Who Is He Hiding From?

(C) Barbara W. Beacham. July 27th, 2015. Mondays Finish the Story (MFtS) hosted by Barbara W. Beacham.

He thought he found the perfect hiding spot.

So he kept still, muted his breathing and focused his eyes on the kitchen entryway.

Minutes passed by but it felt like hours, yet nothing walked in. His fur was beginning to itch. He had to groom himself!

He mentally cursed the universe for giving cats the insatiable innate urge to constantly self-groom. But he wanted so badly to give Jim a surprise and for once that priority came before the urge.

But it did not last long, so he moved ever so slowly, bowing his head down to the left side of his upper torso and gave it a lick.

Then suddenly, “Ooh! That tickles!” It was Jim! “Who are we hiding from, Terry?” Jim squeaked.

Word count: 117

The Young Witch

Emily is a young witch who hardly has any grasp over her powers. Any surges in emotions will trigger a psychic current that causes her emotions to manifest in physical forms. When that happens, disasters usually ensue.

But tonight, Emily was hoping that does not happen. She was going to see a boy. He was charming, and has an erratic but funny sense of humor. A few days ago, he asked her out to a classy seafood restaurant.

Emily was desperately trying to straighten her unruly hair – her mother claims that it is the magic that is causing her hair to refuse to obey. In the midst of her furious battle with the auburn bush sitting on her head, the doorbell rang. Aleso was here!

Aleso has been true gentleman throughout the dinner and now they were almost finished and were waiting for their desserts. The truth was, Emily was too focused on Aleso and hardly had any appetite for her food. When the waiter placed the Mango Yoghurt Ice Cream in front of her, she could almost hear it calling it out to her. Eat meee…

But she had to wait for Aleso’s Honeydew Sago to be on the table before she could start. That was simple first date manners. And so she waited.

However, the ice cream was beginning to melt and so did her patience. What on earth is taking that goddamned waiter so long! Aleso was still talking to her and they were discussing political views but she thought that was incredibly boring and was only pretending to listen.

“Emily? Emily… everything alright?” Emily kept craning her head and looking around for the waiter. “Huh? Yes, everything is okay.”

“So I was saying, Donald Trump is…”

Emily smiled a false grin at Aleso and looked down at her dessert. Almost half of the ice cream has already melted and the dessert looked so sad right now. She could feel her stomach grumbling for food and her fury began to rise.

No! I need to control it. This cannot happen again! Not tonight!

But it was too late. The couple next table shrieked and leapt away from their table in fright. A commotion broke out in the cosy little restaurant as the waiters came scurrying over and customers whipped out their camera phones and whispered heavily.

Emily’s rage has manifested itself in the shape of an angry meal of fish. 

For the Picture it & Write prompt, July 19th, 2015. This picture brings you to the prompt page. Hosted by https://ermiliablog.wordpress.com.

Revenge is Six Inches and Best Served Fresh and Cold

Revenge is definitely sweet. Although in this particular story, I am not a victim, and my target is not the perpetrator.

My loyal readers would not be able to miss out the many posts I wrote during the chapter of my life where I worked as a Sandwich Artist at Subway. But if you are new (or ignorant) let me enlighten you, I’ve worked in Subway the fast food restaurant for two months. And two days ago was the first time I found myself on the opposite side of the counter.

I made the first mistake before I even knew I made it. I told the man my order before I chose my bread. How ironic. I’ve served so many customers who made the same mistake. By now I should have learnt not to make the same mistake now. Well, foolish me told my menu to the man anyway and then smiled confidently. Then he repeated the phrase that I have chanted like a mantra for two months: “Your Bread?” My smile faltered.
I wanted to tell him, “Can I have the biggest six inch there is?” but he looked very professional and how could I bring myself to stoop so low before him? Instead, I asked for a Parmesan six inch.

He confirmed my order once more and proceeded to dress the sandwich. At this point, I recognised a beeping noise in the background. I looked behind the man and my suspicions were confirmed, the speed oven toaster was the source of the noise. A bread has been put inside and the timer is up. The girl at salad bar was either deaf, or did not care. I grumbled to myself, thinking that I could definitely do a better job. If I have learnt anything from my two months working at subway, it’s that I have an invisible pair of arms. Behold, I’m Fred the human semi-octopus.

