Unidentified Funny Objects 3
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“No, what form for currency of taxes?”
“The IRS will generally accept foreign currencies in situations where Earth currency cannot reasonably be obtained. To submit your tax payment in a non-Earth currency, fill out Form X-325Z and include your payment with your tax return. In responding to this question, I am required by law to inform you that it is illegal to staple, glue, tape, or otherwise affix sentient currency to your tax return.”
“The IRS prefers sentient currency to run loose inside envelope?”
“We have covered everything I know about this topic, is there anything else I can help you with?”
###
“This is Carla at the Off-Planet Tax Return helpline—”
###
“This is Carla at—”
“Hi Carla, this is Bob.”
“What can I help you with today, Bob?”
“I’m lonely.”
“That is beyond the scope of my expertise. Do you have any tax related questions that I can help you with today?”
“You spoke with a different voice of my collective today, and told us that we each must file a separate return. Except me. This makes me lonely.”
“Privacy laws do not allow me to discuss conversations I’ve had with other callers. How did you manage to get my extension? There are over five hundred tax assistants working through this call center, and call assignment is randomized.”
“If you marry me, can I file a tax return?”
“I’m sorry, but I need to end this call now.”
###
“This is Carla at the Off-Planet Tax Return helpline, how can I help you?”
“What is FBAR?”
“FBAR stands for Foreign Bank Account Report, but most off-planet residents refer to this form as FUBAR. It is not possible to fill this form out correctly. This form collects basic information on foreign financial accounts controlled by US citizens and is sent to the Treasury Department. It will not impact your tax liability, but does give the Treasury Department direct access to your funds, which will be used in the highly likely event of an audit.”
“I have mesh bag of golden snakes, does this require FBAR?”
“FBAR is required for bank accounts, brokerage accounts, mutual funds, and any collection of sentient or non-sentient currency located outside of the United States. There is one exception for live currencies—US citizens may keep up to fifty creatures of any kind as pets. A creature may be considered a pet if it lives in the primary residence of the person filing the return.”
“So if snakes stay in house with me, I do not write them onto form?”
“As long as there are less than fifty.”
“I will eat the extras. Thank you.”
###
“This is Carla at the Off-Planet Tax Return helpline, how can I help you?”
“Why will you not marry Bob?”
###
“This is Carla at the Off-Planet Tax Return helpline, how can I help you?”
“There is a large green creature with many teeth gnawing through the outer dome of my lunar residence.”
“Do you owe back taxes?”
“Yes.”
“The creature is a Tarmandian Spacemite, trained by the IRS to collect from delinquent off-planet taxpayers. I am legally required to tell you at this point in the conversation that attempting to run from a Tarmandian Spacemite is illegal and will trigger the Spacemite’s predatory instincts. Try to remain calm, and let the Spacemite take anything it wants.”
“I only owe three hundred dollars in back taxes. It will cost me ten times that much to repair the damage to my dome. Isn’t there some way to get the creature to go away?”
“I’m sorry, we have covered everything I know about this topic, is there anything else I can help you with?”
###
“This is Carla at the Off-Planet Tax Return helpline, how can I help you?”
“Bob is coming for you.”
###
“This is Carla at the Off-Planet Tax Return helpline, what can I do for you?”
“SCREW YOU IRS I’M NOT GOING TO FILE!”
“I hope you were smart enough to call from an untraceable number. If not, I am legally required to tell you at this point in the conversation that attempting to run from a Tarmandian Spacemite is illegal and will trigger the Spacemite’s predatory instincts. Try to remain calm, and let the Spacemite take anything it wants.”
###
“This is Carla—oh my god, there’s some kind of alien rampaging through the call center. It looks like a dismembered grizzly bear that didn’t get put back together quite right, and it’s holding hands with a guy in a tuxedo.”
“You help with mine taxes?”
“Please hold while we handle this emergency. The SWAT team is here with tranquilizer guns—”
“Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line for the next available representative.”
“Thank you for holding. This is Carla at the Off-Planet Tax Return helpline. I am legally required to inform you that three hundred fifty-two members of the
***
Caroline M. Yoachim lives in Seattle and loves cold cloudy weather. She is the author of over two dozen short stories, appearing in markets such as Lightspeed, Asimov’s, and Daily Science Fiction, among other places. For more about Caroline, check out her website at carolineyoachim.com.
Why I Bought Satan Two Cokes on the Day I Graduated High School
Nathaniel Lee
When I came out of the coffee shop with my latte and my fresh walnut brownie, the Archangel Michael was beating the ever-loving shit out of Satan down on the corner. I could see the impact crater, right in the middle of the intersection, and one of the poles holding up the traffic lights was cut right in two so the wires had all fallen in the street and also it was on fire on account of the flaming sword, so it was a real mess. All higgledy-piggledy. Michael was holding Satan up by the neck with one hand and just slapping him across the face with the other. Which also, by the way, was still holding the sword, so it wasn’t so much like slapping as it was punching with brass knuckles. Also, it was still on fire.
