It was the last night of The Silver Gulch

It was the last night of The Silver Gulch Casino. Peter DeMarco crooned the old standards in the smoke-filled lounge. Only five people looked up from their shrimp cocktails. "Hey."

Did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world?" The senior citizens resumed eating their shrimp cocktails. She worked the Early Bird Special shift at the casino, so

it seemed like those hotshot gringo CIA boys would have to do good on their promise after all. He just hoped El Presidente wouldn't mind...

and if he did, well there was a poisoned empanada de carne with his name on it. El Presidente dirá que sí. Pero aún queda el asunto de... Oops, was he thinking en Español again?

He asked himself with a question mark. Ah, the question mark. His favorite punctuation. Shaped curvy like an ear. It was everything write in the world to him.

He had a problem, though. He liked question marks so much every time he asked himself a question, he was afraid of answering, in case his favorite mark disappeared!

The collection of question marks grew until they would no longer fit into the box. He hunted for a large container so they couldn't escape. There was none to be found locally.

Their hooked shapes linking one to another like plastic Barrel of Monkeys monkeys, the question marks climbed out the window, leaving us to wonder where they could have gone.

The paragraph was almost finished, but, with the question marks out the window, would we ever know the answers to the billion questions of the universe! Alas, The End!