After several seconds of beeping, the man finally opened the oven door. But to my surprise, shock and distaste, he left the toasted bread inside and the door open. I would have taken the bread out and shut the oven door. The pre-heated air must not escape or else the oven would take a minute or so to reheat itself and in all fast food restaurants, time is of the essence.

After another period of time where time slowed and the seconds were palpably agonising (to me at least), the man alerted the girl beside him who nodded and took another couple of seconds to retrieve the toasted bread and shut the oven door. Poor poor oven.

I peered at the girl from the corner of my eyes and she did not seem cheerful. The man on the other hand seemed like he genuinely loved his job. I moved down the line and observed my own sandwich which, fortunately, did not go through the same process as the previous sandwich did.

Unfortunately, my sandwich now sat in the hands of a very grouchy girl. She held it as if it was dung that sat on the baking paper instead of my beloved sandwich. She looked down at it then up at me, and from her eyes, one could honestly believe that it really was dung that sat on the baking paper.
She did not open her mouth to chant the mantra “Vegetables?” so I took the initiative to tell her “All except jalapeños and pickles” instead.
She then began to stretch her claws to fetch the vegetables from their respective cambros. You could hear the lettuce screaming in terror as the witch ripped them away from their friends and family. I then requested for extra onions and olives, to which she did not acknowledge or nod to, but I did get my extra serving anyway. I would have liked a bit more courtesy with it though.
Then when it came to sauce, I did not get a vocal prompt, but instead she pointed her ‘dung-stare’ at me once more. She accompanied it with a casual wave of her hand.
I chose the Honey Mustard, Sweet Onion and Mayonnaise. She gave me a decent amount of each, par for the mayonnaise. It was a pathetic strip of white no longer than two inches in the middle of the six inch sandwich. It looked like the amount of toothpaste I squeeze on my toothbrush every morning. Disgruntled, I asked for more. AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT SHE DID?
That whore witch gave me another dung look and then she AUDIBLY SIGHED or harumph-ed, to be more exact. Then she gave my sandwich another strip of white that was still less than decent. In retrospect, I should have been furious but at the time, I was amused. I have a pseudo-sadistic tendency where I derive pleasure from annoying people. That huff of agitation from her genuinely made my day.

But honestly, is it that difficult to love your job? In my opinion, customers with special requests colour my job with variety. What would my subway experience be without the customers with horrible atrocious pronunciation? Imagine how dull it would be if everyone requested the exact same order and spoke the same way. This story goes out to the difficult customers, because they are underappreciated, misunderstood and wrongly and unjustly despised.

Goodbye Subway

I meant to do this earlier, but my mother has been insisting that I sleep early so now here I am, burning the midnight oil once more to attend to my postponed plans.

My last day of working at Subway was last Friday, July 10th! And woah, it has been such a thrill to work there. If you are interested in reading some of the stories and posts that were inspired from my work experience, go look for the tag in my blog labelled ‘Stories From Subway’. I hope you get a good read.

I know none of my coworkers would ever chance upon this blog of mine, but I want to dedicate this to them, and I want to share with the rest of WordPress about the wonderful team of Sandwich Artists I worked with 🙂

