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already spreading like wild-fire. Nothing will stop it. It’s being released everywhere, and shuttles will carry it back and forth between Earth, Omikami, Luna, Mars, Europa and Titan. All in a matter of days.”
    “You’re insane!” she shrieked.
    “Am I?” he asked seriously. “I don’t feel insane. I’ve thought about it quite a bit over the past week. The logic seems flawless. God gave me every other miracle before this one. Humankind wanted every other miracle and Yudius generously presented each of them to humankind. Not a single one was ever rejected. Not one. I asked myself over and over why this particular miracle should go un-realized.” He turned to look out at the glowing city before him. “ Humanity was always the answer … all those people. How could I let them all die? Cause them to die. One thing kept coming back, striking that answer down quickly and with utter finality. God doesn’t make mistakes, Adrienne.”
    She could only sit there in shock, her mind numb
    “God gave us free will to do as we please,” Mathew said to the night sky. He turned again to Adrienne. “And we have, haven’t we? Look out there.” He gestured at the churning skyline of lights and meaningless profit and consumption that had become the driving force of humankind. “Look at what we’ve done to the Garden. It’s not a garden anymore, is it?”
    He walked past her and back into his apartment, heading for his bed for the last time. He stopped in the doorway, turning to Adrienne who was now catatonic with shock.
    “God gave the miracles to me so I could give them to you, Adrienne. And as the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.”
    He slid the patio door closed, leaving Adrienne to pursue her own dreams.

CO RNELI US
    Originally appeared in Seven Dwarf Stories , published by 7DS Publishing in 2013.
    The downpour fits my mood, but I’m still grateful for it. The rain is sure to wash away my blood.
    I sigh, wondering what it’ll feel like when the Queen’s thugs beat me to death. I don’t even plan on fighting. Not that a runty little dwarf like me could take two full-grown trolls, but the sorry truth is that I got myself into this mess … practically begged for it. I’ll take it like a dwarf. I just hope the whisky and drugs take the edge off when they lay into me.
    The chipper one—I nickname him Smiley—asks me how I ended up here. He’s all mooney-eyed and awestruck, like most of my fans used to be. He remembers me from movies he’d seen as a kid. But I’m sure he can’t reconcile what he remembers with the wreck of a dwarf before him now—shadowed, deep-set eyes; threadbare clothes; a grungy, red cap; and that look of death you see on drug addicts right before someone finds them face-down in a rain-filled gutter.
    Six dwarves, caps canted foreword, stare down the bar at me. Expectant.
    How did I end up here?
    The question skips across my thoughts like a stone across water. I’ve asked it a thousand times, looking for any answer besides the truth. And a thousand times I’ve come up with nothing but reality as cold and hard as an axe blade set in ice.
    Through the addled haze of a two-day bender, I feel a low chortle soft-shoe its way across my throat like an old, gay fairy. I sniff hard. It’s a long, drawn out thing piggy-backed by flames that ignite the inside of my skull. I’m grateful for the pain, though. It lets me know I’m still alive.
    I’m not sniffing because I’m crying, though, or because I know I’m gonna die. I got past feeling sorry for myself months ago. I sniff again, and the pleasure-pain flares anew. Sniffing is just one of the more obvious side effects for habitual PD users. The stuff goes by a lot of names, but those of us on the hook call it PD for short. I guess that’s a side effect too. At parties it’s how we separate ‘us’ from the normals.
    You may not know it, but there’s a bunch of us in the movie biz with the sniffs. None so much as me, though. I have it