Excerpt: Paranoiac-Critical

Chapter 1. November. 2007.

The sign on the bus reads Paranoia Justification Service. I'm uncomfortable, my uniform wet and stiff under the armpits because I haven't washed it in a few days. The dude in front of me, he's holding onto the bar above him for balance, and his own sweaty armpit hovers above me, smelling like a piece of blue cheese got sprayed by a skunk. The chick beside me is wearing a puffy jacket that squishes up against my whole left side; this overstuffed bus would've been hot anyway, but this chick's jacket is making me feel like my internal organs are melting. The guy on my other side, a business-looking type in a blue suit, is drinking steaming coffee out of a travel mug. I wonder if he's even human.

The bus driver yells for everyone to move to the back of the bus. Stinky armpit dude just stands there while other people shuffle past him, packing the bus tighter and tighter. Like when you compress garbage tighter and tighter in the can because you don't feel like bringing it out today. I don't know where to look. I look away from the spreading pit stain in front of me, but then I don't want the girl beside him to think I'm staring at her tits, so I look up, and there's this small opening in this mass of people. There, between someone's arm and another person's head, is the sign.

At first I don't even get it. I ignore it and move my head slightly so I can see the next sign over; a public service ad showing a girl at a slot machine. Does Gambling Have a Handle on You? it says, and the girl is mildly pretty, so I stare at that for a minute. But then, zoning out, my eyes flick back to to the other sign. Paranoia Justification Service. There is a cartoon of a frightened looking man on the phone. Behind him is a window, a guy with binoculars looking through it. Attached to the end of the man's phone chord is a tiny, poorly drawn van with a giant satellite dish on top. I'm thinking about the ad's poor quality and ineffectiveness, but my eyes flick to the caption above a phone number. Are you being followed? Stalked? Monitored? Let us find out.

My stop is coming up, so I ring the bell, grab my bag, and start to stand up. I have to awkwardly get out of my seat sideways to avoid the giant puffy jacket to one side of me, and my butt brushes against the coffee mug of the guy in the suit on my other side.

"Sorry, so sorry," I say.

A few drops of coffee have splashed out of his cup and soak, steaming, into the cuff of his suit jacket.

"Fuck," is all he says.

"Excuse me," I say to Pit Stain, but he either doesn't hear me or ignores me. As the bus rolls to a stop, I duck under his arm, pinching my noise to avoid the smell. The doors to the bus open as a few people pour out. A mass of people in front of me step back to let other people out.

"Excuse me," says a person as they get off the bus. Another person in a giant jacket steps back, bumping into me.

"Excuse me," I say, and giant jacket person does an awkward shuffle, trying to get out of the way for two people at once, but the person closer to the door wins out. By the time I slip past the giant jacket, the bus has started moving again and I've missed my stop.

I get off at the next one, sweat beading on my forehead, and I wonder how those assholes can wear parkas in early November.

This part of downtown is always packed this time of morning. I stand at the curb for a moment, looking for an opening in the crowd to join into the flow of sidewalk traffic; it's like when my dad used to take me to the fair, and we'd wait for the perfect horse to come by before jumping on the merry-go-round.

I jump in. There are people all around me, but it's strangely silent. Just the sounds of traffic muffled by a wall of flesh. Dozens of people within a few meters of each other, none of them talking. Thinking about this makes me uncomfortable, so I turn at the next block over, taking a side alley that I know will lead pretty close to my Starbucks.

Being alone, the silence at least makes sense. I stomp down the empty alley, trying not to think of the long work day ahead. I have to step around a smashed pumpkin on the ground; it's a few days old, from Halloween, starting to turn brown and rotten. I wonder how it got there; glancing up, there are no windows or ledges above. Who would bring a pumpkin to some useless alleyway to smash? It makes no sense. Then I think, maybe the homeless people who sleep here at night wanted to celebrate Halloween in some small way, placing a pumpkin beside their wet cardboard homes.

There's a splash behind me. Who else would be in this little-used back alley?

I look back, and I immediately recognize the guy. It's the one in the blue suit; the one whose coffee I spilled with my butt when I was getting off the bus.

[SNIP]

A Few Chapters Later:

Kid after kid came to sit on Santa's lap. His eyes were squinted, like he was trying to smile. Trying too hard, throwing the smile off. Making it too squinty. Like someone who had never smiled before trying to affect human emotion. The skin around those eyes, it was too wrinkled, too dry. Almost scaly.

Now, really, I'm not saying that every mall Santa is a reptile creature that eats children. It just isn't impossible.