Master Dung’s study was silent. So silent, in fact, that one might have been able to hear a gnat passing air, if only an obligingly flatulent gnat had happened nearby.

Tuesdays are the worst. They are the spoiled leftovers of Mondays, repackaged with a new expiry date.

Without language to give them shape, memories are just like houses with no walls. They’re merely events seeking to chain themselves together into causes and effects; survival unhindered by narrative.

An Irish pub, such as you have seen a thousand times before. The kind where the emphasis is on the “ish” rather than on the proud name of Éire.

What makes the Arctic VarChar so unusual and popular is that each bite has a different taste. As you carve your way into the ersatz fillet, you might find yourself chewing on smoked salmon, tender tuna, marinated mackerel, seared snapper, raw roe, baked barracuda, grilled goldfish, or even pickled perch, to alliterate just a few.

It was all kind of fuzzy, as if his mind was doing its thinking in limericks.

Behind the cool mask of bravado, past the one-way mirror of his mind, underneath the rock-solid layers of self-control, in the Zen garden that was Master Sewer’s soul, a high-pitched anxiety fart rustled through the still leaves. If farts could talk, this one would have said, “Damn coppers!

Buggeroff, enchanté!

FEBRIZIUM();” said Buggeroff, and the foul smell immediately disappeared as if by, well − Magic.

Are you single?” inquired − rather bluntly − the email titled “Career Opportunity.