The First Person To Feel Khlaxio by Thomas Lipschultz 12/12/03 Move over, love; you've got competition. Hear hear, he says. He is Malcolm-Peter Atrocity, an aging Triad-fueled insurance investigator from Delta Banks, Vancouver. Don't know him? Not Canadian, eh? I don't blame you. But hear hear, he says. Love has competition. Khlaxio has been discovered, or the human potential for truly experiencing khlaxio has been invented, or evolved, or dissolved into the fold. In short, Malcolm-Peter Atrocity has felt khlaxio. And it felt pretty damn good. Gabrielle. Hear hear, he says. Gabrielle Brimstock, Vancouver's glitziest and most argumentative prostitute, had been bought -- literally for a song -- by Saxon Brittbottom, a popular local DJ strangely donned in a frayed dalmatian suit with one chipped ear. Down on one knee, Brittbottom serenaded the awe-stricken Gabrielle with an old Dutch folk song, slowly lulling her into a deep sleep and a false sense of security. Her dreams were vivid but irrelevant, and she awoke in a rose- strewn heart-shaped bed, staring at her own face, reflected back at her from a single mirrored ceiling tile. Brittbottom, unaware of her awakening, was applying aftershave in the bathroom, dalmatian head removed from his costume and lovingly placed on the toilet seat next to him, revealing his truly sexy, sexy face. Gabrielle watched from her invisible vantage point as he slapped his face, whistled, hummed, screamed a bit, panted, and made puppy muscles as a sign of slight machismo, all while seeing only himself in his medicine cabinet mirror. She was enthralled. She couldn't wait for him to get his Dutch folk song's worth. Stripping down to her underwear, silent so as not to draw attention to herself, Gabrielle waited patiently for his emergence from the next room. When he finally did, head still left behind on the toilet, face still exposed, he inexplicably held his forefinger to his lips in a "shh" motion, knelt down next to the bed, and began drawing his mouth closer and closer to her face. "I'm going to make you the best damn tiramisu you've ever had," he excitedly whispered into her ear. She wasn't really sure what to think of that. Brittbottom suddenly dropped clumsily to the ground, "on all fours" as it were, and though outside of Gabrielle's horizontally-oriented view, it was obvious from the scampering sounds that he had left the room. Gabrielle had no idea what exactly she was supposed to do. She considered her situation, noting the fact that she really had no idea how long she had been sleeping, nor where she was -- either in terms of building or city -- and decided that the safest course of action was to wait, and pray. But actually, she wasn't very worried at all, as Brittbottom seemed merely eccentric; not threatening. Minutes passed, perhaps an hour, perhaps two. Gabrielle's state of hyper-awareness turned to inane and irrelevant thoughts, store lists and candy canes, and at the moment when she was least connected to her present situation, Brittbottom came stumbling back in. Suddenly. Carrying a large covered silver platter. And yelping like Lucy Lawless in heat. Gabrielle, too, yelped, and perhaps lost a couple years from her lifespan. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long, my sweet pea," he said. "This is my own special recipe. I hope you find it reasonable, and savor its flavor." Removing the lid from the silver platter, Brittbottom revealed to a wide-eyed Gabrielle a more artistically relevant tiramisu than you'd ever think possible. It seemed to exist both as an Italian dessert and a source of godly light, and if a video camera had been planted within it, Gabrielle's face would show up on-screen like a Goonie who just opened One-Eyed Willie's most treasured chest. "Partake of my sweets, bask in the opulence, and be my love, my love. Be my love." Weeks followed. Months. And the wooing continued unabated. Gabrielle was truly smitten, and despite never ever leaving Brittbottom's mysterious bedroom, the two of them spent more time talking and singing and learning one another's deepest and darkest secrets than they did bumping Brit-bottoms. There was more tiramisu, and fondue, and sexual fondue, and pegleg steaks, and mouth-watering halibut, and water-lily salads, and champagne stew, and bourbon creme brulee, and many, many other things to eat that lit the face and sated the most egregious, as well as the mack-daddiest of palates. Gabrielle was more than just smitten... she was honestly, truly, wholeheartedly in love with Saxon Brittbottom. As this love steadily blossomed, another bit of screwing was in progress in the nearby Delta Banks. The mysterious and vaguely menacing corporate triumvirate known as The Triad was engaged in a meeting regarding the misappropriation charges filed against an aging insurance investigator named Malcolm-Peter Atrocity, as previously mentioned. His life had been a living hell, riddled with largely irrelevant missed opportunities and domestic abuse, and The Triad would surely use the strictest means possible to ensure that his misery would come to an end there and then. If past incidents were any indication, he would likely be killed and grinded, his shavings used to fertilize their corporate tobacco-tainted gardens. But that's when he