.  He was really mad.

I don't know, if I were trying to get rid of two dozen heads, I certainly wouldn't want to take the risk of creating impenetrable blockages in my sewer line.  Still, you have to admire my childlike faith in the power of toilets to rid us of all problems.

            The plumber took the twenty-four heads, put them in a large box, and buried them under the ground.  The plumber was happy now.  He finally got rid of the heads.

            Two months later, the plumber had flowers in his back yard.  He went back to look at them and he could hardly believe what he saw.  The flowers had blossoming heads!

            Now the plumber was as mad as he could get.  He took his grass trimmers out and chopped the heads off the flowers.  He took the heads and put them in another box.

I don't think I was sophisticated enough to pun with the word head.  More likely I had seen a picture or cartoon of flowers with anthropomorphic heads.

            The plumber went to the airport and ordered the plane to be flown from the airport in New York to the tropics in Brazil.  Though for some reason, Georgia was in the way of the flight pattern.  The plumber lived in Georgia and this is what happened.

Oh yes, did I forget to mention that the plumber lived in Georgia?

            The plane lifted off and was in the air.  It went over Georgia when half of the plane crumbled.  The half that crumbled had the heads in it.  The heads dropped in the plumber’s back yard.

Oh, the irony!  The irony!

            There was nothing the plumber could do.  He was stuck with twenty-four heads with twenty-four noses, forty-eight ears, five hundred teeth,  one million hairs (not rabbits but hairs) and forty-eight glass eyes.

            Now the plumber was piping (HA, HA!) mad.  He put the twenty-four heads that had twenty…Oh, I’m not going through that again!

Now we seem to have taken a break from narrative in favor of experimenting with homophonic and occupational puns, as well as a dose of comically exasperated meta-commentary.

            Anyway, he put the heads in a new box and put the box in the trunk of his car.  He was driving his car when all the sudden (he timed it just right) a dead cow fell on his car and crushed it.

And while we're at it, why not throw in a wacky non-sequitur?  Probably inspired by Monty Python.

            The next thing the plumber knew, he was in heaven.  He looked around.  In one corner was a box.  The plumber went over to the box and opened it.  Inside were the heads.

            “Damn those heads!” said the plumber.  Right then the plumber saw God.

A shocking use of profanity from a tender mind, decades before South Park.

            “You shall pay for that,” said God.

            “How?” questioned the plumber.

            “Sell your soul to the devil,” replied God.  So the plumber did that and paid God forty thousand dollars.  “You forgot,” said God, “you’re already dead!”

One can only hope that the author's take on the monetary value of one's soul is at least as woeful an underestimation as his guesses regarding human teeth and hair.  And what's up with God in the role of trickster?  An odd theological stance from a young Catholic.

            “Oh, no!” cried the plumber.

Cue the muted wah-wah-wah horns here.

THE END

At last our storytelling train chugs into the station, and what a long, strange trip it's been.  As I consider the twisted tale penned in my own small hand, I am reminded of the adage, "The child is the father of the man."  Now all these years later, it's clear to me that I must have been adopted.

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Things had just quieted down in the east wing when the welcome silence was pierced by another bellowing shout from Room 11.  “Loo-eeeeze!!”

“Good heavens,” sighed Kaylee from behind the nursing station.  She brushed a lock of hair from her eyes and replaced the phone in its cradle.  “Doesn’t that man ever stop?”

“I can tell you’re new here,” drawled Janice as she checked items off of her clipboard.  “I don’t even notice it anymore.  It’s like the racket them geese make out on the patio.  Drives you crazy at first, but then you get used to it.”

“I don’t know if I can ever get used to that.  It makes me want to jump out of my skin every time he does it.  Imagine having a man shout at you like that!  Then again, I suppose poor Louise probably got so used to hearing it that she just tuned him out like you do.”

“Poor Louise?”

“Well, I’d say she was poor, having to put up with Mr. Francis until the day she died.”

Janice gave a hoarse laugh that died out in a series of coughs.  “Ah, honey, you know what they say when you assume!  Far as we know, nobody was putting up with Mr. Francis but himself.”