1. The Pale and Loud Guy – This guy is obnoxiously loud. He is ‘bapak kurus’ (skinny as hell) and his eyes look as if they have sinked into his skull, emphasizing his high cheekbones and the hollow temples, eye sockets and cheeks. Pale and loud is one of the coworker’s first impression of him, and he is indeed loud, but I’m not sure about pale. He loves to whine about ‘cerewek’ customers (picky/fussy) after they have left the store. Many of the funny moments we had in the kitchen started from him sharing about a word that a customer mispronounced, or other weird interactions with customers. Personally, I find it insulting and below me to laugh at others because of a silly slip-up in pronunciation, but his laughter is infectious (that, and I also don’t want to seem awkward, ha!) Besides his tendency to whine, he is a wonderful coworker who puts the ‘fast’ in fast food, if we overlook his sometimes messy performance.
2. The Girl Next Door – This coworker is literally the girl next (next next next next) door. She lives walking distance away from my home and sometimes I would hitch a ride on her car. I don’t have a driving license yet. This girl is very educated, and for this reason, we often get into heated debates with each other. Once, we were discussing over a character in a game she was playing. His/Her name was Taylor, and she kept referring to he/she as ‘it’, while I referred to him/her as ‘him’. I poked fun at her by saying that ‘it’ is only used for animals. Then she resorted to using ‘they’, which confused me, because I thought ‘they’ is a plural pronoun. We argued for ten minutes about that, before a customer interrupted her. She later Wiki-proved to me that ‘they’ is universally accepted as a suitable pronoun for a gender-unknown individual. IT’S TRUE. ‘Singular they’ exists. I know, I know, our lives has been a lie. However, til this day, I am still fighting with her over the use of the ‘singular they.’ I used the point that English teachers would mark you wrong over the use of the ‘singular they’, thus it is still not accepted in academia use, and nor should it be accepted in colloquial conversations. What do you think? Who won? Or is it too petty an issue to fight over?
3. The British Malaya – This coworker of mine has been living in the UK for fifteen-or-so years and recently came to Malaysia for two years. She speaks English heavily accented with a British touch. But it is already mixed in with the local accent so it is not as sexy as I expected to be. Or maybe my expectations were too high in the first place. Anyway, she is the freshest member on the team and is still adjusting. She is slightly socially awkward and is very blur. Not many people on the team likes her, and I think it’s safe to say that I’m her only friend? She even complimented me by saying I’m so nice and polite to her. I hope she wakes up soon and starts doing a better job so that the rest of the team can warm up to her and stop being so hard on her. She’s only sixteen! My friends should give her a break!
4. The rest of the team – There’s the retard, the techno lover, the bitchy supervisor and lastly, the nice banana supervisor. Oh, and also, there’s the boss, who is bittersweet to work with. She is the shopkeeper and is a very nice person. She often buys dinner and snacks for us which is partly why we love her. On the other hand, when she’s around, each of our workload always multiplies by at least two-fold. She’ll pull aside the sofas, or dismantle the ovens, or lift up the freezers and suddenly there’s a whole Hidden City of dust that we have to explore and excavate. But free food always tastes nice.
5. The Banana Supervisor – She’s always on her laptop at the back of the kitchen doing her own stuff, but when she’s needed, POOF, she appears, and WHAM, she slaps on the meat, and WHOOSH, goes the vegetables onto the bread and SPLAT goes the sauce onto the sandwich and CRACK, like magic, the sanwich is complete and wrapped and ready to be served within seconds. She’s the sandwich whisperer. I call her the Banana Supervisor because once, I encountered a Chinese customer who only spoke Mandarin. He pointed at the Turkey and asked what it was. I had trouble explaining so I turned to the other Chinese in the shop, her. She looked at me and said “Dunno! I’m half banana!” (Banana are yellow on the outside and white on the inside, hint hint. Keyword yellow, and white.)

And here’s a hilarious antic to end the story with:

This Chinese girl points at the Tuna and asks me what it was.

I said Tuna.

Then the customer asked in Chinese, Is it made out of beef?

ba-dum-tss!

Zati

I never imagined that all my hardship to get a diploma in Tourism and Hospitality would land me the job of a manager in a fast food restaurant. I deliberately alienated my past schoolmates in fear of them finding out where I have unfortunately wound up in life.

However, beyond that, I am actually very content with the curve ball the life has thrown at me. I ended up with wonderful partners and work colleagues. If you have never had a good laugh at least once a day during work, then maybe you should reconsider coming to join me at my store. I’ll hire you if you meet my requirements and my requirements are simple: be a barrel of laughs.

Just the other day, I got to know Cyrus gave out his number to one of the schoolgirls who was a regular customer. She lived around the neighborhood and frequented our store, often accompanied by a gaggle of girlfriends.

The usually easy-going and self-confident Cyrus suddenly turned into a red-faced stuttering boy on shaking legs in front of my eyes. Then I got to know that it was actually a prank that his two other colleagues played on him. They wrote a silly note with his name, number and Twitter address and hid it in the serviettes, so that when Cyrus (who usually managed the cashier) handed the serviettes to her, it would seem like he was the one wrote the note. Poor Cyrus was none the wiser.

