I'm here just for you dear!

She wasn’t supposed to be there. But she was. He was pleasantly surprised. It was like finding cookies in a packet marked wheat bran.

“What are you doing here?” He asked.

“I’m here just for you dear.” She said. “What else are days off for?”

They spent time together doing all the things they loved. Like eating pastries, breaking his colleagues’ fragile hearts, and running around screaming “WHY, Jennifer, WHY?”

They parted.

Then she met her friend.

“What are you doing here?” the friend asked.

“I’m here just for you dear.” She said. “What else are days off for?”

They spent their time together doing all the things they loved. They had their little girlie talk, they hunted vampires, and they made hot girls feel unloved.

They parted.

She ordered a cheese palak dosa.

She felt guilty about lying to her friends.

Then she saw the hot thing that had stolen her heart before her.

“It’s been so long,” she said to it. “I’m actually here just for you!”

The cheese palak dosa said nothing. It knew that this time she was telling the truth.

This is why i'm celibate!

“EEEEEEE! EEEEEE! EEEEEEE!” screamed Pen

“EEEEEEE! EEEEEE! EEEEEEE!” screamed the cosmos. This didn’t help.

“Like Oh My GOD! It’s, like, a BABY!” said the cosmos in shock. She had a voice reminiscent of young teenage girls named Tiffany.

This struck Pen as rather silly, so his paused his effeminate hysterics and asked, “Just a second here. You’re ‘The Cosmos’ and your telling me your freaked out by a baby?”

The cosmos paused her effeminate hysterics and replied, “Well I totally never had a baby before and now someone’s, like, left one on my doorstep! Like, oh my God! What am I going to do?”

Pen rolled his cosmic eye. “You’re the cosmos, you doof, you can’t have a baby! And it was left on my doorstep, not yours.” he said a little tiredly.

“Oh! Right! Your doorstep. Sorry, I think I just had an in-body experience.” she said embarrassed and, oddly, a little disappointed. “But, like, what about you then, huh? Why are you so, like, freaked out by a baby, you… you… MONK?”

“I don’t think you would understand, but celibacy and babies do not go hand in hand!” he replied a little unnerved. Suddenly he imagined a baby and a geek holding hands. He then couldn’t help but visualize the horror of all things associated with babies. The feeding, the burping, the bathing, the vomit, the poop…. Ha ha, funny word, poop … the waking up at odd hours at night, and conventionally, a wife! Oh the horror!

The cosmos was pissed. “Well I’m celibate too you know.” She said angrily and dissipated, leaving Pen to think furiously what that could mean.

His distraction removed temporarily, he returned to his previous activity of screaming like a little girl. “EEEEEEE EEEEEE EEEEEEE! Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”

“Hey, you can’t, like, invoke Them,” said the cosmos.
“Oh shush.” Said pen. “I thought you had gone away.”
“I’m the cosmos. I can’t go away.” She said. And she was quite right.
“Damn!” thought Pen. He was being very un-monk like.

“I so totally heard that.” Said the cosmos. She always did. She was the cosmos. She knew this. She laughed evilly somewhere else. Nobody heard.

That brings about an interesting point. If the cosmos laughs evilly in a void and no one is around to hear it… did she laugh? Philosophy will take years to even come up with that question.

“Sorry” Pen said, refraining from another ‘damn.’ “And why is it okay for you to say ‘oh my God’ and not me to say ‘oh Jesus Mary and Joseph’?”
“Cause I, like, believe.” She said.

Pen: 0, The cosmos: 1.

Accepting his defeat, but only because the baby was starting to cry, he picked her up and put her on his shoulder, then lifted the basket and took her inside. “Lets take you to see Master C.” He hardly moved a few steps when she threw up on him. Its surprising how much liquid something so small can hold.

“Ooooo look! When it throws up it makes a funny little sound. That’s sooo cute! Hmm, don’t you think it’s totally surprising how something, like, so liquid can inhabit, like, a child so solid?” Observed the cosmos rather inappropriately.

Pen tried not to scream to the heavens because he could hear when the heavens screamed back, and he didn’t want to startle the creature that was decorating his shoulder and back in creative patterns.