“What about Louise?”

“There’s never been any Louise that we know of.  Old Mr. Francis was a bachelor, didn’t have no kids, lived alone and never said boo to the neighbors about any Louise until they started hearing him shouting the name over and over like he does here now.”

Kaylee furrowed her brow.  “Well, that’s…odd.”

“And that ain’t the half of it!  Wait ‘til you see him with his hockey players.”

“His what?”

“Hockey players!  Had ‘em in a little plastic bag in the pocket of his robe when they brought him in.  They got little silver sticks and everything!  There’s even a goalie with a little face mask on him.  Oh yeah, old Mr. Francis and his hockey players.  Don’t even think about takin’ ‘em out his sight.  He keeps ‘em on his tray most of the time, except for the one little guy with the green hat.  He sleeps with that one.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Kaylee, her lips thinning into a grimace as she tried to suppress a giggle.  It was totally unprofessional to speak of the residents in a disrespectful manner, and she feared that they were on the verge of crossing that line.  As hard as it was to stifle her amusement, she reminded herself that there was nothing entertaining about the manifestations of mental illness.  Janice, a veteran of several nursing homes but of little sensitivity training, had a bad habit of poking fun at people who had no control over their eccentric behaviors.  Kaylee cleared her throat and spoke softly.  “Thank goodness poor Mr. Francis is here, where at least he’s safe and cared for.  He’s probably just lonely.  The next time he yells like that, I’ll calmly walk in and see what he wants.”

“Oh, but honey, that’s the thing.  He won’t tell you nothing when you look after him.  He won’t even notice you’re there.  I really don’t think the man’s lonely, odd bird that he is.”

“Maybe,” offered Kaylee diplomatically, “but there’s no way to know for sure, not if he isn’t having conversations with us.  The next time he gets upset again, I’m going to—”

“LOOO-EEEEEEEEEEZE!”

“Well, here’s your chance, Florence Nightingale,” grinned Janice.  She bowed slightly and gestured toward the hall, extending one arm like a theater usher.  “Enjoy the show!”

Kaylee reflexively bit her lip and cast an apprehensive glance at the open door to Room 11.  This wasn’t how she had envisioned her first day.  She had hoped to become a bit more familiar with the various protocols of Weber Estates before attending to any of their more confrontational residents.  Now that she had claimed the higher philosophical ground, though, she would have to follow through with her good intentions.

She was halfway down the hall, just a few feet short of Room 11, when Mr. Francis yelled yet again, causing her to check her balance against the near wall.  What in the world did the poor man mean by repeatedly roaring the name Louise?  Was there any sense to it at all?  Had he once known a Louise who had meant something to him?  Might he mistakenly take an unfamiliar nurse to be this mysterious Louise?  Kaylee gathered her courage and strode confidently through the doorway before she halted in a moment of unguarded shock.

The frail man sitting upright in his bed did not look like he possessed the lung capacity to produce more than a whisper, so wizened was his frame.  He was hairless save for two shocks of wispy, white cotton that protruded above his ears.  His cheeks were sunken, and tears gathered at the outside corners of his eyes before following rivulets down the wrinkled crevasses of his leathery skin.  Most startling of all was his bizarre attitude:  bony arms raised with clenched fists as though he were crossing a marathon finish line, and a defiantly victorious smile to match.  An assortment of miniature hockey players littered the folds of his bedspread.

“Mr. Francis?”

True to Janice’s prediction, he seemed to take no notice that someone had entered the room and was standing at the foot of his bed.  Slowly he lowered his arms, and then he began reaching out with his hands and retreating repeatedly, like a child opening and closing dresser drawers.  Not once did he regard her in any way, but his head swiveled suddenly and his eyes darted here and there in a long series of convulsions.  At last Mr. Francis let out a prolonged and satisfied sigh before falling back onto his pillow.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, honey,” called Janice from the hallway.  “He does that every time.”  Her shuffling footsteps faded until Room  11 was uncomfortably quiet.  Mr. Francis had closed his eyes and was drawing long and raspy breaths.

