An Marble
On a supposed romantic outing with Beby, she and Mongrel meet a monk from a cult that worships McDonald’s fries. Invited back to the temple, Mongrel is given an opportunity to be reunited with his long-dead father. Unfortunately this experiment has disastrous results, and everyone’s lives are in jeopardy. The romantic outing, needless to say, does not go well.
Excerpts:
Mongrel sat next to Beby on her front lawn, preparing for the worst. The lawn had always made Mongrel suspicious, as Beby lived in an apartment. But the apartment was apparently condemned, and only a few people lived there now, most of whom were also condemned. Because of this, Beby had claimed the lawn for herself, and actively patrolled it during the lunching hours. She’d taken to slugging trespassers with a loaf of bread.
***
“This is the Grand High Palace of Them,” the abusive monk said, gesturing this way and that with boundless enthusiasm. Most of his gesturing wasn’t explained; he pointed at a ceiling fixture or a candle or a particular rock in a particular corner for no particular reason. These were apparently noteworthy furnishings. A penny he found laying on the ground under the main archway was cause for an amount of excitement that would trigger heart failure in anyone over the age of seventy.
The Grand High Palace of Them was indeed a palace, although its outer proportions did not do the interior justice. Outside it looked no bigger than the McDonald’s restaurant across the street, but inside it was vast, made entirely of huge slabs of rock, and if one hollered, it took approximately one minute and twelve seconds for the echo to return. It gave the impression that, without a map, one could get lost deep inside, and might never be found again. This was of course an outlandish notion, but the whole place smelled of charcoal and old socks, and the sense of misery and death hung in the air, making it an unnerving thought.
***
“Number One has returned!” an excited little monk shouted. This caused other excited little monks to stop whatever they were doing and rush over to surround them and begin cheering.
“You’re Number One?” Beby asked the abusive monk.
The abusive monk nodded. “Yes, we’re all Number One here. You see, we’re all named according to our rank, and since we’re all considered equal, we’re all Number One. Well, all of us except for Number Eight. He likes to be different.”
“If you all have the same name then how do you tell each other apart?” Mongrel asked, taking the words right out of officer Switchblade’s mouth.
“It’s quite simple really,” the abusive monk quipped. “We’re all known by our distinctive personality traits. For example, my distinctive trait is that my favourite colour is varying shades of despair.”
Mongrel thought he had grasped this concept. “Let me guess, Number Eight’s favourite number is eight, right? And that’s how you can tell him apart?”
“No, it’s because when he breaks wind it smells like perfume. Old Spice to be precise.” They all looked at him in astonishment. “Really, it does. We have no idea how he manages do it; he won’t tell anyone.”
***
Fortunately he wasn’t left in the dark for long, as the beast made it painfully clear just what it was doing; it farted.
Of course, it took a minute for everyone to understand this. They had all jumped back in alarm upon hearing the noise, but had no idea just what it signified. Most of them were still holding their breaths, and the ones who began breathing again were the first to go. And by go I mean running and screaming out of the palace for some fresh air.
Mongrel, for his part, could not back away, and with his back against the wall he watched as the room slowly began to clear. The monks, one by one, began breathing again, and then quickly left to continue doing so. Then Mongrel too fell victim to the beast’s olfactory offense. The smell marched up his nose and began assaulting his brain.
“Oh!” he cried out in actual pain, trying to claw his way out of the corner. Unfortunately the only way out of his situation was through the beast, and that was the last direction Mongrel wanted to go. At that moment you could not offer him any sum of money to get closer to the reeking stench. He screamed in agony.
***
Beby thought for a minute. “Actually I have a better idea: let’s go dancing.”
Mongrel raised his eyebrows in a fashion that conveyed the message: ‘why on Earth would you want to do that?’
“I love dancing! There’s a real beauty to it. Two people moving as one, floating gracefully across the floor like angels, without a care in the world. And when it’s just the two of you, gazing into each other’s eyes, time stands still, and eternity could stand on the tip of a needle.” Beby was now babbling nonsense, lost in the moment, and Mongrel wasn’t about to go in and find her. “Isn’t it just the most romantic thing?”
Mongrel took a minute to gather the courage to say, “No.”
This turned Beby’s mood inside out and moved it slightly to the left. “You’re about as romantic as a bag of vomit, you know that?”
Mongrel nodded, not because he knew that, but because the world was making much more sense now. Given her attitude towards him, Mongrel couldn’t see the logic in her wanting to continue spending more time with him. Whatever her game was, he was probably going to lose lots of money in the end by playing it.
The Chris Effect 
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