Master C. Reen was the leader of the monastery. No one knew his full first name. He had reached a level of consciousness so high and stayed there so long that he was quite out of touch with reality. But he was the leader so he had to be consulted. Also he was quite wise if you managed to make sense of what he was saying. Maybe he was just misunderstood. Who knew?

Master C was in the Room of Silence (Except In Emergencies) and it was a long walk from the lobby.

“Pen,” inquired a passing monk, “Did you know that there’s a baby on your shoulder?” “Really? I thought it was a parrot.” Replied Pen sarcastically in another very un-monk like display.
“Alright then,” replied the monk, “did you know that your parrot is shitting all down your back?”

Pen walked off. He was too frazzeled to come up with another witty answer. He walked on. The baby cried a little more.

“Rock a by Baaaaaabeee on the treee tooooooop!” sang the cosmos. Suddenly the world got a little darker and small animals ran around screeching in fear. Pen shushed the cosmos.

“You just shushed me! I can’t believe you shushed me! That was like sooo out of line.”

Pen then decided to return to lower states of consciousness. He welcomed the silence. He realized that this was the equivalent of being married and he just ran out of the house to get away from his ditsy, nagging wife.

He passed another monk. This monk too felt the need to inquire into Pens odd sense of dress. A baby was not quite so fashionable an accessory, especially not in monasteries.

“Pen, have you realized that there’s…”
“A baby on my shoulder that’s vomiting down my back? Yes I have.” interrupted Pen. “Well then, did you know that there’s a large wet area all the way down your front?” said the monk at the precise moment that Pen started to feel a little warmer and considerably wetter.
“I do now.” He said resignedly and walked on.

He reached the Room Of Silence (Except In Emergencies) and entered it. Master C was sitting in the middle of it on his pink cushion named Britney.

“Master C, I need to talk to you.” started Pen.

“Pen,” said Master C, “ this is the Room Of Silence (Except In Emergencies) so I hope, regretfully, that this is an emergency. By the way, did you realize that there’s a baby on your shoulder and that it has vomited down your back and peed down your front?” he observed most profoundly!

Pen returned the baby to the basket.
“Yes Master C, that is the emergency! I have a baby!”
“Oh! That is rather a predicament. I’m afraid that is unacceptable. You must leave the monastery immediately.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you have a baby.”
“But why should I leave just because I have a baby?”

“Well,” said Master C thinking that he really hadn’t taught Pen anything if he didn’t know by now. “Monks don’t have babies, Pen. In fact monks don’t do anything that could even bring about a baby.”

“Bring about…? Oh my, no, no. It’s not MY baby. It is A baby that I happen to have.”

“A baby that you happen to have? Pen this is worse than I thought. How does one just happen to have a baby with out going through the normal baby producing activities?”

Master C was quite intrigued. It seemed like a new and startling development in human biology.

“It was delivered to me”

“Delivered? What is going on Pen? What kind of baby delivering racket have you gotten involved in? As cute as babies may be, and as much as you may want one for your own, there is a secret about them that you must know.” Said Master C.

He lowered his voice to an almost inaudible whisper.

Pen leaned closer in anticipation.

“They don’t stay that way!” he said with the aura of someone revealing a sacred universal truth.

“I do not intend to keep her.” replied Pen now rather frustrated. “She was left at our door and I would like to know what to do with her.”

Master Pen took a little while to realize what to do. He was not familiar with normal baby care procedure. “Let me ask Jennifer what she thinks.”

Pen was confused. He did not know any Jennifer who was at the monastery. In fact no woman was allowed inside. “Who is Jennifer?” he asked

“The cosmos.”
“What? The cosmos is Jennifer?.”
“Why yes. Didn’t you know?” Master C was faintly surprised.

Pen to the life of him could not figure out why the cosmos was named Jennifer of all things. He had thought that she didn’t have a name. But if she did, he had expected it to be something cooler. Like Stacey! Or Brunhilda! He returned to higher states of consciousness.

“Your name is Jeniffer?” he asked the cosmos.
“Well it used to be a bunch of things. But I change it when I get bored. My most recent name was Brunhilda.”

Pen gaped.

“Anyway Jenny what do you want to do with the child?” asked Master C.