Kaylee looked about the room for clues but found no traces of her patient’s identity.  All of the furniture was standard issue, and there were no photographs anywhere.  No personal effects at all, except for the miniature hockey players.  Was there anyone alive who could provide his history?  If so, did they even know that Mr. Francis was here?  Most likely the decrepit figure before her was once a highly-functioning, productive member of society, but now he was reduced to living out the rest of his existence trembling and repeating a meaningless name.

Suddenly Mr. Francis’ left leg twitched violently, sending a pair of hockey men clattering to the floor.  Kaylee reached down and retrieved the figures, which were painted in garish shades of yellow and red.  She placed them carefully on the bedside tray and noticed that the remaining miniatures were all balanced precariously near the bedrail.  One by one she extracted each little hockey player and placed it with the others until the one miniature with a green helmet remained, perched just below the pillow near Mr. Francis’ gnarled neck.

Leaning in to examine it closely, Kaylee noticed the sharp edges of the tiny hockey stick’s blade.  If Mr. Francis were to roll over, there was a minute possibility that he could inadvertently puncture his carotid artery.  Really, this was a danger that the other nurses should have recognized.  Letting a senile, non-communicative resident who is prone to tremors and possibly seizures sleep with a potentially hazardous object was unacceptable.  She slowly reached out and secured it in her palm.

Before she realized what was happening, a cold and icy grip was clamped around Kaylee’s wrist.  The old man was holding on to her!  His strength was supernatural, and she could not free herself.  Terrified, she tried to access the call button, but it was beyond her reach.  She was on the verge of screaming for help when she saw that Mr. Francis was looking directly at her, and her voice deserted her.  His gaze was steely and unrelenting.  He had her wrist pinned firmly to the mattress.

Then, without breaking his stare, he raised his free hand before her quivering face.  Desperately she struggled to break free, but her efforts had no effect.  He was going to do something to her, she somehow knew, grab at her eyes or disfigure her in some way.  She pulled back with all her strength until she saw that he appeared to be signaling her.  He was extending his thumb and index finger at a right angle, curling the rest of his digits against his palm.  It almost looked like he was attempting to sign the letter L.

She felt herself let go of the green-helmeted hockey player, and instantly Mr. Francis released her.  A bright red mark encircled her throbbing wrist.  She stepped away from the bed as the old man gathered his treasured toy into his hand and tucked it against his heart.  The room was quiet once more.  Kaylee stepped silently toward the door.  As she crossed the threshold, she thought she heard a whisper from behind her.

“Louise!”

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What if people could bank, sell, and buy their sleep?

It doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with a sleeper or a dynamo, every service call on a Dynadorm unit leads to an angry or incoherent customer.  That’s why there’s such a high turnover rate for us service techs, never mind the money.  I don’t care what kind of debt you have hanging over your head, the first time you get assaulted by one of these people, no amount of compensation seems worth it.  It’s not the physical trauma of it, it’s the terror of dealing with the unhinged.  There’s nothing more dangerous than some sleep-deprived zombie who’s counting on you to get up and running again.

I’ve had all sorts of weapons pulled on me, dodged my share of thrown objects, and more than once I’ve been forced to threaten a client.  Dynadormophis tells us not to in the handbook and every training session, but they know what goes on at the front line, and you do what you have to do.  They’ll never admit it – that’s what keeps the lawyers off our backs – but every rookie soon learns that corporate doesn’t care what we do so long as the green keeps flowing.  And they expect the green to keep flowing.

After all, it’s the service contracts that keep us in business.  You can rent a Dynadorm fairly cheaply these days, relatively speaking, and outright buying one is within reach of some, but you’d be a fool to think that’s the extent of your investment if you expect the thing to keep working.  I see the same scene over and over again.  That first call usually comes sometime in the first or second year of operation, by which time the unit is well out of warranty and its owner has become financially, emotionally, and/or physically dependent on it.  They can’t believe that the call is going to cost so much, swear up and down that nobody in sales ever made the cost/benefit ratio of a service contract clear to them, then finally stop stamping their feet and cursing long enough to accept our generous offer of applying seventy-five percent of their bill toward a long-term contract.  After that, they’re pretty much hooked.

