A bit of make-up, here. Whoops.
A New Way to Pay Old Debts

This is boring:

There’s a play with this title in my Renaissance Drama anthology. It’s a great title, bright and clear and sounding like some forgotten pop song from 2002. I almost want to write a story to fit it and I almost want to read the play that goes with it. But I won’t; I don’t very much think I could do something myself that might equal the title, and I rather doubt that the original playwright could either. That’s one thing Shakespeare got right usually: titles after names aren’t difficult to live up to. Titles like “A New Way to Pay Old Debts” are, and it’s a terrible thing when a story can’t live up to its title.

* * * * *

Dreams of Mice

I woke up last Wednesday early and before my alarm. The room was light with winter morning air, and I didn’t know where I was for a minute, lying in bed half awake half asleep. And I thought of the mice that live in the dorm, coming out through holes in the closets and under the radiator, scrabbling for crumbs and waiting, waiting, waiting for the first sound, first rustle of sheets in order to dart back into the dark and safety.

It was an interesting Wednesday, better than the previous one because I didn’t have to seem pretentious in Rhet, but that moment set a surreality to the day’s events that I found impossible to shake – one of those times when I find myself wondering why I drank or smoked before remembering that I haven’t. I’m not sure if I like them.

* * * * *

Sailing Through

“What I do,” said Ryan as he opened the drawer, “is go through every room in the hotel and check the Bibles.”

“Check them? What do you check the for?” I asked, leaning on the door frame, “You’re not even religious, are you?”

“If I wanted to waste time, I’d do it with something other than cleaning out the rooms,” he said. “No, I’m checking for money.”

“Why would there be money in a Bible?” I asked. If every night on the job was going to be like this one, it might not be such a drain after all.

Ryan looked at me like I’d turned into one of those space aliens from the movies. “Okay, look. Religious types come through here, and they figure they’ll do a good deed: they leave money in the Gideons, so the next person who turns to God or whatever finds an answer.”

“An answer?” I said. “How’s money an answer?”

“Hell if I know,” Ryan said, “But I’ve found about a hundred dollars worth of them since I started looking.”