“OOOooo! I just want to hug it and squeeze it and love it sooo much!”

“You can’t” said Pen. “You don’t have a body!” He was overly spiteful. He couldn’t help it. He still had traumatic dreams about his aunties doing just that. Loving him to death!

But the cosmos would get him back. It would rain wherever he went for a week. And he’d catch a cold. She sniggered in anticipation. Again in a void. Nobody heard.

“Maybe we should find its owners.” Suggested Master C failing to recognize that a baby was not an object.
“Like DUH!” Said Jennifer.

“Excellent!” remarked Master C not noticing the spaced out cosmos take a jibe at him. It was like the pot calling the kettle black and the kettle whistling and doing a little jig.

“We’ll send out someone to find them. But for now, Pen, take care of the thing.”

Pen was aghast! “What! But I don’t know how. And I’ve had enough; I’ve been subjected to enough trauma already! Can’t someone else look after it?”

“Well Pen it seems unfair to give it to just anybody to look after. Here all of us have equal, negligible as it may be, skill at looking after a baby. So, as you were the finder, you must be the keeper.”

“But I really don’t want to!” Pen whined said pleadingly.

“I have given you an order and you will do as I say Penelope!” Said Master C.“You have just turned 18 and are still to prove yourself as a man, and this will be one of your tasks.” He stated with some finality. Not realizing that taking care of a baby was to a man as understanding string theory was to a ball of yarn.

Pen winced. He hated his full name. It was given to him based on his mothers dying wishes. But he really couldn’t blame her. Just after childbirth she had said,

“If it’s a girl, name it Penelope, and if it’s a boy…”

At that moment she passed from the world.

So they had to name it Penelope in either case just like she had said. And thus Pen was named Penelope, and was doomed forever to be ridiculed by society. One day he was teased a girl by a girlish little boy named Frodo. This was the last straw. He joined the monastery to get away from it all.

Now in retrospect this seemed to him like a very bad decision.

“Alright.” he said resignedly. “I’ll do it. I’ll take care of the little thing. If there is nothing further I will take your leave, Oh High One!” he said and he picked up the basket and left the Room of Silence (Except in Emergencies).

On the way to his room he realized that there was a powerful unpleasant smell that followed him around. “What in all Jennifer is that?” he asked.

“Guess who!” she replied. “And don’t ever say that again!”

Pen went on to discover that in spite of the volume of vomit expelled by the tiny creature, there was a significant amount of other stuff that came out the other end.

“AAAARGH!” he screamed! “This is why I’m celibate!”

“Join the club!” said Jennifer. And yet again left him to furiously ponder over the nature of The Universe.

And It Was Bong!

It was a delicious day. The sun shined. It was a golden goodie of a warm oven. The lake was cool. Like a drink chilled to just the right temperature that magically stayed that way. The sky was sprinkled with little sprinkles of cloud. The earth exuded an earthiness that even chocolate could not beat in a fight. All in all, it was a delicious day.

The wind whistled in the trees. No one shushed them so they were quite happy. They hated being shushed. It was a most annoying habit people had. That, and making up bad metaphors for bodily functions.

The monastery was quiet. But then again, when is a monastery not? The monks were meditating in their own little meditating areas. A big rock, a tree, an armchair, a field, a pile of hay, a pink cushion named Britney, an empty room, a swing, a five-year-old tent, etc. To each his own.

They contemplated various important things that most others cannot even pretend to comprehend. They meditated on the meaning of life, on reaching higher states of awareness, on quantum physics and string theory, on achieving world peace, on eradicating hunger and Paris Hilton, and whether celibacy was really worth it.

Deep in commune with nature around him, Pen sat in the lobby near the front door. He was at peace until he sensed three life forces coming towards the door rather quickly. The bell rang. It was the sound of tranquility. You couldn’t hear it, but the monks could feel it quite well so they knew. Pen sensed the life forces run away again.

“Probably just the neighborhood kids playing a prank again.” He thought. “When will they learn that we can always tell when no one’s really at the door?”

“When they, wait to see someone come out before running away, I guess” the cosmos answered him. That was the trouble with higher states of awareness. Once the cosmos was aware that you were aware, it talked back, a lot, but it didn’t help much. The cosmos was quite spaced out.

