A big guy in a loincloth dropped a tuba.
Dennis watched to see how he was going to pick it up, when he paused to contemplate why he was interested in watching a nearly naked guy pick up a tuba.
Rubbing a fresh bee sting, Dennis was also questioning why he woke up completely hungover at 8am and came to the parade.
Cindy was the answer to that. A first date with Cindy. Cindy made him laugh and was his only coworker at Buenas Noshes Vegan Ice Cream and Carnivorous Donuts who shaved her armpits.
The parade was new, invented by the guy who owned the Scrounge Lounge All Vending Machine bar, who claimed it was a holiday based on a scene in a graphic novel called Oink.
The theme was that everyone had to sacrifice one eye to save the planet.
The date was the Gathering of the Eyes.
It was mandatory to wear an eyepatch.
Most people made custom eyepatches, and there was a Best Eyepatch contest.
If you didn’t wear an eyepatch, they’d sell you one at a table outside the Scrounge Lounge, which Dennis thought was awfully convenient, though what would you expect from a bar that boasted the most luxurious pay toilets within 15 miles of Lake Erie?
Cindy was having fun, which made Dennis try harder to shake off his hangover and have fun , and Cindy promised she was one Guava and Persimmon Gin Seltzer away from peeing on the bee sting on his leg to take the toxins out, though Dennis was pretty sure that only worked for jellyfish and cigarette burns.
As the parade ended in front of everyone’s favorite resale clothing store, John Stipe Michael Waters, and the Grand Marshal, a former Pro Horseballs player who was really missing an eye, blessed everyone’s patches by releasing mauve biodegradable glitter from a drone, Cindy grabbed Dennis by the wrist and dragged him to a row of vendors.
Cindy’s former roommate and the “third best lover she ever had,” who went by the nom de guerre X Ost Cyst M’s, had a booth that Cindy said would change Dennis’s life.
Dennis’s eye wandered to the Mouth Only Table Tennis Tournament, but Cindy had a grip on him.
“X’s booth is cruuuucial,” she said. “There it is!”
Cindy dropped Dennis’s wrist, which now had welts over his Modest Mouse Still Sucks tattoo, and ran to the booth like an indicted Congressman runs to a paralegal holding a suitcoat in front of a TV camera.
The sign above the booth said “Imperative!!!”
Dennis ambled over, well behind Cindy, wondering whether imperative was a stronger word that crucial.
Dennis wiped sweat from under the unironic Milli Vanilli eyepatch that Cindy had tie dyed for him, glanced briefly at the booth that was selling hemp crabcakes molded to look like Tony Iommi, then followed Cindy.
She had already crawled under the table and was now volunteering at X Ost’s booth, holding a clipboard and hawking.
“Imperative!” she called out. “Sign up now or perish!”
Dennis smiled and waited while someone with two eyepatches wrote their email address on the table before Cindy had them dictate it and she wrote it on the sheet attached to the clipboard.
He scratched the bee sting on his leg.
X Ost Cyst M’s looked over at Dennis.Dennis assumed it was X Ost Cyst M’s, because “Ost” was branded onto his neck and his lower lip was pierced with a padlock, the unintended pleasures of which Cindy had described in detail after one too many psilocybin waffles.
“You’re Dennis, right?”
“How’d you know?”
“Cindy tagged you in her experimental 3D reel, Bee Stings and the Semi-Demon. You should let her pee on that,my brethren. It will consecrate it for the urea gods.”
Dennis wondered what sect had urea gods, but was afraid to ask.
‘That’s on the agenda,” Dennis said.
“Righteous and Lefteous,” X Ost said.
Cindy held out the clipboard.
“Write down your e.”
Dennis looked at a three quarter full sheet of email addresses. There were no other marks on the paper.
“Umm, sure, but…this is stupid, I guess, but what does Imperative do?”
Cindy reddened. “It’s totally imperative. Like, beyond, I don’t know. It’s like a collective of…forebearance and willingness.”
Dennis bit his lip harder than the bee stung him.
“Ok, super rad, but, ummm, to what end?”
“We’re not sure,” X Ost said, and Dennis was so disarmed by X Ost’s honesty that he almost peed on his own bee sting.
“Like, I get that you don’t know exactly how you’re going to accomplish what you want to accomplish,” Dennis said, “but what do you want to accomplish?”
Cindy sighed like someone hit a bagpipe with a competition throwing axe.
“Dennis, it’s Imperative. We’re having a nice day. Don’t be contrarian.”
Dennis almost said “But,” swallowed it, smiled at Cindy and wrote down his email.
X Ost walked over, looked at the sheet, and began typing in his phone.
“You’re now part of Imperative. I don’t do this for everyone, but I’m sending you three twenty eighths of a Smutter.
Dennis balled up his fist as if to say “thank you, cool, great,” though he had no clue what a Smutter was.
He smiled at X Ost.
“Maybe someday I’ll earn a full Smutter.”
X Ost’s face went stiff.
“Not funny, Cindy’s plausibly platonic companion.”
Cindy’s eyes looked like she had just woken from a coma on a rollercoaster.
She leaned over to Dennis.
“I know you’re thirty three years old and probably in the early stages of dementia, but Smutter dies when an entire unit gets circulated. Soooo not funny.”
Dennis apologized.
X Ost turned and passed out clipboards and Dolly Parton Pinwheel pens to passersby.
Cindy grabbed Dennis and bit his ear. “You’re really blowing this, Dennis,” she whispered. “I considered making love to you later. But now we’re only making like.”
***
Enjoyed the read! And at least the glitter was biodegradable.
“But now we’re only making like.” That’s so funny.
I tried looking up Oink because the idea of everyone having to sacrifice one eye to save the planet was pretty interesting, but I don’t think I found it so I’m not sure it actually exists. If it doesn’t exist, you should definitely write a story based on that premise.