Dynadorms are actually amazing machines, when you stop to consider it, and given the Rube Goldberg assemblage of theoretical biophysics and fairy dust that makes it all work, nobody should take for granted that they run at all.  Fixing the contraptions requires the knowledge of an engineer, the precision of a surgeon, the intuition of an artist, and the faith of an evangelist.  That’s what our clients fail to understand.  We’re not overeducated grease monkeys following flow charts here.  We get paid a hefty commission because very few people have what it takes to nurse an ailing Dynadorm back to health.  What’s more, we need a psychologist’s insight and a soldier’s brawn to deal with the clientele.

“Time is money, you big, fat moron!” one of my wealthier customers once screamed in my ear as I peered into his smoking console.  I could smell the coffee evaporating off the unit, noticed the concentric sweat rings of a mug on his old-growth hardwood desk, but this guy insisted that he did nothing more than switch it on when sparks shot out of it.  And he called me a moron.

“Mr. Reynolds,” I addressed him curtly, “your contract excludes console damage due to immersion or exposure to excessive moisture or liquids, which, I might add, is why we recommend that Dynadorm units be kept away from any area where beverages are consumed.  That means-“

“You son of a bitch!” he growled.

“That means, of course, that the cost of this repair will be billed to you.  Should the unit be damaged beyond repair, we cannot refund any portion of your existing service contract, though we are offering a ten percent rebate on upgrades, and you can apply the remainder of your contract toward the new unit.”

Mr. Reynolds was coming down, big time, and he and I both knew it.  He ran his trembling fingers through a thinning tangle of graying hair and stared at the panorama of skyscrapers below us.  No doubt he had a number of deals on the line this morning, if the numerous spreadsheets and legal documents on his monitors were any indication.  A less hectic day might have afforded him the luxury of real sleep if necessary, but now was no time to indulge in risky behavior.  Who knew when he had last slept?  The wretched man was minutes away from collapsing into dreamland and staying there for the rest of the week.

“Alright…alright…,” he managed in a quavering voice, ”…alright then…fix it right now or give me the upgrade…I’ll even sign for an emergency boost if I have to, but…” he leaned against the window, “only…only if I absolutely have to.”

Some of the guys I know would have whipped out their emergency boost release and shot him up right then and there, but somebody has to take the higher ground these days.  Sure, Reynolds is screwing anybody, anytime, any chance he gets for as much as he can, but that doesn’t mean I have to.  At least – forgive me for saying so – but at least I can sleep at night.

I disconnected his old 3000 and pulled it out of the rack, because you can’t so much as spill an ounce of Coke or coffee on it without blowing out the circuitry and toasting its gamma drive.  He was lucky he didn’t ruin his storage as well, especially since he had already banked a good month’s worth of repos, but his card tested clean and I was able to slip it into his new 3500.  Now he could download repos online straight to his Dynadorm, if he cared to, though a dynamo like him probably bought his credits for much less through a dealer.  If you’re not going to sleep at all, the habit can get quite expensive.

“Okay, Mr. Reynolds, we’re booted up and ready to go.”

He had plugged in before I could ask him whether he was renting or buying, though for Reynolds, such questions were mere formalities.  He was a different man in a few minutes – they always are – flush with adrenaline, free from tremors, and focused in the eyes.  With the ebbing of his paranoia came the onset of rising confidence, evident in the speed with which he finished the transaction and ushered me out his office.  He showed no signs of remorse or even knowledge of his rudeness, which was not surprising.  Once a dynamo recharged, all drowsy faux paux were left behind like a bad dream.

Sleepers are a different breed, still potentially dangerous but more out of desperation than greed.  I’ve had to threaten a few with physical violence as a matter of self-defense, but most of my intimidation of sleepers involves not-so-subtle reminders that I’m repossessing their Dynadorm if they fall behind on payments.  Some of them have actually fallen to their knees and groveled at my feet.  Pathetic as that sounds, it’s nothing compared to the tomblike atmosphere of their squalid homes and the grim faces of their children.

