"Kilgore says you can't hear me, and I know you can't see me. Maybe you hear me in your mind, the way you do Kilgore. I'm not exactly sure why I'm talking to you, considering what you are, and what you've done. Thinking about it makes my palms ache. If they hadn't already hurt you I think I'd be hitting you right now, but instead I'm explaining myself. Confessing, maybe."
"She said they'd been following the war on Iraq, and the way she said it made it sound like she was really far away. Like Mars. She said that a battle wound was a badge of honor. She said her dad was still alive, but her mom had died when she was little. Then she talked about what was outside her windows--birds chasing one another along the cliffs, vendors selling fruit at the market, her hyenadon curled up in a splash of sunlight. I didn't know what a hyenadon was, but it all sounded nice. Better than my drab little apartment with its bare walls and the fall stealing daylight outside."
"Then she looked at me and said Hello, Thomas--not Hello Sir or Hello Mr. Tucker. She said she needed my watch and my phone and any other timekeeping devices I was carrying. I was sure I'd heard her wrong. I figured she'd need to see my passport instead, but she said the authorizations were all taken care of and asked for my watch again. She said I'd get it back on my return trip. She said it would all be useless inside in any case."
"David J. Schwartz's fiction has appeared in such venues as the anthologies Fantasy: Best of the Year 2007, The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and the World Fantasy Award-nominated Twenty Epics. His first novel, Superpowers, comes out in June from Three Rivers Press. He blogs at http://snurri.livejournal.com