Billy didn’t look good. His cheeks were all chewed up and in ribbons. Billy looked like he’d fallen into a shredder, or like he’d tried to make his own gills and botched it. Through the slits in Billy’s cheeks, Todd could see the cause of all the trouble: Billy’s new teeth. They were a dull blue-gray, and serrated. Todd could see tiny bolts where someone (or something) had fixed them to Billy’s gums. The bolts were rusty red with dried blood.

Todd was amazed that Billy could talk at all, but talk he did.

Billy fixed Todd with a kind of dead/not dead stare and started to speak, his diction understandably mushy (Todd reckoned Billy’s tongue had taken a few hits from those blade-teeth).

“Hi Todd,” said Billy. “I have a question for you.” Only the way he said it, it came out “kessshun,” like a rat sneezing.

“What’s the difference between a hawk—” began Billy. But he could get no further as he was consumed by a horrible, blood-and-spittle flecked coughing fit, and bits of tongue and cheek flew out of his mouth.

Todd would have screamed had his own tongue not frozen in his mouth.

*  *  *

“Todd?” said Mike. “Todd!”

“Guess he’s thinking about it,” someone said, and everybody laughed.

Todd blinked. The room was as it had been before. There was no Billy, just Mike, and the sound of genial, complicit laughter.

“I’m sorry, Mike,” said Todd. “Could you repeat the question?”

“I think Todd has been at the complimentary wine,” said Timothy.

“I may have had one glass too many,” said Todd, who hadn’t touched the wine.

“I said,” Mike shouted when the merriment had died down, “where do you get your ideas from?”

The room murmured to itself. This was an excellent question, the room clearly believed, and one that struck right to the heart of the matter.

“I guess I better get used to that one,” said Todd. “I think that every writer gets asked it.”

“And I’m asking it now!” shouted Mike, who seemed to be on the verge of hysteria. Maybe he was just beginning to realize that, if all went well, he would be trading his long-time role as that drunk guy for a more lucrative position as that drunk guy who knows the famous guy.

“Okay,” said Todd. “As I was saying, a lot of people have been asked that question. Do you take your ideas from real life, do you make it up, do you use a pair of dice?”

Laughter, but the kind where people are waiting for you to quit making gags and answer the question.

“I don’t have a pair of dice,” said Todd. “But what I do have is—”