Author : Kevin Crisp

Framed by her cavernous high-backed leather chair, the chairwoman is totally unaware of the glyptodon’s furry beak edging gradually nearer her face. “I’m very disappointed with what’s coming out of Creative, Jerry. I know you’ve been away on your honeymoon — and congratulations, by the way, did you get the personalized gift basket?”

“But while you were gone, we agreed on several key points.”

Why do we call meetings to discuss new ideas when we always end up consensus-voting our way back to the same old course?

The glyptodon’s beak, even as it closes in on her ear, mills and mills; the slobber-covered patches of fur quiver with each rhythmic chomp. Did glyptodons chew their cud?

Voices from down at the other end of the table chorus their sycophantic concurrence. “No one wants to waste their time treading over old ground again. ‘Develop the RF prism lens technology to be driven by brain waves to affect cathartic release for the anxious individual.’” She’s reading from my memo now. Weren’t you the one who told me to bring my ideas to the table now before the process got too far along?

Damn it, my pollakuria is acting up again. Frequent urge to urinate, ideopathic, psychosomatic, formerly pediatric, now ubiquitous. “Our shareholders want to see revenue from this technology in six or nine months, or we bury the project. This reminds me of another time Creative nearly derailed a project by proposing a totally new direction at the eleventh hour…”

I heard they have support groups for adult pollakuria. I bet they get interrupted constantly. I bet they have to hold sessions in the men’s room.

The glyptodon’s beak parts slightly, revealing a scaly, black, pointed tongue. With a subtle twist of its neck, it tears away the chairwoman’s right ear and surrounding tissue, leaving a chunk of torn cartilage and a flap of red, dripping sinew. Her temporomandibular joint is visible now. I recognize it because I grind my teeth when I sleep. She keeps talking: “…which would have been disastrous, Jerry. There’s a time for totally new ideas and a time for little tweaks, and a team player knows which is which.” The glyptodon swallows its mouthful, and tears away a chunk of her scalp.

“Are you listening, Jerry? I feel like you’re mentally still on your honeymoon.”

On the contrary, I’m totally transfixed. A giant, extinct, prehistoric turtle is eating your face.

This must be what those shrinks were trying to accomplish with LSD in the middle of the last century. Trying to get their patients to release psychological tensions for therapeutic purposes seems like a great idea on the couch in the doctor’s office, until those sessions re-emerge as flashbacks during the drive home. I can turn this thing on or off from the switch in my pocket. The electrode cap is subtle, virtually undetectable when combed into a reasonably full head of hair. It detects the increased theta activity in my brain as my aggression waxes. Billions of RF-sensitive prisms embedded in these contact lenses alter what I see but only my wife could tell I’m wearing them. My wife. Wife. Huh, I have a wife.

“So, Jerry, are we through with this? Ready to move on?” No need to go postal anymore. A spike in theta and I start seeing glyptodons. It’s a huge leap forward in anger management methods. This passive-aggressive bitch and her automatons are just too myopic to see it.

“Excuse me,” I say to the headless corpse lying at the feet of the glyptodon. “I need to visit the men’s room.”