“The absences of being what I intended to tell you is nevertheless far from what we want." 

PixelPocket answered the phone, sweaty and breathing like the wind in a fistfight, “What’s all this noise about then?”

The voice on the other end of the phone looked around the dimly lit room into every goddamn candle the lined the mantle. “This, my friend,” it said in its own earthy way, “is a stick up?”

 “You’re joking,” PixelPocket said.

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“Hmmm,” the other voice said, crushing roasted peanuts behind its toes like so many ants under WW2 boots. “Maybe this is,” the voice paused, “Is a wrong number?”

“Why is everything aquestion?” PixelPocket asked. He pulled a drag from his cigarette, farted, and leaned back against the worn recliner.

“Well,” the voice said, “If you’re interested, I’d like to rob.”

“Christ,” said PixelPocket, running his hands through his hair. Everything he’d ever done, everything he will do, was all for Lacey. She was his light, the one gravitational pull that his body the meteorite couldn’t avoid.

“Look, man,” the voice said. “Just look, goddamnit. I know where you live. I’ll rob the fucking shit out of you.”

“Okay, man,” PixelPockets said as lowered his sunglasses. He stared off into the middle distance. “I’d like to see you try.” PixelPocket jumped up from the recliner and smashed the phone onto itself, obliterating the damn thing into shards of plastic life rocketing across the room. What the fuck is this shit?