The Queen of Night
an excerpt

On Tuesday night, my roommate killed himself. He wasn't meaning to, he just accidentally mistook the drain cleaner for Blue-244, the new designer drug that he had just spent a hundred and fifty dollars on. It was probably an easy mistake to make, since dealers often hide Blue-244 in drain cleaner bottles.

As the coroner for the county of Smoke Bay in the City of Empyreal carted away my roommate's body (and dozens of tiny bot-cameras followed him for the hit show Coroner: Time of My Death), a spotlight was quickly thrust into my face and I heard a voice loudly buzzing in my ear.

"Excuse me, what?" I said.

"This is Superstar Death Watch 2037," the robotic voice buzzed. "Your roommate, confirmed as Zivka Lerner, Superstar, died tonight, did he not?"

I wouldn't exactly have classed Zivka as a Superstar. He had starred in two competition reality shows and one sex tape, but Superstar Death Watch probably already knew that. "Yeah," I said to the floating bot-camera with a microphone.

"And can you tell us what exactly he died from? Anything salacious? Naughty?"

"River Phoenix Disease," I said.