meet you back at the hotel.”
“Do you ever turn off?”
“No,” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII with a smile.
Catrina waved at the president and the queen as they walked away. They turned a corner and Catrina turned to look for Thor. He was standing off to the side, leaning on his sledgehammer and staring at the roiling hole in the heavens. Catrina walked up to him.
“Well, shit,” she said, also looking at the broken sky.
“Yup,” said Thor.
“So, uh, assuming you’re right,” said Catrina, crowding closer to him, “what happens now?”
Thor put his arm around her and shrugged.
“The end of everything, I guess.”
Epilogue: Thor, God of Terrible Predictions
“Hi, this is room 218. Can I have a few more pillows sent up?”
“Why? Were the pillows missing?”
“What? No, no. I’d just like a few more pillows.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean ‘why?’”
“I mean what the hell, man? No one needs that many damn pillows.”
“Maybe I do.”
“And maybe you’re a jackass.”
“That’s no way to talk to a paying customer.”
“I’ll… It’s…”
“Ha! That’s right, Thor! Bring me my damn pillows!”
“You’re such a tool, Charlie.”
Thor hung up the phone, and then he hung his head.
“Motherfucker better take his time healing, ‘cause I’m breaking some damn bones once he does,” he muttered.
“Ease up, Thor,” said Catrina. “He got a fucking pole through his chest.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t have to be such a douchebag about it.”
“He’s not being a douchebag. He’s legitimately incapacitated.”
“Legitimately incapacitated, my ass,” replied the God of Thunder. “If you’ve got such a soft spot for him, why don’t you go bring him his pillows?”
“Fuck that, man,” said Catrina, putting her feet up on the desk. “You answered the phone, not me. You do it.”
“This is bullshit,” he muttered as he walked out from behind the service desk.
About the Author:
Eirik Gumeny is not ashamed to admit that he’s from New Jersey. He started writing at the tender age of five, when someone told him he had to, probably. He is the proud owner of an English degree from Montclair State University, which has opened many doors for him. Mostly at call centers. He’s also been employed as an ice cream counter jockey, a video store clerk, a copy writer for dollar bin kung-fu flicks, and actually once attempted to sell completely ephemeral credit card processing contracts to bodegas in a predominately Spanish neighborhood despite the fact that he does not speak Spanish. He was told it wasn’t a pyramid scheme, but he has his doubts.
Eirik has often been told his work is most likely influenced by drugs, an excessive intake of coffee, or a lack of sleep, but he’d prefer to blame Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, and Warren Zevon. Eirik’s stories and poems have been published in a number of online literary journals, including “Boy Meets Girl” at Thieves Jargon, “The Astrophysicist” at the late Saucyvox, “Storybook Romance” at the equally as late Green Muse, “Caffeine” and “Hector & Sheila & Kevin” at Defenestration, “Bagel” at Monkeybicycle, and “Last Exit in New Jersey” at Mud Luscious, among others.
Eirik has never been awarded a Pushcart, nor has he been nominated for one. He’s also never won a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer, an Olympic medal, or the NFC East. He did win a camera at work once, though. When Eirik is not writing or daydreaming about being on his book tour with his girlfriend, he’s probably asleep and actually dreaming about it. Or in his living room playing video games.
For more of Eirik’s writing go to your computer and navigate your way to http://egumeny.blogspot.com. To offer him huge sums of money as an advance on his next novel, email him at eirik.gumeny@gmail.com.
Acknowledgements:
Firstly, I’d like to mention that this book owes a great debt of gratitude to my job. Without the constant downtime and boredom, the story might not have started. And the constant stream of co-workers made it much easier to name my characters.
As well, I’d like to thank my professors in the English program at Montclair State. Specifically Dr. Nash, for laughing at my ridiculous take on non-fiction, and Prof. Lorenz, for encouraging me to keep this up.
Thanks to Uncle Paul, for giving me all those comics when I was naught but an impressionable youth.
Thanks to my family--Mom, Dad, Bryan, and Kristen--for innumerable reasons.
Thanks to Steve and Sarita, for constantly telling me I was better than I thought I was.
And thanks to Monica, for making me believe it.
Copyright
This novel is a work of fiction. Any mention of business establishments and locations is done in whatever that legally protected manner is that doesn’t get the author sued. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or otherwise, is entirely coincidental. Any resemblance to potential futures is… actually kind of disheartening, given the number of corpses it would take to accomplish that, but still, you know, pretty cool, if you think about it.
