I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom

by Jason Pargin

At this stage, Abbott was considering this request in the exact same way he’d have considered a request to be transported to Venus in exchange for a baggie of rat turds: He just wanted out of the crazy conversation as quickly and safely as possible.

As Malort backed up, he leaned out his window and said, “Never challenge a man in a Buick. He’s got nothin’ to lose.”

“Instead of just saying what you’d prefer, you off-load the choice to someone or something else. Instead of ‘I don’t want to hang out with you,’ it’s ‘I have work that night’ or ‘I’m not feeling well.’ Nothing is ever expressed as your own needs and wants, so you never have to defend your choices or own the consequences later. I used to do it all the time.”

I remembered I have to get my brain pills refilled and realized how ironic it is that they’re for my anxiety, but nothing gives me anxiety like the prospect of running out. Or maybe that’s not ironic—does anybody know what that word even means?

He felt a weight roll off him, the exquisite relief of canceled plans that extroverts will never know.

SteveReborn: Will an overheated laptop on your lap lower your sperm count? Tremors3: God I hope so.

“Yes, in the sense that it’s technically possible that every stereo stolen from a vehicle in the last ten years is secretly being assembled into a gigantic sonic weapon that, when activated, will cause everyone on earth to simultaneously shit themselves.”

“And that’s the kind of thing you spend your retirement worrying about? The bureau’s reputation? You know what a lot of retired feds get into? Alcoholism. It’s not just for the boys anymore. I went to Whole Foods the other day—they’ve replaced twenty percent of their floor space with shelves of mom wine. You should give it a shot. They call it a disease, but the sufferers seem to be having a great time.”

She scanned the shelves of unregulated supplements that promised improved sleep, focus, and sexual virility. “You need anything from the bullshit aisle?” Abbott studied the herbs and oils. “Jesus, that one is sixty bucks.” “Placebos work better when they cost more; it’s science. Seriously.”

“It’s not a catastrophe! You’ll walk up to the counter and tell them the situation, and they’ll figure it out. What’s the worst that can happen, you’ll do it wrong and it’ll be awkward? It’s weird how scared people are of that these days, the kids call it cringe, like that’s the worst thing that can happen, messing up a real-life interaction. Nobody has people skills, because they stay home all the time, so they’re scared to do anything but stay at home because they’re afraid of being weird in public or getting caught on camera and mocked by millions of strangers. It’s an isolation vortex.”

what was life but a series of hard jobs you had to endure because you’d screwed up the easy ones?

I remember you being extremely excited to move on to the next phase of your life. You mentioned at least four hobbies you were already buying the supplies for.” This was true, but it turned out that Key’s actual favorite hobby was buying supplies for hobbies. She didn’t really get any joy out of the next part, and it was starting to get expensive.

“This might seem like a personal question,” said Ether, “but do you ever just spiral into an all-day masturbation frenzy?”

If somebody goes mining into your past for stuff to bring you down or embarrass you, they should be treated like the bad guy.”

I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.

“Do I need an attorney?” The answer to this question is actually yes, every time, regardless of whether you’re being interviewed as a suspect or a witness, as law enforcement absolutely does not have to tell you which one you are.

Abbott was still enraged but wasn’t totally sure who to be angry at. Maybe everyone. The goblin, Ether, himself, that guy in the truck with his tiny goatee. Fuck him and the horse that rode in on him.

in isolation, human minds tend to get strange, like a self-portrait painted from memory, in the dark, using a live snake as a brush.

They fell into silence until they reached another town and stopped at an establishment with the most alarming name for a business Abbott had ever heard: the Bald Knob Truck Stop.

It’s like I’ve woken up in a world where everyone not only believes the earth is flat but they’re really, really angry about it. And they reject any evidence to the contrary because they prefer to be—” “Oh, goddamn it,” grunted Abbott. “It says these Takis expired a month ago. Shit, I knew they tasted off.”

“Oh, the Killdozer guy! Yeah, I heard about that. I kind of like his style.”

“Sonny, you didn’t come out of the womb knowing those ugly words, and cursed be the man who taught them to you, for he was doing the devil’s work, and it’s that same serpent that wants you and I to fight right now.”

She paused to dump sugar in her coffee, knowing it was no longer hot enough to dissolve it. Sometimes she liked to have a little puddle of granules at the end; it was like the coffee’s dessert.

As soon as the gate closed behind Malort, they checked his stolen pickup with bomb-sniffing dogs and made him explain five different ways that he was there to fix the broken window. They examined the glass; they checked his toolboxes. Who in the hell was coming to this party? Did they know it was hosted by a man who once celebrated the Fourth by firing a roman candle that was clenched in his asshole? Indoors?

There. On the end. It was one of the black SUVs he’d seen in Nashville, styled like a European sports car to try to hide the fact that these things were all just disguised minivans for soccer hags.

Don’t mind me, thought Malort, just one more drone buzzing around the hive, making honey for the assholes …

“Why am I not surprised,” said Sokolov, “that someone of your generation wants a participation trophy?” “Why am I not surprised someone of your generation wants me to work for free?”

Without looking up from his chemistry, Malort said, “I’m so hungry I could eat the front tire off a menstrual cycle.”

Tremors3: I wouldn’t know how to search for pornography on the internet and in fact have never heard of it before today but … yes, I am now watching a video of Sundae Greene.