HOLIDAY SINGS THE EGG DILEMMA - Cameron Pierce

I’m in the living room of an apartment that isn’t mine, making small talk with a woman who has vomited into the same bucket for at least half an hour. She says it’s her dog. She swallowed her dog and now she wants the crawly bastard back. That’s what she calls the dog. A crawly bastard. The apartment does not belong to her or anyone she knows. “But I’m not concerned,” she says.

“Why should you be concerned?” I say, because these things happen.

“But I’m not,” she says, and she pukes some more.

This is how I’m spending my last day on earth. Tomorrow, the World of Friends will arrest me and ship me to a slave outpost on Venus. I know this because the WoF sent a letter last week notifying me that I had been selected for their Venusian slave program, and that I should not try to escape or alter my sentence because the World of Friends only has my best interests in mind, and because they will find me if I make a run for it. Being a slave is a dream, they say. I’m supposed to take their word for it, and why wouldn’t I? A paw emerges from the woman’s mouth. She heaves again and a scruffy brown head pokes out, spreading the woman’s lips until they crack and bleed at the corners and someone’s knocking at the door.

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