"Dad's home. What are we going to tell him?"

"We're not going to tell him anything, Fizz."

"He's going to notice the fucking dog is missing, Mixx. He's not an idiot."

"Yes, he is. Mom only married him for his hair and biceps..."

"And gluts."

"Yeah, don't remind me. We'll tell him we haven't seen Bailey and just play dumb."

"That's easy for you; you've only got a 167 IQ. I'm going to have to put on the performance of a lifetime."

"Four points, Fizz. Four tiny fucking IQ points, and I was hopped up on Paracetamol..."

"Hey girls, what's up?"

"Hi Daddy!"

"Hey Fizz! You guys still working on the project?"

"Yeah, Mixxy's just working out some bugs."

"Bugs? It's almost noon. I would have thought you two would be celebrating unlocking the mysteries of the space-time continuum by now."

"It's the... time-space continuum, Father."

"Yeah... that's what they call it in this universe. So, what is this thing, Mixx?"

"Right now, I don't know what it is."

"Well, what does it do?"

"Nothing."

"That's not true. It does something, we're just not sure what."

"Well, what's is supposed to do?"

"It supposed to facilitate the diffusion of molecules across a selectively permeable membrane between areas of higher to lower concentration, Father."

"Ohhh... so it's a ray gun!"

"Yes, it's a ray gun."

"Nice. Where's Bailey?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him. Have you seen him, Fizz?"

"Well, I certainly don't see him now."

"Maybe he's in the back yard."

"Maybe... it's weird, he always greets me at the door. I figured he must be up here with you guys helping with your work on your ray gun thing..."

"Don't touch that!"

"Daddy no!"

"What's happening?!"

"Mixx! Fizz! Hold onto me!"

"Daddy!"

"I've got you!"

"Look... "

"What? What the hell? What's wrong with my voice? Are you hearing this?"

"You sound like a chipmunk... hahahaha! I sound like a chipmunk!"

"Why don't I sound... ooookay, I sound like a chipmunk, too. What the heck is going on, Mixxy? What kind of molecular diffusion... selectably permable..."

"Selectively permeable... it doesn't matter! That's not what it was. You wouldn't understand it anyway."

"Sure I would. Molecular diffusion... and selectively permeable... membranes and the... the other..."

"That's osmosis! I just gave you the definition of osmosis so you'd leave us alone to work on accelerator!"

"Accelerator?! What does it accelerate? Where the hell are we, Mixx?"

"I don't know! Ask Fizz! She's the smart one!"

"Only by four points! I don't know where we are! Everything's all fuzzy and blurry and..."

"Okay, let's all just calm down."

"Fizz! Fizz! Sit! Fizz! Mixx!"

"Who the heck is that?"

"It came from over there. Look, some... thing's coming."

"Sit! Fizz! Mixx!"

"Holy mother of crap! It's Bailey!"

"Bailey! You're talking!"

"Bailey talking. Good boy."

"Holy crap, Mixx. You've transported us into a parallel universe where dogs can talk!"

"What do we do now, Mixx?"

"I don't friggin' know! There's a 500-word limit!"

An hour is 60 minutes, 3,600 seconds, or 3,600,000 milliseconds. But it's just enough time to save or ruin the remaining 26,280,000 minutes, 1,576,800,000 seconds, or 1,576,800,000,000 milliseconds you have left. That's about 1,839,600,000 heartbeats, give or take--adjusted by the saving or the ruining.

Pearls are the result of irritation. Ask any oyster. Or the host of any guest who's outlasted his welcome.

And I'm irritated.

The irony is that I use this concentric-layered aragonite and calcite to sequester my irritation. It just happens to be on the end of a pistol. It's to settle my discontent that began small as a grain. That milky white irony is now firmly within my grasp: solid, purposeful, 45-calibred, and well-aimed. It is an iron-clad clasp that is clammy and sweaty. I won't wait a day longer, lest it become rusty.

Colt Manufacturing Company and Smith & Wesson solve problems. They remedy discontent. I bought stock in them before I bought this useful tool lock, stock, and barrel. It's the only thing that memorializes me in this alleged crime, committed--allegedly--by the alleged shooter who is me. Allegedly.

