Gary and Luke sat at a bar. "Does your head start to itch when you listen to music?" Luke said.
   "No," Gary said.
   "What about when you hear certain words or phrases?"
   "I don't know. I suppose it would depend on the words and phrases."
   Words and phrases they experimented with: Lorgnette. Long weekends. Some figs. A fake Monet. Mrs. Salty-Duck. That's not her real name. Educe. News fish. Harper and the stick. Get him on the lightning phone.
   They told each other their life stories to find more words and phrases.
   Luke's life story: He was born on a Tuesday and then he was young for a while and then he got married because it seemed like the sensible thing to do at the time but when he was old he started to wonder about the wisdom of his decision. He was old when most of his friends were still young, and he used to be younger than them. He dreamt of becoming young again by becoming a wrestler called Panic Clobbermonk, but it was never more than a dream.
   Gary's life story: He grew up in the countryside and then he got a job in the city and that's when the monsters came, but he was able to shoot most of them. On weekends he went back to the country and he spent a lot of time living in trees because he thought a time would come when all the survivors would have to live in trees to get away from the ground-bound monsters. He fell in love with a woman who shared his political views in relation to monsters. They drove around in an open-top car and they wore dark sunglasses. This was their way of saying 'Don't mess with us', and no one did.
   More words and phrases they considered: Brief cousins. The cat's cabbage. Nineteen centipedes. Samovar. Jam dognuts.
   Their life stories moved on with their lives. These stories contained phrases like 'submultiple bingo', 'sweaty horse' and 'She invited me into her caravan', but they were happy just saying these phrases in the pub, rather than finding practical uses for them.