Unidentified Funny Objects 7, page 28
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Coming back from vacation sucks—especially to a job you hate.” He shrugged. “I thought a cozy-kit might help you relax.”
“You spoil me.”
“Oh, please. You don’t even know what’s in there. It could be crap!” He took the box, holding it out. “Go ahead. Find out!”
Jeannie removed the lid. She found all her favorites: jellybeans, Oreos, peanut butter; hot-chocolate packets, fuzzy socks, a cookbook. A novel she’d never heard of.
“Three Ways to Leave Hawaii?” she asked.
“It’s apparently chock-full of stuff you like: action, a little romance, some humor, and the occasional paranormal phenomenon.”
Jeannie looked at him. She narrowed her eyes.
“Jack, love, did you by chance hire a self-described ‘voodoo king’ to send me on a spiritual journey, so I could learn to be happy with what I have because even my dream jobs have their drawbacks?”
“Is that what you learned? Huh. It was supposed to show you you’re brilliant and brave and kind, and capable of doing anything you put your mind to.” He shrugged. “I guess stories mean different things to different people. Shall we?”
They got onto the freeway. Jeannie watched the scenery go by.
“Maybe it’s something else,” she said.
“Hm?”
“The story. Maybe it was supposed to tell me little changes can make big differences in life.”
“Could be.”
Jeannie pointed at an exit. “Take that one, please.”
“Sure thing. Where’re we headed?”
“To the animal shelter.” She smiled. “I’m getting a dog.”
Zach Shephard lives in Enumclaw, Washington, where he occasionally comes up with fantasy stories instead of acting like a responsible adult. He loves chocolate (especially when it’s with peanut butter), and is a sworn enemy of tomatoes. Zach tries to stay active by kickboxing, hiking, and hunting vampires, but it’s become much more difficult ever since he hit his mid-thirties and aged four hundred years in a single day.
You can find more of Zach’s fiction in places like Fantasy & Science Fiction, Galaxy’s Edge and Flash Fiction Online—not to mention four previous volumes of the Unidentified Funny Objects series. For a full bibliography of his stories, check out zachshephard.com.
Acknowledgments
We'd like to thank everyone involved in making this book possible: associate editors Cyd Athens, James Beamon, Frank Dutkiewicz, James Miller, Tarryn Thomas, and Russ Nickel; copyeditor Elektra Hammond, book designer Melissa Neely, graphics designer Emerson Matsuuchi, cover artist Tomasz Maronski, illustrator Barry Munden, James Conason, Q Fortier, Aysha Rehm, and many others whose talent and hard work made this a better book.
About the Editor
Alex Shvartsman is a writer, anthologist, translator, and game designer from Brooklyn, NY. He's the winner of the 2014 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction and a two-time finalist (2015 and 2017) for the Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Writing.
His short stories have appeared in Analog, Nature, Strange Horizons, Intergalactic Medicine Show, and a variety of other magazines and anthologies. Most are collected in Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories (2015) and The Golem of Deneb Seven and Other Stories (2018).
In addition to the UFO series, he has edited the The Cackle of Cthulhu, Humanity 2.0, Funny Science Fiction, Coffee: 14 Caffeinated Tales of the Fantastic, and Dark Expanse: Surviving the Collapse anthologies. His website is www.alexshvartsman.com.
Seanan McGuire, Unidentified Funny Objects 7
