Soft Targets

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>You know that office bromance: two of a kind always taking their lunch together always wearing the same sly grin. Only ever a hair away from a cold joke about how spreadsheets are a living hell; about taking a bullet if it means going home early on Friday. Sometimes in these fantasies they're heroes being hauled out on a stretcher. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Sometimes they're the ones pulling the trigger. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Now say these guys discover a loophole that makes some days </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>less real</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> than others-less </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>permanent</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>-and start to act out their violent fantasies without fear of reprisal. Why shouldn't they? Tomorrow everything will go back to normal with no one the wiser but them. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>They'll always remember what it felt like to act on their basest impulses. They'll know how it could feel to do it again. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Maybe you don't know these guys. Maybe you don't want to. </span></p><p><br></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Soft Targets</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> is a reality-bending novella about malignant malaise; the surrender to violence; and the addictive appeal of tragedy as entertainment. </span></p>