72.

Sometimes if you listen closely, when all is still, you can hear the yelping of a poor lost dog.

"yelp, yelp." It goes.

Its pathetic cry tugs at the heart strings, upsetting the fine tuning required to maintain such a sensitive instrument. Peculiar melodies echo throughout the passages of the participants body triggering strange responses like water works or a pleasantly warm feeling in the pit of ones stomach, which is fine if you're in to that type of thing. But from a detached view it's all very illogical. Except when it comes to saucer-eyed furry creatures in which case it is totally untenable, even the most unemotivated can't help but be drawn to these pitiable beasts. So you must never sit in silence, meditation is a prison masquerading as escape, achieving enlightenment is to be caught up in the rapture of its sad sad song.

It is said that the pup wears on it's face the smouldering refuse of the worlds ills. Don't touch it, you may become infected, don't entertain anything but the thought of running if the dreaded creature darkens your path or chases your shadow. Love will deceive you, hold fast to reason.

What is this creature you speak of?

They call him Absolom.

18.

"what was that son?" said the bald stranger.

He began to swing his crutch cum weapon with the finesse of a professionally trained ballerina. This was no ordinary man. He had both class and elegance as his savvy dress sense and propensity to knock out defenceless woman clearly indicated.

"ohahohewho."

"that's quite enough gibberish."

The bald one, by the malicious look on his face delivered a fierce blow to the side of Daly's head. Daly looked up blankly. This vacant stare was answered with a series of strikes that left him spasming on the ground.

Absolom scuttled over to the man who had once tried to feed him to an exotic lizard and whimpered uncontrollably.

14.

"You *#&%!@ you're the %$^&*# from work today."

"Indeed my dear. I'm your worst nightmare, an abusive customer who doesn't actually want to buy anything."

"Terrifying. What are you doing here? Where's Simon?"

"You know as well as I do you impetuous self-absorbed wench. He went that way."

Canada gave a big huff, lent slightly forward with arms open at an acute angle and flared wrists, pausing for dramatic effect. Then she stormed away, stopped mid step suddenly realizing that she hadn't actually done anything useful yet. Simon was still flying(!?) off into the dark night, Absalom was in need of hair and skin grafts, while Daly seemed to be struggling to find his freshly spilt marbles.

She turned to her agitator again, "Now you list--," he smashed her over the head with his flashy walking stick.

8.

The puppy whom Canada had named Absolom, began to yelp in what sounded like a bad fossetto.

"What did you do to Absolom? He's barking like a girl."

"I don't know maybe the stimulation of walking's too much or maybe he just doesn't like the stupid name you gave him."

BOOM!

An explosion knocked Canada into the trunk of a nearby tree. She'd often thought that flora growing out of side walks was unnatural. Today life seemed to be affirming all her pet peeves.

Absolom was singed in a way that improved his complexion, while Daly was left exclaiming, "Holy Moly."

Not swearing when you have perfect reason to is a bad sign. Simon's house had just exploded in front of them, their being outside and not in was some consolation. But the unexpected explosion was only the beginning of the (up until then) happy trio's bewilderment. Simon burst through the roof and appeared to be flying. Was he running on rocket power? Flames were blazing from who knows where, but he seemed perfectly happy as a human comet, the destruction of his property notwithstanding.

Daly's suspension of disbelief snapped. After that he didn't know what to do.