Whitefire, I do like the premise. I feel exactly like you describe every Monday morning when I drag myself to work. I love the confusion and the unbelievable occurrence of hitting a unicorn while driving.

Using a word repetitively to create a theme can be used effectively. I'm glad that you are able to work through this and take a stand on what is your style. In regards to the reference to hell and demons, it is a short paragraph and really does not have it's place in a 1K word story.

"He took a deep breath of the air. Garlic, onions and turmeric. Must be around noon, he thought to himself." This needs a bit of a rewrite. Garlic, onions and turmeric. That is not a complete sentence. There is no verb.

Keep up the good work.

Probably easier to just do this with that line:

"He tooka deep breath of the air. Garlic, onions, and tumeric; must be around noon, he thought to himself." Not sure if a semi colon or simply another comma is mroe appropriate there. The two can't be seperated into two sentences, but they certainly need to be the same sentence. I'm just worried adding a simple comma would make it too confusing to read.

Another option:

"He took a deep breath of the air: garlic, onions, turmeric. Must be around noon, he thought to himself."

Would an 'm-dash' possibly be a better parenthetical punctuation? Can an m-dash be used interchangeably with a colon?

"He took a deep breath of the air—garlic, onions and turmeric. Must be around noon, he thought to himself."

Oh, look! Our Writer's Guild: Guide button has a Resource links section that includes a page with grammar guides!

*cough*

M-dash vs semi vs comma. Always a big discussion there, Kany. I personally think there shouldnt be a hard and fast rule. If you get into the feel of the authors mindset you get the idea of where he's going and his temperament, even. Then when you see a semi you can feel where he's going. It can be the difference between I.e. And e.g., though, which is a defined usage. But a colon gives more of an impression of analytical listing and I personally seldom use it. But opinions differ

There is a big difference between i.e. and e.g. The latter means "For example." You use i.e. when you want to clarify what you just said.

More detail here.