Just like that, with a handshake, Aloysius Ross sold his entire
company to the devil. The devil promptly vanished and, as is the way of
such things, Ross lost all memory of the incident. He stood in the empty
room for a few minutes trying to deduce why he had entered it, rattled a
few desk drawers, and left.
    One of those drawers, by the way, had had its dozy bureaucratic con-
tents turned into a pile of glass shards just then, but that drawer was
locked, and Ross wouldn't have known what to make of it anyway.
    Ross's next stop that morning was in the music division's A&R depart-
ment, where the guy who signed Blackalicious to MCA wanted a meeting about
his pet project, a couple of teeangers-- Freakomatic? Bumpadelic? At first
the prospect made Ross feel misanthropic and old, but that was weeks
earlier; now, newly receptive, he okayed a promotion covering magazines,
TV, the web, and (if they could get it) cereal boxes. His unusual goodwill
had been bolstered by a sense that his cufflinks were staring at him, and
he wanted to wrap things up so he could get coffee.
    When it came, the coffee seemed unspeakably bitter. The devil had also
made off with Ross's memories of the taste of coffee; unknowingly disaccul-
turated, Ross threw most of the cup away.
    As bass soaked down through the building courtesy of some little-used
subwoofer, Ross wondered how his father felt about vertical media integ-
ration, and considered calling the old man.
    His father had in fact passed away twelve years earlier. You see how
this works.

    Like each of the executives who worked for him, Ross had one office on
the top floor and one halfway down. He hadn't been to the latter in a
while. It seemed like time for a visit.
    His secretary there was an avid cyclist; when Ross walked in, he was
showing off minor road rash acquired the past weekend in New Jersey. The
scrapes and cuts mesmerized Ross much like the first time he had seen
human blood, or rather, the first first time. The scene also struck him,
this more accurately, as very informal for the office. Had he felt fully
proprietary about his company, he might have objected; instead, he chalk-
ed it up to generational differences and inwardly shrugged.
    These kids, he thought to himself: it's theirs as much as mine. His
cufflinks seemed to nod agreement.

    Ross liked to fight afternoon fatigue with hearty foods, and so the
cafeteria kept great quantities of proteinacious snacks in reserve. But
cheese availed him not this time, nor hamburger nor agedashi tofu or a
kebab. He left a row of seven plates behind, each exactly half finished.
He would end his increasingly unsatisfying day by knocking off paperwork,
he decided.
    Upon his return to the top floor, the music he had heard earlier came
back, even louder this time. Quick research revealed that indeed it was a 
record by Groovinator, blaring from stereo equipment one level down. Once
he got into his office with the door closed, it was muted, thumpy, distant.
Ross listened, motionless; suddenly, he had never heard anything like it.

    Perhaps you now expect him consumed by fire, or escorted down to the
underworld by slithersome shadows. But in truth there was no conflagration
for Aloysius Ross and no second infernal visit. He simply sat in his chair
a few more hours until he was entirely empty, and then some other spark
animated his body for the rest of its days. And the company did just fine.

written for Antoun on the opposite couch 10/19/08

When I see a list of words like this, I usually suspect the client was thinking of their request as a competition with me. But if they "win" the competition, they get a bad story, so I hope that's not the idea.

I think I should have spent less time cutting these pieces into shapes, and more time fitting them together. The first two paragraphs and the last one could easily have fit into one of those (rare) improvs that all comes together.

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

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