Baby

A bloodthirsty dictator tries to change his behavior to please a small baby that has floated down from the sky and been declared an omen of the gods. ..."Penance!" cried the witchdoctor, so the portly dictator was forced to get on his hands and knees and play horsey for an hour, much to Millicent's delight. She gave him a big, sloppy kiss. He pardoned a number of political opponents and tribal enemies, and hoped no one noticed when they were quietly hunted down and dispatched by his security forces in the dead of night. "You're not trying," said the one of many wives. "It's difficult," he conceded, and played horsey again... Baby is a story from The World Is Round, available now. A great philosopher's masterwork is unravelled by a duck, an influential talk show host begins executing his guests, and a baby enchants a murderous African dictator in this collection of seventeen short stories. A work of poignant satire and extraordinary imagination, The World Is Round is always weird, sometimes bleak, and frequently hilarious.

Andrew Wheeler lives in Amsterdam. He is writing.