felt khlaxio. Suddenly, from the very pit of his soul, he felt khlaxio. "My God," he said aloud, "I don't know who this man is... but I have to find him!" Percy, Cinge, and Pitpit -- the head chairholders of The Triad -- each looked very puzzled. Atrocity briefly stared at each one in turn, then continued. "This feeling deep inside me... I long for a man named Saxon Brittbottom, and I don't suggest you try to stop me from seeing him. If it please The Triad, I move to postpone this hearing, at least until I have personally made this man's acquaintance." But it didn't please The Triad one bit. Cinge was the first to stand, and detaching the left-front section of his torso, he began to give chase to the frantically fleeing Atrocity. Percy, Pitpit, and the other panelists weren't far behind. Quickly through the doors of the White Room, Atrocity skipped over the grainy uneven floors of the Blue Corridor and ducked into a large open space marked "Origauditorium," whose walls were made of gaudy silver cray-paper periodically interrupted by tiny branches of bright green wax, and built in a labyrinthine pattern for purposes known only to The Triad's most well- informed officers. Cinge and Pitpit had almost caught up to him, and a bright light from Cinge's detached torso made the entire room quake with orange phosphorescence as the walls burst into flames. Struggling against pleasant-smelling smoke and intense heat, Atrocity emerged into another corridor nearly blind, and stumbled through a second-story window. Fortunately, an inconceivably old woman broke his fall. Face-off with Pitpit: the man had a Samus Aran-like ability to curl up into a ball and drop from any height unscathed, though he had obviously been singed by the flames in the Origauditorium. Uncurling, he gave chase down the busy streets of Vancouver at blinding speeds, though with no trace of torso-based armament akin to that of his now-burning partner. Tragically, Percy, the third head chairholder of The Triad, was never heard from again, and history deemed him the most ineffectual and thus least intelligent of the three, despite likely perishing in the flaming wreckage spawned through no fault of his own. Atrocity continued to feel khlaxio, and the feelings were getting stronger and stronger, like text messages in "Chocobo Hot and Cold," or increasing degrees of hotness in regular "Hot and Cold." This man he had never met, this Saxon Brittbottom, was very, very close. Through the revolving doors, into the lobby of Hotel Midswift Countess he ran, following his instincts, following the urges brought to him by his constant khlaxio. Percy and Cinge were dead, and the other panelists' whereabouts unknown, but Pitpit was still hot on his tail, despite the chase being almost completely ineffectual. Up the stairs, up the stairs, up the stairs, through the kitchen, through the pantry, through the luxurious hallway, and there it was: room 208. No time to knock, no time to knock! Atrocity kicked the door open in one swift adrenaline-fueled motion, and was greeted by the sight of a half-naked prostitute and a man dressed in three-quarters of a dalmatian suit, suggestively feeding Hungarian sausage to one another. This man was Saxon Brittbottom, the source of Atrocity's khlaxio, or rather, the recipient of it. Gabrielle's love for this man was so strong that it had become airborne, like a virus, and had infected the unusually sensitive receptors of this aging insurance investigator. With an amplified version of someone else's love coursing through his veins, Atrocity fell to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. But Brittbottom and Gabrielle were too focused on one another to even notice, and just continued munching away at their sausage and making googly eyes at one another. A moment later, a frenetically running Pitpit burst into the room and tripped over Atrocity's fetally-positioned body. He went flying through the air and landed squarely on top of Brittbottom and Gabrielle's dry-humping sausage-greased forms. The rose-petal-laden heart-shaped bed couldn't handle the excess weight from Pitpit's solid beryllium body, and tumbled to the floor, which immediately gave way. An orgy of successive screams and shouts and crashes ended with complete silence and a thick cloud of dust. A distraught Atrocity, still sobbing uncontrollably, leapt into the floor-hole where the bed used to be, determined to never again be separated from Brittbottom. But the seeds of khlaxio had already begun to vanish from his soul: he knew in his heart that Brittbottom hadn't survived the fall. Unfortunately, neither did he. He very well may have, what with the bodies of numerous hotel residents serving as an ideal cushion in the basement where the four-story drop had come to rest, but a loose floorboard had caught his jugular on the way down. Those janitorial workers who happened to witness this incident from further back in the basement, in addition to being flooded with bodies, light, and dust, also had to deal with red rain. Thus far, Malcolm-Peter Atrocity, the first person to ever feel khlaxio, has also been the last. And judging by the horrible debacle that resulted from the first khlaxio, perhaps it would be best if no one ever feel khlaxio again. Hear hear, he might say. Hear hear.