Going Up

For two office workers, an elevator ride becomes a growing, swelling, sloshing experience as they're turned into a big goofy toon wolf and gator. Mature.

On one side of the elevator stood Andrew. On his way back from a late lunch, he hadn't expected to run into anyone he knew. Okay, 'knew' was a bit of a stretch, since he didn't even know her name, but he knew she worked in Legal up on the fifty-second floor, that he was intimidated by how good she looked in a pantsuit, and that he wouldn't be able to say a word to her without stumbling over his own tongue.

On the other side of the elevator was Breana. She'd just gotten out of a meeting with one of their clients. She couldn't help feeling a little jealous of Andrew, who didn't have to haul out a stuffy suit jacket or wear heels every time he had to meet someone new. She didn't know his name either, but she recognized him from the couple of times she'd been down to Finance on the forty-third floor. They'd never had the chance to talk before.

"So," she said, breaking the silence as they waited for the doors to close. "You like Dopey Ditties?"

Andrew was caught completely off guard. "Um, what?"

"You have a, uh, B.B. Wolf mug on your desk." Great idea, she thought, kicking off a conversation with old cartoons. Not weird at all. "I always liked Al A. Gator."

"Oh. He's pretty cool," Andrew said, for lack of anything better to say.

The doors swung shut on the lobby and, mercifully giving Breana an excuse to go quiet again, the elevator chimed, "Going up."

The two of them were about to get know each other real well.

Heart's Desire [Illustrated]

Three friends play a fortune-telling game to grant their hearts' desire, but is it really giving them what they want? Explicit.

Cole stood beside the cabinet, like he was presenting it to them. "It's like a fortune telling game, but it's got special rules to it. You play it with a bunch of people, you get one fortune per day, and the first person to get to five 'blessings' wins."

"Wins what?" Tricia asked.

Cole pointed to one of the rules. "Your heart's desire."

Alex made a soft snort. Cole grinned. Tricia was starting to smile too. It was a cheesy old game.

"So, want to give it a shot?" Cole asked.

"That's what we're here for," Alex said. Even if it was silly, it was something they could all play together.

Alex stood up, fished one of the tokens out of the open coin return, and dropped it into the slot. A tinny recording of a sitar played as the cards on display in the booth swirled around and the lights on the outside flashed on and off in a spinning pattern.

A slot in the front spat out a yellowed card. Alex picked it up, then moved to the side. Tricia stood by her after getting her own fortune, and once Cole got his too, they all turned to face each other.

A Tale of the Diluvian South

A folk tale from a flooded world about finding your way.

Way back, even before the waters came pourin down, Old Man Eli was feelin mighty angry. He gone and had Mami make them people, all the people down in the world. But they wasn't doin they job like he liked. They was making all kinds a noise and fuss and it made Old Man mighty angry. So what Eli do he start cryin. He don't want to bother no more. Big ol tears come rollin down his face, come rollin off his beard, come hammerin down onto de ground. Old Man Eli he gone wash them away with his tears.

Now down there with the people there was a girl name of Alice. She ain't nothing special, just a girl with a lotta sense. She work at a paper, writin down words other people done said and other people gone read, and she loved that job.

But then Eli's tears come, and the water came risin up from the ground and washin down from the sky. Whole town done start to panic, and back in those days towns was big, like you ain't even know half the people livin there. That's how big old towns was.

Voodoo To You Too

A woman stuck in a swamp winds up getting all big and gatored via voodoo. Explicit.

Erica's car had been rumbling along faithfully for hours, but the twists and turns of the road turned back upon themselves so many times that she was utterly lost. Lost, and in the middle of the swamps somewhere in the god damn ass end of Georgia. And it had been getting steadily darker, so by now, all she could see were the unnervingly bright shapes and elongated shadows of gnarled bare branches.

She was about ready to just say 'fuck it' and try to turn around to go some other way, when her high beams hit a hand-painted sign pointing down a dirt road, which said 'Mama Zola's'. Well, she had no idea who this person was or what they did, but just about anyone could help her at this point. She just wanted to get to the nearest town.