People were honking, but only the ones far enough back that they couldn’t see what was going on. Everyone else was kind of looking the other way. Fiddling with their cell phones. Avoiding eye contact. You know, like you do around angels.
I figured it was time.
“Hey,” I said. Michael turned. I lifted the hand with the coffee in it and pointed at Satan, who was pretty beat up by then. Missing some teeth and all bruises and stuff. “Not cool,” I told Michael.
The angel looked down at me with his bronze wings all clanging in the wind. Then he snorted and tossed Satan to the ground and just took off. I stumbled a little and nearly spilled my coffee. Angels got wicked backwash.
By then Satan was staggering upright. “You okay, dude?” I asked him.
“Could’ve taken him,” Satan said. He spat out a tooth and flared his nostrils. “Didn’t need your help.”
I looked around. Traffic was moving again. Just kind of squeezing around the hole and avoiding the sagging lights. If you kick up a fuss about the mess an angel makes, who knows what might happen? People don’t complain, and that’s all right.
“Yeah,” I said, “I k
now. You want some of my brownie?”
“No,” said Satan.
He took half.
###
I like to try and imagine what people think of me. Okay, I mean, I always end up thinking about it a lot anyway, so what I guess I mean is I try to make it more interesting by really trying to work it out, you know? Like, okay, there’s me, right, and I’m this tall skinny pale guy with dark hair and the stuffing is coming out of my jacket around the elbow, and then beside me there’s this basically homeless dude in a long black coat with dusky skin and a goatee, and I wonder if people think, Those guys are losers. But then it’s not like people don’t recognize Satan because it’s actually kind of obvious that his skin is red underneath the dirt. Plus also the tail and the hooves going clip-clop down the sidewalk. So then it’s like, Whoa, that guy is walking around with the devil, he must be a badass. Except that no one thinks Satan is badass anymore because he’s always getting his ass kicked by angels, especially Michael, and so then I figure they just think I’m a loser again.
It’s a puzzler, isn’t it?
###
By the time we got to the MiniMart Pop Stop, Satan was all healed up. Picture of demonic health and stuff. He even looked a little cleaner. I wondered if he had to keep dirtying himself up to keep the hobo chic going or something – I mean, he used to be an angel, and those guys can’t get dirty. I’ve never seen one get dirty, anyway. Maybe they just don’t like it. Satan was in a better mood, too.
“You are my good and faithful minion,” he said to me, holding out his hand. “Pledge yourself to my service and I will grant you all the kingdoms of the world.”
I looked and he had a coupon for a dollar off a Big Mac. I held up my latte. “I just spent my last five bucks, man.”
Satan shook the coupon at me. “Mortal scum,” he said.
I shrugged. “Okay, maybe I’ll get a new job sometime.” I took the coupon and put it in my pocket. The one without the hole in it.
“Together we will rule this world,” Satan assured me, patting me on the shoulder and leaving a couple of new scorch marks. “Come on. Let’s get slushies.”
Satan and I got a system. See, people are real bigoted, shopkeepers especially, so they just know that the Prince of Darkness and Lord of Lies is going to steal all their shit. So Satan goes in first and just lurks the hell out of the place. Shifty eyes, and all glancing up and down all the time. He’s boss at it. And while everyone is giving him the stink-eye, I can basically pocket whatever the fuck I want and then go buy a pack of gum or a slushie for the look of the thing and leave.
Today I stole a couple of forties and a bunch of Slim Jims and a bottle of cough syrup that turned out to be the wussy new crap. I don’t think they even make the alcohol kind anymore, but Satan always asks for some. He’s kind of a fogey. I nearly busted out laughing when he actually pulled his coat up along his arm and skulked toward the candy aisle like frigging Bela Lugosi or some shit. The stiff behind the counter had no idea she was getting made fun of. She was laser focused on that suspicious demon dude. Man, you cannot buy that much funny.
Used to be Satan could just get anyone to steal for him, even solid upright pillar-of-the-community types, but that don’t work very often anymore. Everyone’s got insurance these days. Even most of the juvenile delinquents, which come on, how are you skipping school with an angel watching over you? You’re just going to get your ass busted to Purgie for a couple of decades. Idiots.
Thinking about that stuff reminded me about my ceremony, though, and I got depressed.
“Graduation’s coming up,” I told Satan. He was drinking down the not-at-all-buzz-inducing cough syrup because his stupid ass can’t admit when he’s wrong. “Mom’s pushing me to start looking. You know, at all the options.”
Satan belched Robitussin at me. “They all suck,” he said, waving vaguely at the sky and the ground. I guessed he meant angels.
