favourite (n.) and their favours (v.)

What is in debt may never die

Sitting in the old wooden cafe, Sir Donald McDouchey sips his chai tea and puts the teacup back on the table. He looks around and notices the waiter looking at him eagerly with a half-baked smile. “Touche, you said right. The chai touched my ganglia and gave my mind the best orgasm it had in years” he spoke out moving his lips forward and wiping the traces of tea drops off his whiskers for the royal douche he is.

The waiter bent a bow and went back to the kitchen that looks like an uncleaned coal factory. He picked a notepad from his desk and wrote ‘+1’ beside the name “McDouchey”. The list read ‘Compliments and favours’. The waiter noticed that it was the first compliment he had received in 6 months and dropped his jaw in disapproval. “De Spice” someone calls the waiter that brought him back to the world. “There is a gentleman waiting at table 6” the coarse voice, guided De Spice to the sitting area.

“Ego De Spice is free sir. You are not my favourite anymore” waiter turned towards the coarse voice with pride on his face. “What do you mean?” the rude man asked. “Sir McDouchey complimented me!” De Spice jumped and threw the pad at the rough man, and he caught it. The rude man looks at the pad with wide-open eyes “But.. but” he uttered. “I have returned your favour by gaining three compliments, sir. It took me one year to get three, but yes, I have done it” De Spice pulls his waiter suit tearing the buttons. He threw the uniform and went out of the cafe dancing on his toes.

When he made a move on the street, closing his eyes, he heard the sound of a wooden wheel on the rocky road. He opens his eyes to the sound of two horses. He is astonished to see a cart that is about to hit him, but he was immovable. Right when the carriage almost dashed into De Spice, a hand grabs his arm and pulls him over the pavement. De Spice trembles with this near-death experience. He turns slowly towards the hand that held him. To his surprise, it was the rude man, the owner of the cafe. The rude man had a grin on his face. De Spice wished he was dead instead of being saved by this grinning cunt. “No, No, No!” De Spice cried. “I saved your life, Monsieur Ego De Spice” the owner grinned again.

The rude owner threw the uniform on the face of De Spice as he falls to the ground on his knees cries a big “Nooooooooo.”

The Favourite

It was early spring, and Micheal sits on the cliff looking at the newborn leaves of the plants around the hilltop. Something distracts him, and it is none other than his friend, Carmen Isabich. “Heyyo, Michael Angello” shouts Isabich in a relatively low voice making an O of his mouth. “Not again” Michael sighed, looking at Isabich’s annoying face. “You don’t need to make a face, Is-A-Bitch, your presence is enough to annoy me” Michael shouts. “It’s Isabich!” Isabich yells and hits on Michael’s back. 

Isabich sits beside Michael and rests his head over Michael’s shoulder. “Is letting you rest your head on my shoulder a favour?” Michael asks curiously. “No!” Isabich takes his head back. “You are getting too commercial” Isabich frowns. “That’s how the world is, Carmen. You need to be cautious. You are 16, and you already took more than a hundred favours!” Michael complains. “Well, I repaid 87 of them” Isabich justifies. “Who are your favourites?” Michael asks curiously.

“Well, the baker guy is the most favourite one. He had lent me croissants and occasionally baguettes. I owed him 21 croissants and seven baguettes. I am coming from the shop finishing the last batch of croissants for him. That leaves seven baguettes. Wait.. err.. 21 minus 7 minus 5” Isabich keeps on counting using his fingers and subtracting digits in the air. Michael stops paying attention. He looks at the newborn leaves again, and he observes a caterpillar munching these tender leaves.

“Don’t you think it is annoying?” Michael asks Isabich. “Everything annoys you, Michael. I annoy you, the caterpillar annoys you, and even your father annoys you. Name something that doesn’t annoy you!” Isabich moans. “Shut up, Is-A-Bitch! It isn’t fair; this favour business. It should be a choice to return the favour. It is unfair to force people to return the favours” Michael explains. “My father says only anarchists and heathens who are lazy to live make such statements” Isabich frowns looking away from Michael. “I don’t think being either of them is a bad thing” Michael continues justifying his thoughts.

“It is terrible to think like that. If you take a favour, you should return it!” Isabich yells and pushes Michael a bit. “Oh yeah, please remind me of the number of favours I took, please Monsieur Karma Is-A-Bitch, why don’t you enlighten me!” Michael shouts sarcastically. “Just because you never took favours doesn’t mean you are a Buddhist monk. Should I remind you about your old man? About how he ran away leaving you all behind? I’m sorry but if he didn’t take too many favours and returned most of them at least, you would have been like me too, normal and not-weird!” Isabich slipped his mouth, but he regretted it instantly.

“I should never have said that, Michael. I’m sorry” Isabich tries to apologise. Michael couldn’t take the insult and gets up, but the mushy mud makes his foot slip. Michael slipped from the cliff but he hanged on to a rock. His upper body was still on edge, and he was losing his grip by each second. Isabich jumped to his feet and held Michael’s hands, applying pressure and making it easy for Michael to jump up. “Move!” Michael yells. “What the hell Michael!” Isabich yells. “I don’t want your favour!” Michael cries. “Michael! Fuck it! Let me help you. What if I become your favourite? It is no big deal!” Isabich tries to make sense out of Michale’s mind.

Michaels pushes away Isabich’s hand and tries to climb up using his tummy and chest. He moved his chest and abdomen like a caterpillar, distributing his body weight from his hands to his torso. Isabich stood there helpless because Michael is pushing him away. “I will help myself! If I die, I die. I don’t want any favours, and I will have no favourites that suck the life out of me. I won’t spend my life returning the favours” Michael shouts. “But Michael, it is not a big deal” Isabich cries with teary eyes. 

“Don’t you know that the favour for saving life burdens me with being indebted to you till you die? You become my forever favourite! I hate to return your favour by doing everything I can to you. I don’t want to lose my naturality by making you my forever favourite, Isabich!” Michael begins to lose grip. “Fuck you!” Isabich holds Michael’s hands. In the act of pushing the hands away, Michael loses his grip. He starts falling. “Live free, Mr. Karma Is-A-biiiiiiiiiitchh.” 

*Thud*

Isabich never looked back. He never climbed that mountain; returned his favours, and never retook one. He also made sure that there were no favourites. For the favours, he accidentally did to other people he never reminded them, because he didn’t want to be their favourite either. Isabich became the very lazy anarchist and the heathen that his father warned him. Sometimes he thought “Is Michael my favourite because he favoured me by passing this knowledge?”