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at which their over-active brains are not pulsing toward the solution to some multi-faceted consultancy, contracting, or design problem. (It is theorized by one of their friends, in fact, that the energy caused by the firing of neurons in John and Maureen’s heads has been harnessed by the aliens who live on a planet circling a dying star—a white dwarf—and that this energy alone has kept the star from imploding, and thus John and Maureen are not just responsible for a multi-faceted business, but also for keeping alive an entire alien race, although this is, of course, speculation, not a secret life at all, and at no point in the immediate future will John and Maureen change their moniker to “Jayde Design: Publishing, Distributing, Computing, & Enabling the Survival of Alien Intelligent Life Across the Galaxy”.)
    What is their secret life? When they can grab the time, they work together as Inventors of the Impractical—conceiving of inventions that would, perhaps, be universally admired in a parallel universe but which (they realize) may never be appreciated in this one. Together, they draw out the designs, they pencil in the descriptions on graph paper. They debate (over drinks) the pros and cons of each invention.
    “Plastic,” he will say in a stray moment when Jayde Design(s) does not require their attention.
    “Breathing tube,” she will say hours later, in another free second, with an almost lascivious smile.
    “Furniture saver,” he will say, the next day, in the car, with a leer.
    “Pets!” she will reply that evening, over dinner, giving him a long hug.
    Shortly thereafter an invention is born that allows a pet owner to wrap his or her dog or cat in a plastic sheath complete with hole in the back and an air tube—providing for full freedom of movement, but negating any possible injury to furniture from fur, hairball, or claws.
    “No more need to cover the furniture in plastic,” Maureen says, looking down at the finished design, breathless, happy.
    “Cut off the problem at the source,” John says, hugging her.
    “Totally impractical,” Maureen says. “Completely fool-hardy.”
    “I love it!” John says.
    The next day, they will let their idea out in to the world. Curl up the graph paper, stick it in a bottle of glimmery old green glass, stopper it, and send it on its way—by river by tossing into the open window of a car by sneaking it into someone’s briefcase by mailing it to Timbuktu by any of a thousand means.
    John likes to think that whatever their delivery system, their idea will end up with someone or somewhere it can be of use.
    Maureen just likes to think that someone somewhere will be amused.
    Regardless, they are soon onto the next thing. A fashionable handle to clip onto the existing handle of an old suitcase! A suit with small globes of aquariums hanging from it! A pillow that doubles as a hibachi! Just so long as the idea works those few neurons not busy with their day job. Just so long as it is fun, secret, and, above all, theirs .

THE SECRET LIFE OF
    BOWEN MARSHALL
    Bowen Marshall is an aspiring librarian who believes his sister leads a more interesting life just because, at the age of seventeen, she moved to San Francisco to become an artist and circus performer. However, Bowen is mistaken in his assumption about his sibling. Being a circus performer requires a Herculean commitment of time to repetitive, boring practice, usually in close quarters in smelly, animal-feces-encrusted circus tents inhabited by lots of unsavory, tattered characters who might have looked Romantic and fun from a distance but are revolting up-close. Not to mention the “excitement” of being an artist. There is nothing particularly exciting about snobbish gallery owners, ignorant art buyers, and slowly starving to death from a lack of steady income.
    Besides, Bowen’s secret life would make even an adrenaline junky Navy SEAL weak with envy. Every night, about an hour into sleep, Bowen begins