20 year veterans found themselves vomiting in their hats. The nightmares would linger for months.

The otters were not being smuggled to make fur coats or dog food. They were being skinned alive and fed to Russian babies on the adoption market. Apparently, otter flesh gives them a bright sheen that is more attractive to prospective mothers. 70% of the babies die within six months.

And that’s why we opened the King’s Club, a top flight, luxury facility where former kings are treated as the royalty they used to be. When monarchs retire to the King’s Club, they are fully fed, dressed, washed and groomed. We do everything we can to keep them distracted.

However, the House of Lords rebelled and, after holding court at a cricket match, they decided to excommunicate Francis Bacon.

This caused some confusion as Bacon, thinking he was already excommunicated, had established the Church of England, married six wives, and moved to Utah.

The bull of excommunication, meanwhile, had gone astray and reached Francis of Assisi, who, released from Catholicism, approved the first mass publication of his heliocentric galaxy theory

“May I come in, Mr. Collins?” he asked.

“Please.”

After a smattering of ill-fitting pleasantries, he got to the point.

“Your 100 words blog, it’s interesting, the most popular tag is murder.”

“Murder fascinates me. In the theoretical sense.”

“And, as you know, six residents in the neighborhood have been murdered in the last three months. All in precisely the same fashion as depicted in your stories.”

Mr. Stubbs, the shareholders representative, continued to press the issue. “I didn’t travel all this way for excuses. We are behind on our projections. If you can’t return the company to profitability, perhaps it’s time for new leadership.”

Alanwich had heard enough. “This is my company.”

“The company belongs to its shareholders.”

“You do realize we are on the moon.”

They tested each other beyond endurance to see who would yield first. One was content not to move. The other content not to push. It was the opposite of the irresistible force versus the immovable object.

There was no end in sight. Nary a blink nor a whisper. It was, to the untrained observer, as if neither knew of the other’s existence.

“I told you, if you don’t finish your dinner, you can’t leave the table.”

“And I told you, Mother, that I would rather die than eat any more of this broccoli.”

Calico Jack had no such compunction. Moral qualms were a disorder for weak men fearful of Hell. Jack figured no Hell could be worse than the Hell of the high seas.

Evil men take their hearts and hide them in some secret place. If you can find their heart and destroy it, you destroy that evil.

From birth, a few of us are trained as hunters. We are no longer of the people. We are separate. We are nothing. Our names are written on a piece of parchment, and burnt without ever being uttered.

Napoleon, insulted by the assassination attempt, meticulously plotted his revenge. First on Elba, to which he manufactured his own exile, then New Jersey, where he perfected his own time machine.

The damage proved catastrophic of course. Our world took on the characteristics of both men. The emperor’s anal attention to detail coupled with George’s creative inspiration combined to forever warp reality.