Mikal slowed the Korova as he pulled up into a small town. Experience suggested caution, for he knew the town’s largest source of revenue was almost certainly the speeding tickets it exacted from impatient out-of-towners. True to form, as he passed through the second stoplight, signaling the end of town, he caught a glimpse of a squad car, parked behind a billboard advertising a hemorrhoid cream. “Wouldn’t do to get stopped for a ticket,” he thought, amused. But as he left the town limits, he pushed the car faster again.

“Have you ever wondered why it is that if something falls under a bed, it always ends up out of reach?”

It was during one particularly vile winter, in which daily tussles of powdered sugar whirled around the community of Clarion with singular...

Please subscribe to keep reading.