Free Facial by Jeff Strand Page B

Blu-ray player. It wasn’t very heavy, but Grandma was pretty frail, and she was too distracted by her gardening to brace herself. If I threw it from my second-floor window just right, she’d break.
    * * *
    “Guns don’t kill people,” I said. “Okay, they do , but it’s way less fun than using a crowbar.”
    The guy in the bar nodded his agreement as I split his skull. A couple of the other patrons raised their glasses in admiration of my technique.
    Then a pool cue went through the back of my neck. I’d heard the woman at the other billiards table break it in half, but it hadn’t occurred to me that she was trying to give it a sharp end. I’m such a dumbass sometimes.
    * * *
    “Guns don’t kill people,” I said. “People kill people.”
    I thought this was an important message to convey as I fired bullets into the crowd. It’s unlikely that they heard me over the sound of my semi-automatic rifle, but sometimes you need to speak the truth even if it’s not heard.
    * * *
    I took down the “No Swimming—Alligators in Area” sign, sat by the lake, smiled, and waited.
    * * *
    “Is that a bomb?” the security guard asked me.
    “No, sir,” I said, even though it was quite obviously a bomb that I was pushing into the hockey arena in a shopping cart.
    “I would have let you through with it if you’d just been honest,” said the security guard. “But now, get the fuck out of here.”
    I hung my head, stepped out of line, and pushed the bomb away. I’d learned my lesson, and was honest with the guard at the other entrance.
    * * *
    [ Translated from French .] I pushed four people off the Eiffel Tower before I was pushed. I like watching the fall, because my plummet is almost acrobatic. I don’t like watching the impact.
    * * *
    [ Translated from Chinese. ] We no longer have a population problem. I wish I was still around to enjoy the extra space.
    * * *
    What bothered me the most is that he’d bought me the meat cleaver as a present for graduating culinary school. It was my meat cleaver. Not his. Mine.
    You know what? I think I’m misremembering. What bothered me the most is that he was stabbing me to death in the first place. Eight years of marriage and he didn’t even try to do a quick slice across the neck.
    Let me rewatch it.
    Oh, yeah, I’m totally bawling and screaming and carrying on. A lot of people here claim that they took a casual approach to their murder, I get that, I really do, but for me it was a pretty upsetting experience.
    By the way, you don’t get to watch your entire life. That may be what you were thinking. Now that would be great—you could watch yourself as a little kid, see your first kiss, relive all of your birthday parties from one to thirty-two, but no. All you get to do is rewatch your death.
    I won’t lie—it was kind of cool the first time. But after a while it became kind of depressing.
    Don’t worry, it’s not like you have to watch your death over and over on an endless loop. It’s totally voluntary. Everybody watches it at least once, but I don’t want to give the impression that we’re in some kind of hell where you never get to stop watching the blood pour down your forehead.
    It’s not so bad here. For a black void, anyway. Sure, I miss having a body, but it’s not that hard to communicate with the others in the void, and, hey, you don’t have to worry about gaining weight!
    Not that you eat anything.
    Or drink, or sleep, or make love, or sense anything.
    Honestly, it sucks.
    The one upside: you get to meet lots of new people every day.

 
     
     
    17
     
    Jasper
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Once Greg showed up, we all pretty much stopped being angry with him. There’s no reason to hold a grudge.

 
     
     
    18
     
    Greg
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Bullshit. They absolutely held a grudge.

 
     
     
    19
     
    Felicia
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    The street was covered with faces.
    There were faces all over the homes.
    All over people’s lawns, even