[1] The town announced the arrival of the assassin seconds before the assassin arrived. The town stuck their heads out of windows and stepped onto balconies to get a better look. I’m sorry, said the assassin to the town. I brought the wrong knife. He turned to walk back home. We have knives, the town said, enthusiastically, desperately. We have guns and cannons and bags and bombs. Please, they said.

[2] The cop wanted to work in an office so he agreed to be an officer. As an officer, he discovered a dead body in his trunk. Easier than catching a thief, he thought. The precinct needed one body and one body is what the cop provided. Dead or alive, dead or alive. The cop placed the dead body in the holding cell and read the dead body its rights. When the commissioner arrived at noon, hungover and short-tempered, an under the weather veteran, he saw the dead body and nodded. The dead body looked an awful lot like the cop, the cop thought, looking first at the body and then at the floor.

[3] Law was in Law’s office with God and with State. Law handed pamphlets to God and to State. Damp pamphlets. Pamphlets that read, “Law meant God when Law said State.” “I meant God,” Law said, “when I said State.” God looked like a knockout with such new teeth. State was rehanging a painting. “Where will I go,” State asked? “That’s in God’s hands,” said Law, pausing to blow on the coffee.