Cereal 1: The Search for Cynthia

Breakfast of Champoins
One:
The Search for Cynthia

Paul watched from the small-but-growing crowd as the yelling-but-cute Cynthia shivered slightly in the wind, dangling her bare toes over the edge of the Chittick roof. At first he thought she was going some SoCal all-weather barefoot denial of winter—but she was from Minnesota.

"Fucking IHOP! You’d think for the tuition they charge they could get Sir Christopher fucking Wren!" Cynthia was peeved about something. Paul had no idea what the hell it was.

Someone from the crowd pointed out that Christopher Wren was dead. Cynthia threw a week old bagel at the offender, nearly braining him.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP! I DON’T CARE if Christopher Wren is dead. He can still design buildings. How do we know Christopher Wren is dead?! I mean empirically speaking he could be hanging out at Starbucks. How would I know? I never go there. Francis Bacon or fucking Occam or Jacques Lacan could’ve designed all those buildings. How would anyone know? You can never prove ANYTHING and more importantly, WHO THE FUCK CARES?!" Nobody had anything with which to refute her. Crowd consensus: she was obviously a loon with good aim and a bag of week old bagels.

Cynthia started getting on his nerves when she dumped him for a member of the canine species. He considered telling his friends that his break-up with her messed her up so badly that she could no longer date any member of the human species. Fuck it. They all knew what a lame-ass he was. They’d never believe it.

Paul needed a cigarette. He needed a cigarette more than he needed Cynthia. He hadn’t smoked since God knows when. He stood on his tiptoes to make himself more visible to the crowd, using the set of gestures that he learned in the library when the gods of cram stole his power of speech to persuade one of the gathered smokers to give him a cigarette.

He gesticulated to no avail. The nicfit was upon him like a seizure. "Smoke! Smoke!" he yelled. His rational mind wilted into a wadded up glob of wet tissue and his body followed, crumpling into a disorganized heap of Paul-ness. Sloane’s shadow appeared above his head. Like a waterfall, her dreds, usually pinned back by a pair of pliers, blotted out the pathetic Oregon sun.

"Thanx for reminding me," she said, lighting a cigarette. "My short term memory isn’t what it used to be. By the way… have you seen that movie? It’s pretty fuckin’ good." He had not clue one what she was talking about. She wandered off behind one of the Cross Canyon dorms muttering something and took her cig with her.

Paul’s confusion had dulled his intentions of making an impassioned but eloquently rational plea for a cigarette. He looked around for someone else who would fulfill his need, but couldn’t spot anyone who looked remotely interested in his welfare.

An angry looking woman was sprinting towards the cross canyon dorms. He could swear that she was heading straight for him. He was probably just being paranoid.

Paul tried to forget his nicotine craving in memories of Cynthia. He remembered when they first met at the meat market social; it was lust at first sight. The memory was clear in his mind. That was before Cynthia dyed her hair. He couldn’t remember her exact natural shade, but it was sort of hair-colored.

Cynthia had been acting odd lately. Something about reading six thousand pages and a nervous breakdown. Something about words swarming ant-like on pages, about pages turning in her head like thousands of degenerate moths circling a candle flame. Something about becoming a history major.

He thought about it some more and realized he couldn’t really give a fuck now whether she was on the edge of some dangerously clever major architectural revelation or complete lunacy. Yeah, that was it. He had too much going for him to think about Cynthia. Things like… Oh, well, you know. Oh Christ. He couldn’t think of anything worthwhile.

He looked up. The woman from Eliot was getting closer. She looked superpissed. He wasn’t being paranoid. She was heading straight for him, and he could just bet that she wasn’t bringing him a carton of OG’s.

He recognized her. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. It was the head of the illegal fireworks cartel mafia, Doris "Boom Boom" Erickson. "Boom Boom" was notorious for making her own execution style hits when someone double crossed her.

Paul worked last summer at one of her illegal fireworks stands in the Midwest, skimming money from the till to buy drugs. Since the stand was illegal and was stolen the next week by vigilante legal fireworks dealers, he figured that he was in the clear. The only person he told about it was Cynthia "The Rat" Jones. The same Cynthia who was turning purple with cold on the Chittick roof. Paul felt ill.

He looked back at the roof. He pined for a cigarette. He pined for his stash. He didn’t pine for Cynthia; he wanted her dead. Cynthia was yelling something about the Snow Monkey^tm and how she couldn’t live for another day in a dorm that looked like the International House of Pancakes. All of a sudden her fluorescent yellow hair lit up brighter than a halogen bulb. Paul felt positively nauseous. Cynthia’s body exploded; she turned into a demon from hell, and like the smell of gingko in the fall, she permeated the air. Paul’s liver flip-flopped. His spleen did jumping jacks. Something about drugs. Something about free drugs.

Cynthia bore down upon him from the heavens. Doris bore down on him from the bridge. His liver went ballistic, threatening to jump out of his body and beat him about the head soundly until he passed out. Maybe that was just the drugs.

Paul felt a tugging at his tattered thrift store pant leg. It was the Snow Monkey^tm with a lit cigarette in his mouth. The Snow Monkey^tm offered him a drag. Paul took it.

Just then, the apocalypse began. And a parrot was Saint Peter.