Savage Tales

like that?"
    "I wasn't thinking. Do you want to talk to Dr. Jacoby about it?"
    "No."
    But I did. Dr. Jacoby had been my shrink until six months prior, when an offhand remark on his part had soured me on him and I never went back. He had always given me good insight into myself, but to crawl back to him out of fear and desperation was exactly the kind of thing he chastised me about.
    I lay in bed long after Caroline had gone to sleep, sweating and thinking, my brain unable to stop. Every thought a drop of rain on glass, could not stop. At some point I slammed my fist into Caroline and she awoke.
    "Why – did you hit me?" she said. I couldn't blame her. No way to awake.
    "I was wondering if this twin business really relates to us at all."
    "So you hit me?"
    "I was thinking that maybe this is all an elaborate ruse."
    "Why did you hit me?"
    "Like... what if this is merely some creature's attempt – or my own mind's attempt, there's an idea – to distract me from what's really going on. Caroline, when is the last time we made love?"
    "A couple hours ago."
    "That was the last time we had sex. I mean the last time we made love. The last time we kissed with anything beyond reserved coordination."
    "I don't know what you mean."
    I got out of bed and got dressed.
    "You never told me why you hit me," said Caroline. "You never hit me before tonight."
    "And I'll never hit you again. I promise."
    I drove the car through the slick rain until I got to Dr. Jacoby's house. His lights were off, but that meant nothing. He was a strange, nocturnal sort, hanging from metal beams like a bat late into the early hours of morn. I rang his doorbell. When he didn't answer, I knocked and pounded. Finally I turned the door handle and went inside (he never locked doors).
    It was about twenty degrees colder inside. The walls were an anemic sort of blue.
    "Doc?" I said. I had always called him that. It maintained a casual sense of formality. "You here? It's William."
    From the couch a draped figure arose that had been blended into the evening.
    "Doc!"
    "You knew me how?" he said.
    "This is your house."
    "Let me make you some tea."
    "Please."
    Eventually we got to the heart of the beef of the matter.
    "So you see I think this whole 'twin' phenomenon is just something to distract me, to keep me occupied."
    "To distract you from what?"
    "Caroline. Our marriage is a joke."
    "That would make this one of the most sophisticated distractions I have ever encountered."
    "Are you saying I'm wrong?" I said. "Haven't you seen The Matrix ?"
    "I haven't seen a movie since Caddyshack ."
    I absorbed the horror of the room. It was like a place where once a thousand kittens had roamed, but now it was full of dust and emptiness. The lack of coordination engineered by Dr. Jacoby's bachelor life had made it suddenly a frightening place to be.
    "I've got to get out of here," I said.
    "The reactionary mind."
    "You don't understand, Doc. I gotta get out of here!"
    "Where would you go? Do you think there is somewhere else?"
    I went for the door. As I felt the handle, I noticed immediately it had the gelatinous viscosity one never anticipates in a door handle. Forcing it open in its misshapen texture, the doorway revealed a brick wall. That was all.
    "You see, William, you can't leave."

BRAINWASTER

    From out of the blue the pepper shot up my nose and it orgasmed a painful sneeze into the world that rattled my sinuses gloriously.
    "Are you all right?" said Mom.
    "Aren't you supposed to bless him?" said Jake.
    "I'm fine," I said.
    "I bless you," said Jake.
    Mom never liked Jake, and now I didn't either.
    "I have some important legal papers," said Mom, "and I want you and Jake to look them over."
    "We're young, Mom, let us enjoy our youth," I said. But in truth I was almost nine.
    "We're beyond reading and stuff," said Jake, and I wanted to hit him.
    "Nevertheless," said Mom, "look this crap over."
    So we did. We must have sat in that McDonald's five hours looking over that lawyer gobbledygook and I'm not sure I understood a word of it.
    "Can we go home?" said Jake. "My eyes hurt."
    "For once I agree with Jake," I said. "Although I still want to punch him."
    "I don't condone violence," said Mom. "But I'm looking the other direction right now."
    I took the opportunity to pound Jake's arm a few times. Then I whipped out my calculator.
    "By my reckoning we've wasted nearly one hundred thousand seconds imbibing this crap, time we could've used to play video games, pet stray