My Cardboard Balcony

Recipe For Mint by Belinda Roddie You first start with an idea - a very new, edgy idea. Something like a phone app with a new game that shoots squirrels into the Eiffel Tower for candy hearts. You develop it, you plan it, and the idea mutates into rigid chunks of code on a silicon-cold tablet. You send the idea to your friends. They love it. They want to endorse it. So the idea now has a following; a rabid following. And you get it packaged and shipped off to the nearest "gaming" company that'll wipe its ass with your blueprint and create an entirely different game with chipmunks instead of squirrels and the Space Needle instead of the Eiffel Tower because France blows Jerry Lewis's dick. Then you'll get royalties every once in a while and pay for your half of the apartment a little easier. Or you can just eat a gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Because that mint is way better than the other mint.

As Larson tumbled out from behind the bookshelf, he found himself staring right at Graham, who remained frozen from where she was sitting by the mantel. A small leatherbound book was clutched in her right hand, while a dagger with a curved blade and beaded handle was clutched in the other. Larson did not dare ask why she had such a pair of objects, given Graham's wrathful reputation.