Then Pen realized that one life force remained at the door. He went to see who it was and opened the door.

He screamed like a little girl!

It was a little girl!

A baby! In a basket!

And it was bong!

But Why?

“I will do it myself, even if I die trying!” he said as he switched on the machine. Little did he know that that was precisely what he was doing.

The sabotaged machine roared to life and turned on him. On realizing his predicament his face took on an expression appropriate to the situation. He yelled in surprise … “Aaaaah!” he said. He dodged just in time. The blades destroyed the front of his shirt but he wasn’t harmed. A few inches more and it would have been fatal. He tried the ‘Off’ button. It didn’t go off. But the room filled with a strange noise. “OFFOFFOFFOFFOFFOFF.”

Then realization dawned. “Her!” he thought, “You!” he said. It was her laughter that filled the room! “You set this up! … But why?” he asked and immediately he couldn’t help feeling like a four year old. Albeit a four year old who dodged a death machine spawned from hell itself. Hell or a rather timid teenager.

“Yes it is I, but anyone else would say the same thing.” She paused for laughter. No one laughed. She did in her head. “I wanted to see if you could survive it,” she said. The lack of flying, dismembered, body parts was testament to his abilities… so far.

“Of course I can survive it” he cried indignantly. “I’ve been through worse.” And he had. He’d been waxed, everywhere, by a wrestler from Mongolia. Yes, he had lost a bet.

She knew him. She knew he had what it took and that he could handle it. But hey! A girl gotta have her fun right? She didn’t call off the deathbot. His struggle for survival amused her. Again he asked her for an explanation. “But why?” he said again, and almost expected ‘Because’ as a reply. His therapy hadn’t worked. He still couldn’t just say ‘Why’.

“Because…” she began, “AHA!” He interjected. She quailed him with a look. “Because I have something planned for you” she completed.

“Aaargh!” he thought, “SO explanatory!” He contemplated embracing the death machine that now looked far more inviting than the bomb, and ending the madness in an enjoyable, mutilative way, when she continued. “I’m going to make you an offer you cant refuse.” she clichéd and held up the dough for him to see. It was a lot of dough.

"COOOKIE" He thought suddenly. And he knew not why.

“Lets get married!”
“What?”
“Lets get married!”
“WHAT?”
“I said Lets…
“Yeah I got that.”
“Then what do you mean, ‘what’?”
“I mean exactly that! What do YOU mean ‘Lets get married’?”
“I mean exactly that!”
“God! You always do this. Expect me to jump to your whims and fancies and get pissed if I don’t”
“I don’t expect anything from you!”
“Except marriage.”
“Oh you’re impossible.”
“Now I’M impossible… … …


You’d think they were already married. The deathbot was hiding crouched in the corner in fear. “Why is mama so angry with nice man I want to hug?” it’s processors whined. “It’s all my fault.” It then proceeded to develop insecurities and lost confidence in itself and its ability to cause death and destruction. It ceased to be a deathbot. It switched occupations, went into the catering industry and spent most of its time mixing things together. Violently. At great speed.

Somewhere in the world a phone rang. “Hailloooo? Maseenaaa?”

The deathbot got therapy. He got a little better. Then he killed his therapist. He got worse again. They call him ‘blender’ now.


Some point in the conversation…
…So lets get married then.”
“Okay.”
“Great!”
“What about kids?”
“One step at a time hubby dear. But don’t worry you don’t have to fry so much bacon yet.”
“There’s a reason why I love you, but I don’t know what it is.”

They broke into fits of giggles. The neighbors looked at them weirdly. It’s hard to look normally with binoculars.

“I was thinking then,” he said, “about having the wedding in a few months.
“Few months?” She swooned. “Are you trying to rush me? I was thinking a few years, if not several.” He swooned. “But I thought you were all about settling down and starting a family?”
“Yes,” she said, “but only after I get some color and variety in my life. I’m going to paint the town red for the next couple of years, have a bit of fun. You should too. You deserve a little enjoyment. Anyways I’m off. See you in a decade. I’ll see to the caterers.”

He stood there extremely befuddled. He only had one thing to say. “But why?”

A four year old shot him. He was getting very annoying.