The Core Provide Back-Up to Chimpos Muchos in his Night of Unfulfilled Passion Story

Deep in the thick of the thumping music and flashing lights of your local nightclub inexplicable things are happening. One of these strange phenomena of the night is the 'not-attached girl'. A girl, who by all physical definition and behaviour, is single, footloose and fancy-free but at the same time not interested. Although she may be in a nightclub this by no means implies that she is looking for someone. I hear some of you laughing now at the impossibility of such a situation, why would one venture into a nightclub if it weren't for some form of sexual encounter? But laugh not as it did happen to a member of the Core, that he should stumble upon such a girl on one such inexplicable night not so long ago.

For those of you new to the many stories of the Core, the members may need some introduction. First to enter the club- Mr. Monkey. Don't let his height deceive you for his eyes are closer to the ground than you might think. Sharp-witted, master of expression and frightener of small children! Behind him prowls Retarded Baboon who, for this evening at least, has seemed to have completely lost hand-eye co-ordination. A monkey whose energy, if hooked up to the right mechanism, could be used to power millions of little mechanical monkeys, resulting in a chaos of the most unnatural kind. Slower and seemingly numb from some recent unspeakable tragedy, Sudo Simian peers into the dance floor, the women in skirts inspiring lust in his melancholic soul but not the will to act on it. And last of all Chimpos Muchos, for whom this particularly story concerns itself with.

The group of primates, slooshied up with drink move quickly towards the dance floor. Forward propulsion provided by Baboon's complete disregard for public decency, steering given by Chimpos' enthusiasm for the close proximity of female humans, Mr. Monkey in the crow's nest of encouragement and Simian, a willing and frightened piece of driftwood pulled along in the wake. Baboon, suddenly, strikes on a remarkable piece of logic that can benefit his companions in a kamikaze act of altruism. If the females are looking for good dancers, Baboon will create the illusion that his friends are exceptional dancers by dancing himself in the most horrific way. At first it seemed to the Core that Baboon had fallen prey to some kind of physical madness. His arms thrashed around, actually hitting some girls in the back and generally pissing people off. But Simian could feel something happening, as could the others. By comparison, their dancing began to look co-ordinated, almost appealing alongside the thrashing body of Baboon. Baboon was creating a new precedent for bad dancing, setting new levels of badness and changing the atmosphere all around us. He was dancing bad to make us look good! (Some of you may think that maybe Baboon just is a bad dancer and that his reasoning was far from altruistic; but you wouldn't have said that if you had seen the bongo dance of 2001, performed in Oxford Circus to the amazement of passer-bys).

Although Baboon's dancing was helping it also wasn't. Badness is like heat, it travels through the room by more methods than just conduction, and even though people weren't touching Baboon, they could feel the badness infecting them by association. Simian wondered how long before the authorities were called in. Chimpos alleviated Simian's concerns by pointing out something he had missed. As there were two floors to this nightclub they could always make a fresh start upstairs, turn over a new leaf as it were…but as they went upstairs they remembered from past experiences how quickly new leaves die with the onset of winter…and the seasons were about to change.

Upstairs, the phenomena that we discussed in our introduction and her friend were already drinking at a table. Chimpos, feeling his luck rising, so to speak, at the sight of her in very complimenting jeans and long lashes, gave his luck a try and for the rest of the core from their vantage point across the room, he seemed to have been successful. From what they could see, enough time had passed for him to have said hello and other customary forms of introduction and after a couple of minutes they were obviously finding things to talk about. Things even continued long enough for Mr. Monkey (skilled in the ways of magical romance) to conceal a rose (he had purchased earlier) into Chimpos' hand while the phenomena called Justine wasn't looking. When presented to her, I'm sure, for a second, she must of thought magic was real again. But then her friend, maybe believing the rose trick to be some kind of black magic, and who, up until now, had been hiding in the background, felt compelled to save Justine from a harmless ape! She moved in and pulled Justine up for a dance. Chimpos abandoned at the table with only a couple of cocktails to keep him company, examined internally what could have happened to a situation that was going so well. To the rest of the Core it was clear, the friend had to be eliminated with the utmost prejudice.

To come face to face with one member of the Core of Monkos can be a harrowing experience enough; but to be so suddenly and completely surrounded by three members could and almost probably has done irreparable psychological damage. The core surrounded the friend. Justine witnessed her friend being chatted up by three chimps at once and could do nothing but turn back to Chimpos, who continued to work his charm. In a matter of minutes, Baboon, Monkey and Simian (also known as tool-using apes) had gathered that the friend's name was Mandy, that she was engaged to be married, that she had doubts, that maybe she was too young, that she had a picture of her fiancée when he was seven in her purse, that he had proposed to her in their favourite restaurant, that the sex was great and that if her fiancée was to lose his penis in a horrible accident she would still love him. Desperation breed's unnatural intimacy as this girl was finding out. On the surface she seemed to be taking this interest in her with good humour but she would soon become suspicious. It was when she eventually felt that the conversation had come to an end that things started to go wrong. She made a move to return to her friend but Monkey counteracted this by dancing at her. Simian and Baboon were quick to follow suit. It wasn't really dancing because consent wasn't given and permission wasn't asked, they were like mime artists portraying the act of dance. She was laughing now but how long would that last. She went to move around Mr. Monkey but Simian blocked her escape with dance, as he did so he longed for the sanity of downstairs.

While this was happening Justine was explaining to Chimpos the phenomenon of the girl who is really just out for a night of dancing and nothing else. She explained her case well- that if she were looking for someone Chimpos would be in the running but all she wanted to do tonight was enjoy herself with her friend in a plutonic manner. Chimpos being the more understanding (or possibly less morally corrupt) of the Core took her word at face value, abandoning Justine.

But this still left the problem of the dancing that was taking place on the dance floor. Simian had gone too far and had vowed to pursue the Engaged Mandy until she gave up her vows, if he were serious it would have been an interesting test of faiths. Also the Core were dancing with her in shifts of 2 minutes and as a result she was getting very tired. Luckily for all involved Chimpos returned and relieved all of their duties. But as it's the Core and alcohol is involved they couldn't just leave without saying goodbye properly which they did in a manner that would be accepted in chimp society but frowned upon in human company. Chimpos took the rose that had been left on the table by Justine and utterly destroying its magic tries to give the rose to Justine's arse instead, causing her to spin round like a dog chasing it's tail. Why did he do it? Who knows. Possibly out of anger at the difficulty of communicating. After that little charade it was time to leave but Engaged Mandy had other plans, she still had time to get drunk enough to forget her fiancée and Simian, as she saw it, had the money for the wine. For some reason though, Simian congratulated her instead and the Core departed, back into the night to find a taxi, not even wondering if there were any lessons to be learned.