"No Molly!"
Karl pushed the little cat away from the the keyboard again, and she just bent at the waist like a reed in the wind, and came right back into his face, purring. Her fuzzy little tail curled around his nose like a very strange moustache, and she pushed her head under his chin until he was looking down his nose at the screen, trying to avoid the furry black obstruction.
       "Oh fine, it's late enough anyway..." He closed the laptop, and Molly sat on it as a coup de grâce. There was so much to do lately, the Masher was about to release its big end of the year special issue, and of course the due dates had been vague and unenforced until recently. He glanced at his special notebook, the one with big black marker writing on the cover -- "GREY MENACE". He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the pressure of looming due dates, and the shame of compromising one's own values. Molly curled up on the warm laptop like it was a queenly throne.
       "You know how to live, cat."

       Karl sat on the end of his bed, a blobby lava lamp lighting the room a sickly lime green. The rest of his apartment was very spare, but this little corner of the studio felt familiar. He groaned to himself, thinking that honestly, it WAS familiar. He'd practically recreated his bedroom from home, though with more open pornography than when his mom was still cleaning the place. That wasn't that long ago...        OK, I don't need to be thinking this way still, I have plenty of other things to feel embarrassed about...

       He tried to clear his mind, and look forward to the holiday Masher. He was getting a big editorial piece about the downfall of the Harlan music scene. Of course, that was written ages ago, and now he had to pour over every poorly constructed half-thought by his coworkers and try to make them seem sensible and coherent. No wonder he had no time to do anything.
       He glanced at a tacked up clipping from an old Masher. The one and only piece he was allowed to write about the Grey Menace. By now, everyone was bored out of their skulls by the mere mention of the Grey Menace, and only babbling old women at the bus stop were interested. It was a good piece, he thought, but of course it had to be 'spiced up' by Hans and his contrary counterpoint printed on the same page. Yet, there it was, published and with his name printed and everything. As far as he knew, it was the only published article that speculated on the bizarre incident in such detail, and other than online conspiracy theorists, no one shared his opinion.
       --and what was his opinion? The Grey Menace could be a body double, a faked death? At least, it wasn't a clone conspiracy, that would just be silly. Karl rested his head on the pillow next to a purring Molly, and imagined someone tracking him down because of the article, and asking him to join their secret investigation. Maybe the Grey Menace himself would notice! Of course, someone could just track him down and kill him as well. At least if he was killed, he thought, he wouldn't have to explain the correct use of 'your/you're' ever again.