The three of them stood chatting by the water cooler at the firm. Stacy had just made an important point that will not be disclosed here, and William and Maverick were nodding their heads.

“I meen,” William said, completely misspelling the word “mean” as he spoke it, “You’re probably right, you know.”

But Stacy was on the left, so William was completely wrong, as usual. Just like that one time when he pronounced “mean” without an “a.”

Do you remember that? I do. It was a fun time.

“So anyways,” said Stacy, ignoring how wrong William was, “The two of them then flew out the window, as they tend to do. But it’s only ever out windows. Never into them. Or out anything else. Or into anything else. They fly, and any time they fly, it is only out of windows.”

William stared at her blankly as Stacy continued.

“So they go, scattered out into the void never to return.”

“Kind of like bullets, really,” commented Maverick. He was a real Maverick too, and not like the gas station kind that doesn’t have a “c” in it. “Bullets only ever fly out of gun barrels, not into them. Of course, they fly into other things. Occasionally people. Often terrain or structures. Maybe vehicles. Often targets, depending on who’s shooting and where.”

Stacy gave Maverick a flat stare, which was the only thing she had left to give him, being on the left herself.

“On rare occasions, they may even fly into other gun barrels,” continued Maverick like the Maverick he was. “And that kind of complicates things for the people trying to make bullets fly out of those barrels, frankly, so I think it’s quite rude.”

Stacy nodded sagely. “Don’t fly bullets into gun barrels. Fly them out of them instead!”

“And into pigons,” added Maverick as he, too, nodded sagely. “Not to be confused with pidgeons. And pigeons are not to be confused with pidgin.”

“Pidgin?” asked Stacy.

“Speek pidgin,” William said, completely mispronouncing “speak” as if it had no “a.”

“How does he do that?” whispered Sharon to Maverick.

“What?” asked Maverick more loudly than Stacy would have preferred since he was a Maverick and could not be silenced. “Speak pidgin?”

“No,” whispered Sharon, shaking her head. “How does William manage to be so perfectly wrong all the time?”

“No idea,” replied Maverick. A nearby door opened more widely than it should have, and Shawn walked in.

“It boggles the mind how one can be so deftly wrong about something,” said Shawn, who had a knack for yawning. Particularly the portal kind. He had a knack for yawning portals. Any time he opened a door, it would be open all the wider thanks to his knack. It was a useful talent to have, especially during move-ins and move-outs. Getting furniture in and out of buildings was always easier when Shawn was around, or Yawning Shawning, as he was affectionately called.

The only real drawback was the fact that he never helped people move, and he refused to work for moving companies ever. So the people never really called him Yawning Shawning except as an insult, which was, in fact, never affectionate.

Shawner the Yawner was another common nickname. One time, a gunman at the firm recognized him and said, “Shawner the Yawner? More like Shawner the Gonner!” He then shot him dead.

Shawn was indeed a gonner, and therefore did not speak at all in the above exchange. It doesn’t matter what you think you saw. You were hallucinating. It was a complete fabrication of your mind.

Did you check again? You saw it? Yeah, you’re still hallucinating. Better get that checked out, but not until you finish reading this, okay?

Okay. Glad we got that settled.

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, the three of them stood chatting by the water cooler at the firm.

The water cooler then exploded, having had quite enough of this conversation. There were no survivors.

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