Smoke And Mirrors: Short Fictions And Illusions - By Neil Gaiman Page 0,126

bland, unflinching, blowjob porn,

(her lips are glossy, and her tongue is red)

HOLD on her face. We hear him gasping “Oh.

Oh baby. Yes. Oh. Take it in your mouth.”

And then she opens up her mouth, and grins,

and bites his cock off.

Spurting blood pumps out

into her mouth. She hardly spills a drop.

We never do pan up to see his face,

just her. It’s what they call the money shot.

Then, when his cock’s gone down, and blood’s congealed, we see his face. He looks all dazed and healed.

Some feeders come and take him out of there.

Down in the pens he’s chained beside McBride.

Deep in the mud lie carcasses picked clean

who grin at them and dream of being soup.

Poor things.

We’re almost done.

We’ll leave them there.

CUT to some lonely doorway, where A TRAMP

has three cold fingers up ANOTHER TRAMP,

they’re starving but they fingerfuck like hell,

and underneath the layers of old clothes

beneath the cardboard, newspaper and cloth,

their genders are impossible to tell.

PAN UP:

to watch a butterfly go past.

Apple

In the end, the Lord gave Mankind the world. All the world was Man’s, save for one garden. This is my garden, saith the Lord, and here you shall not enter.

There was a man and a woman, who came to the garden, and their names were Earth and Breath.

They had with them a small fruit which the Man carried, and when they arrived at the gate to the garden, the Man gave the fruit to the Woman, and the Woman gave the fruit to the Serpent with the flaming sword who guarded the Eastern Gate.

And the Serpent took the fruit and placed it on a tree, in the centre of the garden.

Then Earth and Breath knew their clothedness, and removed their garments, one by one, until they were naked; and when the Lord walked through the garden he saw the man and the woman, who no longer knew good from evil, but were satisfied.

Then the Lord opened the gates and gave Mankind the garden, and the Serpent he raised up, and it walked away proudly on four legs; and where it went then no man can say.

And after that there was nothing but silence in the Garden, save for the occasional sound of the man taking away a name from another animal.

About the Author

Neil Gaiman is the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of the novels Neverwhere, Stardust, the Sandman series of graphic novels, and Smoke and Mirrors, a collection of short fiction. He is coauthor of the novel Good Omens with Terry Pratchett. Among his many awards are the World Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award. Originally from England, Gaiman now lives in the United States.

Visit his website at www.neilgaiman.com.

Credits

Jacket design by Amy Halperin

Cover photograph by J.K. Potter

Interior design by Kellan Peck

Also by Neil Gaiman

Novels

NEVERWHERE

GOOD OMENS (with Terry Pratchett)

For Children

THE DAY I SWAPPED MY DAD FOR TWO GOLDFISH

(illustrated by Dave McKean)

Collections

ANGELS & VISITATIONS, A MISCELLANY

Graphic Novels

with Dave McKean

VIOLENT CASES

SIGNAL TO NOISE

MR. PUNCH

Sandman

PRELUDES & NOCTURNES

THE DOLL’S HOUSE

DREAM COUNTRY

SEASON OF MISTS

A GAME OF YOU

FABLES AND REFLECTIONS

BRIEF LIVES

WORLDS’ END

THE KINDLY ONES

THE WAKE

Death

THE HIGH COST OF LIVING

THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE

Miscellaneous Graphic Novels

THE BOOKS OF MAGIC

MIRACLEMAN: THE GOLDEN AGE

BLACK ORCHID

Non-fiction

DON’T PANIC!

GHASTLY BEYOND BELIEF (with Kim Newman)

As Editor

THE SANDMAN: BOOK OF DREAMS (with Ed Kramer)

NOW WE ARE SICK (with Steve Jones)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

Some of the stories appearing in this collection have been previously published. Please see credits page.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS. Collection copyright © 1998 by Neil Gaiman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Print edition first published in 1998 HarperCollins Publishers

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About the Author

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