With all due respect to Edgar Allan Poe, an excerpt from “The Tell-Tale Bowen” (On sale at Pinburgh and your favorite online bookstore March 18-20, 2011 only!):

TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The wide outlanes had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the nudge save acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in the Pop bumpers. How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can show you the whole tutorial.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was some. Passion there was much. I loved the pinball machine. It had never wronged me. It had never given me insult. For its high score, I had no desire. I think it was Lyman! Yes, it was him! One of his eyes resembled a token — a shiny silver token with a logo over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to drop coins into his game and hit the start button, and thus engross myself in the Monster Bash forever…

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