“Yeah, but it’s mandatory now. Only reason I even get to wait until graduation is ‘cause I got grandfathered or something.” I was leaning toward Raziel the Destroyer because destroying sounded pretty cool, even though it would definitely turn out to be lame once you actually swore to the guy, I was sure. Angels were never any fun, even when they were doing fun stuff.
“You should swear to me. You took my coupon.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t, like, you know, count.”
Satan pulled himself up and narrowed his eyes and only wobbled a little. (We’d already downed most of the malt liquor.) “I,” he said slowly, “am on the List. O—fishelly.”
“You are not.”
“Am so.”
“Bullshit.” I took a big gulp of my slushie and regretted it. Ice cream headache, big time.
“I’m an angel, right?”
I clutched at my forehead and squinted. “. . . technically, I guess?”
“Press your tongue on the roof of your mouth. Anyway, technically is all that counts with these bozos. So I’m on the List. I have to be.”
“You’re not in the handout they gave us after Spring Break, I’m pretty sure.” I wished I had my backpack with me.
He waved a taloned hand. “That’s not the real list. They can cheat on that one and get away with it because it’s just for you monkeys and not for actual people. No offense.”
“Sure.”
“So you’re going to do it? You’ll swear to me at your Choosing?”
I pretended I couldn’t hear the desperation in his voice. I shrugged and took a swig from my forty to stall for time. “It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do,” I said at last.
“Yes.” Satan was rubbing his hands like in a cartoon, and I swear on my balls his eyes actually glowed red. “Idle hands. The old reliable.”
###
It was a long walk down to the waterfront, but Satan said it was real important. I was looking at the sky a little nervously by then. Mom doesn’t like me out late, and obviously she doesn’t approve of me hanging around with Satan much, but more than that I was worried about getting home before curfew. I mean, angels are lame and stupid and assholes, yeah, but dude, you do not want the Angel of Death catching you breaking curfew. That guy is super creepy, and they say he doesn’t fuck around with Purgie, not even for minors. One and done, and into the Lake of Fire you go.
“This is the Innermost Circle,” Satan said, fiddling with a rusty old padlock. “Heart of Pandemonium. The Black Throne awaits.”
“You say that every time you go to the bathroom.”
“Shut up. Help me with this.”
We ended up having to go in through the broken window and undo the latch from the inside. I gave Satan a boost. He stepped on my head, which really hurts with goat hooves, by the way.
“Ahh,” he said, once we were inside. It was an old warehouse, big and wet and smelling like mildew took a shit. “My realm.”
Satan had a little sleeping bag and a box with a battery-powered lamp and a camp stove. I nodded and tried to breathe through my mouth.
“Here,” he said. “My wings.”
It was a clothing rack. Y’know, the kind on wheels? Like stolen from a Dress for Less or something. Hanging on it was what looked like a bundle of sticks glued all over with dead crows. I poked it, and it creaked a little.
“They don’t work right now,” said Satan, “but I’m getting them fixed.”
“Cool,” I said noncommittally.
“Once, they blotted the sun from the sky. Disaster and ruin trailed in their wake, and men wailed to see their shadow upon the plains.”
“Oh.” I rubbed my finger against my pants. The wings looked even shabbier now.
“Once we’ve assembled our army, I will fly at its head, and my wings of darkness will be terrible to look upon. Terrible and awful. Then mortal man will know the King of the World.” Satan seemed pretty lost in his little dreamworld. After a little bit, I cleared my throat.
“Okay, man. Well. I’ve gotta go.” I pointed. “Curfew.”
<
br /> He looked crestfallen. I felt bad, but seriously. Lake. Of. Fire.
“I’ll catch you tomorrow, okay?” I said.
Satan waved a feeble claw in dismissal. When I left, he was stroking his crumpled black wings. And I swear he was singing to them, or maybe just to himself.
###
The streets were empty. All the doors were locked. All the windows were shuttered. Fresh lamb’s blood daubed on every lintel. You know how it is. I kept pretending I could still see a little glimmer of sunlight. Maybe if I convinced myself, it wouldn’t count against me? Like, innocent mind, no mens rea, right?
By the time I got to my street, I was out of breath. I stopped at the corner and puffed a few times, but when I realized I couldn’t see my shadow on the ground, I sucked it up and pushed myself into a jog again. I saw someone waiting outside my door and freaked.
“Mom, what are you doing outside? It’s got to be… after… curfew…”
Fucking creepy-ass Angel of Death was just staring at me with those black eyes of his.
“Okay, well. Here I am at home.” I kind of shuffled around him crabwise.
Angel just stared.
“I’m gonna go inside?”
No movement.
“So… bye, then.”
I scooted backwards, but I couldn’t move. He was holding the front of my jacket. I didn’t even see him move. His hand was so cold it burned, even through the Gore-Tex.