In Last Night’s Death Dream Starring Robert Pattinson,

we are at a corporate team building retreat, and have made it

to the last exercise in which the group must trust each other

enough to allow ourselves to be killed. Of course, we don’t know

who will be our assassin or their assigned method of murder.

We must allow ourselves surprise. Surrender. He and I walk

through the dark maze, sharing a plastic cup of Hawaiian Punch

and when his lips get close enough to my neck as he tells me

it’s just a game, that he really doesn’t want to, I’m satisfied

and I don’t make the easy joke. I know our employer is smarter

than to assign him vampirism. As we stroll, I prepare quips

about the facility and its bleak decor. Should have known we were

walking into our own funeral, huh? I am so preoccupied wanting

to seem casually hilarious, I forget to check my notecard

with my victim’s name and agent of demise. After multiple circuits

around the room, its carpeted collapsible wall panels & their

monotonous swirls, I say, I could just DIE at this interior design.

He puts his hands over my eyes and tells me, you can stop now.

I nod and the anticipation makes my mouth water. I can

stop now. Do you trust me? I do. God, I do. I don’t know where

he’s taking me but he steps on my heels as I walk without seeing.