"In the Belly of Darkness" begins
"They met in a cemetery. He, transfixed by the fountain. She, awed by the solemnity of a place where life and dreams decompose. Each, caught in a metaphysical moment. Together, they walked out from the rock facades representing life in a few chiseled lines, out from under the austere pines and onto the sidewalk."
"Stalemate" begins
What was it anyways? A game—a husker-doodle-doo, I can turn a cube into six distinct colors. The man acted like the Rubik’s Cube contained the occult answer to the hereafter. And the sternness—placing me in an empty room, the cube set on the desk looking dolled-up with mysticism, or romanticism, some crowned jewels on display in the tower of London prison, and the man pulling the chair out and having me sit down to take a final exam that pass or fail would not suffice, I needed to ace the baby, or it would be kibosh, slish-slosh, my throat tied in a knot for me. I didn’t know I signed up for this. The ad, shrouded in vaguely, easy-money, testy-takey jargon, made it sound like you came in, played a game, and received a check in the mail. Ernie would be very disappointed with how this man used his cube.