Bathroom Monologue: 10 points if you know what Price, Heston and Smith have in common

There was nothing peculiar about the staff. It wasn’t specially balanced, magnetic or mechanical. If you asked Ashenti to stand atop another, he would. The only special thing about the staff was its owner, who could stand atop staves. He could balance them anywhere, including soft or oily surfaces, and occasionally on top of puddles. Mostly he balanced them on sidewalks.

He stood with one foot on the upright end, and the other leg bent across his knee. It gave him more visible attraction than most of the acts in the corner of preachers. Sometimes he would perform other minor miracles, like curing your hiccups and making c-section scars disappear. But he was not here for miracles.

He was here to spread the word. The word often went, “Vincent Price, Charlton Heston and Will Smith walk into a bar…”

He was an unorthodox preacher, and his primary message was not finding God or enlightenment, but friendship. Friendship, Ashenti preached, was the universal solvent in the universe of emotion. A philosopher could make a good argument, but it would always produce conflict so long as he was a philosopher. "Hearing the opinion of a friend always goes down smoother."

So, too, would any good novel be great in your eyes if it were the work of a friend, rather than the product of an important stranger.

“We would be more forgiving if the man who backed over our cat was a friend,” he said from atop his staff. “So we should make everyone our friend. Then the staves will balance on their own.”