I might forget to pack a gun if I’m in a hurry to respond to a fat-cat dynamo downtown, but you can be sure I never go down to the bottoms unarmed.  I wouldn’t even take sleeper calls if corporate didn’t force us to, but ten to one it’s the sleepers whose units break down, thanks in part to the reconditioned rentals we give them.  Most of the time they’re desperate enough to sign a service contract, and Dynadormophis probably makes more money off of them than the dynamos.  For every sleeper who gets his Dynadorm repossessed, there are five more poor souls who have scraped together enough of a deposit to give it a shot.  When they can’t hack it anymore, others are ready to take their place.  Like an infestation of carpenter ants, there’s never any shortage of sleepers.

Ask any tech and you’ll get the same answer:  you’re taking your life in your hands just getting to your sleeper.  We’ve lost a few guys who got caught in the crossfire or were just plain jumped before they could get to the right address.  You have to double-check your calls, too, because every punk knows what’s inside a Dynadorm, and they’ll kill you just to strip it and get a week’s worth of groceries or half a tank of gas.

That’s why a sleeper will always ask you to hold your tech ID up to the peephole.  You stand there for a minute or so, sometimes there are shots in the distance or uncomfortably close, and finally half a dozen deadbolts turn and you get to come into some hole where you never wanted to be in the first place.  Sometimes it’s not even the sleeper who answers the door, it’s one of the kids.

Once I was shown in by a little brown boy who couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old.  He had that hardened look of a kid who was raising himself, and every dirty dish on the couch and towel on the floor indicated the same.  He rushed into a pitch-black bedroom and started calling out, “Mama!  Mama!  He’s here!  The sleep machine man is here!  Mama!  Quit wastin’ your sleep!  Wake up, Mama!”

Mama fixed me with the classic sleeper stare as my eyes adjusted to the dim surroundings.  She was too out of it to be angry.  Talking to her was like trying to wake up a teenager before dawn, and though she looked haggard as anything, she probably wasn’t long past the teenage years herself.

“Ms. Johnson, it’s not banking your hours?”

“Wha?” she whispered, a strand of drool stretching from her open mouth.

“Your Dynadorm.  It won’t give you repo credits when you’re sleeping, right?”

She shook her head and looked like she might plop back down on the bed without warning.  “It don’t work no more.  I got nothin’ to sell.  I won’t be able to make no payment if I got nothin’ to sell.”

Even as she spoke I could see the problem, and it had nothing to do with her rental unit.  These sleepers, especially the young ones, get their schedules so screwed up that they don’t know up from down, and then they stop taking even basic care of themselves.  I don’t know what happened to the cover of her docking port, but you could see all the crud that had built up on the contacts after they got exposed to everything that came in contact with her head.  Probably tried to take a shower with the cover broken off.  Lucky for all concerned that it’s a simple and inexpensive swap-out.  She didn’t like it when I made her lay still and pulled her chip out, but I had the replacement in before she knew what hit her.  By this time she was so exhausted that you could practically see her income circling down the somnambulistic drain.  I got her boy to sign off, and I plugged her in.  If she had her wits about her when the eight-hour bank alarm sounded, she would see a nice display of repo credits before she unplugged and slept for herself.

The boy never said a word as I packed up my gear and headed for the door, but he fixed his unblinking eyes upon me as though I were likely to steal something from him.  I heard the deadbolts as soon as the door shut behind me, and I’m certain he yelled something after the last lock turned, though what it was I couldn’t tell.  Whatever it was, he better not have disturbed Mama.  Even the little ones learn quick:  never wake up a sleeper on the job.  That’s why we have bank alarms.

No question it’s a high-stress job, dangerous and demanding.  But outside of our work, a tech lives a pretty good life.  Sleepers spend most of their lives in bed, barely making enough to cover their costs and stumbling through their waking hours in a haze.  Dynamos make more money than anyone can imagine, but then they never stop working either.  We techs are like a throwback to the Twentieth Century:  on call for forty hours a week.  I get a solid six hours of sleep every night, and that leaves me with eighty-six hours a week to spend my money however I please.

And just like Reynolds likes to bark, time is money, right?

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