What Would Satan Do? by Anthony Miller Page A

willowy, she now seemed all knees and elbows; almost exo-skeletal even.  She reminded him of a gigantic, stupid, evil praying mantis.  For an instant he imagined her chomping the head of her future husband.  Wasn’t that what praying mantises did?  Have sex and then eat their mates?  He shook his head to erase the image of her post-coital cranial snacking.  There had to be some mistake.  Maybe he’d heard wrong.
    “Did you say that you...?”  He trailed off, his attention drawn back to the misbehaving floor and the fact that his breakfast seemed to want to come back up for a visit.
    “I got engaged!” she said, as if it were the best news ever.
    “Yeah, I guess I heard you right.”  He stared at the floor, and when he couldn’t find any answers there, turned his gaze up at Anna.  “What in the hell...?” 
    Anna made a pouty face.  “Are you okay?”
    He turned, put his hands behind his head.  “I can’t—”  He leaned over, moving his hands to his knees.
    “Liam?  Are you okay?”
    Liam stood, pulling the ring he’d brought with him out of his pocket.  “Stupid, stupid.”  He put it right back in.  “Stupid!”  He’d thrown away everything he’d achieved for this?
    “Liam?” she said.  “You’re starting to scare—”
    The floor started dancing again, only this time it wasn’t just Liam.  The floor was actually dancing – something between a strident Paso Doble and a methamphetamine-fueled Quickstep.  A nearby sign toppled to the ground, and a few panicked screams punctuated the general murmur of alarm that rose up.  There was a loud pop, and the overhead sprinklers came on.  Anna let out a yelp as she toppled over backward onto the floor.
    Liam clenched his fists and fumed as he stared at nothing in particular.  All around him, people shuffled and staggered.  A few cried.  The floor continued its dance.  He took a deep breath, rolled his neck, and looked up, calm again.  The shaking subsided a couple of seconds later.
    Anna sat on the floor, legs splayed, hair tousled and sticking out to one side as if she were recovering from an amorous encounter.  “What just happened?  Was it a terrorist attack?”  She glanced around, searching for terrorists in much the same way that non-mechanically-inclined folks open the hood of a broken-down car hoping to find a wire or hose that has come unplugged.
    “I—” said Liam, suddenly aware of the destruction all around him.  “I gotta go.”  He left the airport, unsure of what had just happened, but with enough wits about him to know that he should walk slowly and not do anything to garner undue attention. 

    A week later, Liam was clearing out his dorm room, still wondering what the heck had happened, and afraid to go anywhere for fear it might happen again.  A man knocked on the frame of his open door. 
    “Liam?”
    “Yes?”
    “I’m Cas Boehner.  I’m with the CIA, Special Activities Division.  Mind if I come in for a minute?”
    They had a nice talk.  And then Liam spent the next ten years in far-off, exotic locations – the kinds of places where you have to dump sand out of your shoes every night and have a thick enough skin not to mind being called things like, “American devil” or “Capitalist Pigdog.”  And in all that time, he’d had neither the opportunity nor the inclination to bother with relationships.  In fact, his companions christened him, “The Monk.” 
    It wasn’t until he returned to the States, to friends and neighbors who constantly pressured him to find a woman, that he’d even considered the possibility.  And still, with every woman he met on all the blind dates he’d been on, he’d felt absolutely nothing.

    Liam was supposed to meet Lola for drinks at a restaurant just off Lake Austin Boulevard.  He’d been told to look for the blonde who looked not entirely unlike the movie actress Scarlett Johannson.  Unlike 99.999% of the male population, he’d actually had to