From "John, The"

What if the pump stops working completely? Where would this stuff go? Who would clean it up? How do you clean dirt?

I needed every single one of the parts of this delicate system to work together, and to work perfectly. It was too much to bear. A day and a quarter passed without event. I avoided using that bathroom like Perseus dodging the gaze of Medusa in Clash of the Titans. Why feed the beast and make it stronger?

From "Tenderfoots"

I struggled to the surface and choked for air. I was as heavy as a capsized canoe. I treaded frantically, and made feeble efforts at blowing air into my shirt. This was bullshit. Shirts and pants don't hold air. If cotton clothing was so effective at saving lives, then why wasn't there a huge rack of Boy Scout uniforms in the Boating Safety section at K-Mart? Why manufacture life-vests at all? If we were really supposed to "be prepared," then we should have been issued rubber floatation shirts with little air nozzles on the collars.

Giving up on my shirt, I threw all my remaining energy into the "floating pants" concept. Taking off wet pants while treading water is, to this day, the most awkward and unnatural thing that I have ever done in my life. It was like trying to tie my shoes while running at full speed. I managed to get both legs tied into knots as my life flashed before my eyes. I looked around to check on the progress of the others. What a pathetic sight! Drowning ten year-olds, hurling their tangled, soaking pants through the air—the flat, soggy legs flopping down heavily again and again on the surface of the water. We gasped and spat out large quantities of the very water that was about to become our grave.

Our strength was leaving us. We were sinking. We were all going to die.

From "Moss Men!"

The Moss People haven't stopped moving for a second. Highly agile and alert, they are. And serious. There are 4 females and 2 males. I've never seen naked people work so hard. Quite comfortable in nothing but a thin layer of orange fuzz. All misconceptions about the simple and primitive nature of this diminutive tribe have been eradicated, as I witness their mastery of all this technology.

We're huge in here. What must normally provide a spacious vessel for them, with more than enough room for a miniature game of Mossman bocci ball, has been transformed into a flying Mini-Cooper by our presence. Nobody tells us what to do. I suppose there would be little to prevent us from jumping up and smashing the instruments. But why would we? We're getting the ride of our lives. Millionaires still can't buy a ride like this.

I happen to have a pen. Some scraps of paper. Business cards, receipts. Hoping they don't erase my memory, but just in case, you know. Do the Moss People do that? Nah. What purpose for taking us with them, but to show us something we need to remember?

Will is catatonic over there, sitting upright, propped up against something that looks like a narrow garbage can with an espresso maker sitting on top of it. Sometimes a Mosswoman has to lean way over him to get to the thing, her tiny breast bumping into his forehead, but neither party takes notice. He won't talk to me. I give up. They grabbed him before they picked me up, but I'm not sure how long he has been here.

This other guy... honestly, I have no idea why he's here. For our entertainment maybe? To take the edge off? Or to put one on? Here's a guy who, at first glance, you might avoid while you're walking around downtown, because he'd be bound to ask you for some change, and he'd get really close to you, and maybe smell bad. But after a few minutes, although his brain is pretty fried and sometimes you wish he would stop talking, he comes off as rather sweet. He even smells sweet. Something on his breath, like he got really hungry and decided to eat some tulips.

His tattered hippy clothes are covered in patches, the most prominent of which looks like some sort of NASA patch which reads "Crew Member — Spaceship Earth". He's sort of gaunt, with hollow cheeks, bulging bloodshot eyes, and a thick bushy sort of handlebar moustache that hangs down to his chin. Looks kind of like Wild Bill Hickock. The moustache is abruptly trimmed straight across his upper lip to make room for his saxophone, which yes, he brought with him.

His helmet... He fashioned this hat out of one-half of a cardboard globe of our world — the Northern hemisphere, of course. He covered it in plastic wrap to make it look shiny. Sharing equal prominence upon the front are a "United We Stand" American flag sticker, and a piece of Middle East currency. A beanie rests upon the pinnacle, the tiniest little silver trophy, about an inch high, with the wings sticking straight up to the heavens.

As I was boarded onto the... well, it DOES look like a saucer — I slumped down in the middle of the floor, and the stranger serenaded me with a song that he wrote himself. He blew on his sax a bit, and he was actually pretty good, and he sang right into my face, in a raspy, gravelly twang,

  I want YOU
  To come DOWN
  And invade this world with PEACE

And he blew some more, and he sang some more, and when I seemed to need my space, he eased off and gave me a little. He's all right. Wants to form a band called Weapons of Mass Percussion.

But why am I telling you about him?