People with imagination, however, will ask, "Who killed whom?"

And what will finally solve my problem is that I must turn this pearly executioner on myself as well as you. Because the whole drama--the discontent, the irritation, the pain, the cruelty that ruins what's left of my life--is a package deal of you and me. There's no villain and there's no victim. You and I are way past that. How would one draw the line between us? This is our final dance macabre together. Does it matter whether it's here or at the end of a rope? What does matter in any dance is who leads.

May I?

I have clammed up tight, but the irritation has continued within--until I find I must open, explosively, to discharge that irritation. It's just part of the pearl-making ecosystem, don't you think?

You want to live? So do I! But there's no living with you. We're gonna go together. I've tried to understand your motivations and your reasons. I found them irritating, so I suppose I'm just a terrible host; and you've outstayed your welcome.

So, before all is done, we're both gonna be dead. Two birds with one stone, eh?

Me and my terminal disease. I hope you find it funny, but I've left explicit instructions that my tombstone read,

YOU SHOULD SEE THE OTHER GUY

And there I was suddenly,

staring at her pale, dead blue eyes.

“This is it, isn’t it?”

I asked her, but with no reply;

only a trembling in her lips.

Hysteria begins to overwhelm me –

I felt the cold, weight of that silver .45 press against my temple.

Here it comes;

she will finally be the finality of me.

Maybe this torture will cease now.

But what a fool I am! Ha!

She will never have mercy on me!

She will never pull that trigger for a coward she is!

I watch her gaze as it haunts my vision;

piercing into me as if to center that knife deep into my heart.

I see her pity for me,

so repulsively beautiful,

as it drips from her face.

“What are you waiting for?!” I screamed at her.

I hated her,

Oh, how I hated the woman who was a curse to my life!

A curse to life;

to humanity!

And I cannot live in a time where she wanders;

I cannot be attached to her anymore –

to her fears, to her dreams,

to her irrationality.

Her insanity is a parasite!

Oh, how she’s contagious!

Rip me from her, I plead!

And as that last droplet of sweat descends from my forehead,

tingling my skin in its warm mass,

I last her speak;

those haunting words that will imprint onto my soul -

“She is me.”

And that click of the silver marches quickly

as I fall so unforgivingly before that mirror.

I boldly stood on the edge of the cliff, knowing it was dangerous, not caring about the risk. And then it happened; I slipped. My feet swung in empty air, as my hands grasped unsuccessfully at the slippery edge, and I cried out in desperation, wishing that I hadn't disobeyed the only one who could save me. Then, out of the dark, a pair of warm hands grasped mine, pulling me back to solid ground. A pair of comforting arms wrapped tightly around me, and a voice said, "My child, even if you disobey me, I will never leave you."

The bed in the guest room was comfortable, but wasn’t the same as home. Lying on her back, she willed herself to sleep.

A cat jumped onto the bed near her feet.

Oh, she thought, hello bedmate...

She felt the cat walk over her legs, felt its feline weight as it draped its body over her abdomen.

Friendly...

She soon drifted off to sleep hoping it wouldn’t begin that kneading thing cats sometimes do and wake her.

In the morning, she poured herself coffee and commented, “I didn’t know you had a cat.”

Her host’s face grew pale, “I don’t.”

And Jesus did not say, "You have ten fingers, so I give you an 11th thing to juggle."

He said: "I give you A New Commandment," packing up all the other Tenets into one easy to handle capsule called, LOVE.

That one word weighs every possible wrong, in my life or yours-- without condemnation.

With "Love one another," as our point of departure, we cannot kill, lie, steal, adulterate, covet, etc., and not take into account that single precept, of Love.

(*Which incidentally simultaneously would seem to suggest that it IS possible to kill with Love, i.e. euthanasia; steal with Love, e.g. food for your children...?)

Why one-another...?

And not each-other?

The rule in language is that "each" is limited to two, interestingly, and "one another" is in reference to multiples; a reverse it to what we might commonly presume, given the apparent singularity of the latter.

I see the edict as quite poetic, philosophical, and Godly:

...To Love the One, and the One-in-all-the-Others...