His colleagues conspired and drafted this embarrassing prank a few days ago when Cyrus discussed with them about how cute he thought the girl was.

After Cyrus handed out the serviettes, they dropped the bomb on him. After all, a prank would not be funny if the victim had no clue he was in one, so all was revealed to Cyrus. In the midst of Cyrus’s good-natured fury and cries of betrayal, the girl suddenly returned to the cashier.

Cyrus tried to be casual. “Yes, what can I get you?”

“Um, just more tissues, please.”

“Alright sure.” Cyrus replied, then he hesitated before proceeding with, “Did you get my message?”

The girl had been trying hard not to make eye contact but she then suddenly looked up, and straight into Cyrus’s eyes. It was an electric moment; she smiled shyly, he tried his best to maintain his game face. But she looked away too quickly, and he never got an answer.

But he was not one to give up, so after he gathered a stack of serviettes and handed them to her, he persisted. “Just curious, what is your name?”

“Zati.”

“Zati? Alright Zati, here’s your tissue. Thank you and come again.”

As soon as she left, Cyrus’s two friends burst out laughing again.

“Dude! Can’t you even wait for her to go further away (out of earshot) ?” Cyrus cringed.

Ignoring his pleas, the two friends chorused simultaneously. “Haha that was awesome dude.”

“You’re the man, Cyrus. You the man.”

~

Shortly after, Zati and her clique have finished their meals and proceeded straight for the door. Cyrus and his friends were still gossiping unprofessionally behind the service bar (but I pretended not to see anything.) Then Syuk bellowed, “Bye, Zati!” and ducked below the counter. Cyrus looked glared at him with wrath. But he caught Zati’s attention; it was too late.

Zati turned back. Cyrus was still glaring at Syuk. But Zati made eye contact with Cyrus’s other friend. Spontaneously, he pointed at Cyrus while kicking him at the heel. Cyrus looked up and gave a timid wave. Zati’s gaggle of girlfriends exploded with “Oohs” and “Ohs” and giggling. Syuk straightened himself from hiding below the counter and held his palm up high for a high five. “You the man,” he said.

“Dude! Wait for them to leave the store, man!” Cyrus held his laughter in for a few more seconds… then all three of them erupted with laughter, patting each other on the back while high fives went all around.

Meanwhile, I burst out laughing at the back where I witnessed the entire exchange through the CCTV system.

A Very Watery Date

(C) Sonya O. Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers (FFFAW), June 10, 2015. This photo brings you to the challenge page. Hosted by Priceless Joy

The Sea World would be an excellent venue for their first date, he thought. He has never been so wrong.

The instant that she realized that his plan was a visit to Sea World, she burst into tears. She did not tell him why though. She did not want to ruin the date; he booked the tickets in advance too. They did not come cheap.

But the tears invariably came again as they passed by the Angelfish aquariums.

“What’s wrong, Jenny?” Mike asked, genuine concern evident on his face.

“Aquariums remind me of Gabriel,” she struggled between tears.

Shit. Ex-boyfriends are never a good first-date conversation topic, Mike silently berated himself for asking and braced for the imminent emotional roller coaster ride.

“He was found dead last year,” Jenny sobbingly continued, unaware of the horror spreading across Mike’s face. He was thinking, a dead ex-boyfriend!? Shit, this girl is full of baggage that I don’t need. Why do I always pick the bad ones? Then she added, “Next to a cracked aquarium,” before her turbulent sobbing made the rest of her words inaudible.

Mike did not know how else to react, so he put his arm around her, and listened to her incoherent tearful speech. But at the back of his mind, he thought he heard, “Gabriel was such a good angelfish!”

Word count: 222

The End to My Trip

It was my last day of my vacation trip in India, and it may sound like the sad ending full of reluctance to return home, but I’m not, I’m thoroughly exhausted from ten spectacular days there and I am wholly satisfied. There isn’t anything more I can accomplish; no more sights for me to see, no more tourist attractions to be attracted to and no more historical sites I haven’t seen. I have done it all.

Thus I planned my last day to be a lazy day being a couch potato on a couch other than my own. India’s airport is decently tourist friendly and a  home to a large array of comfy couches. I nestled myself in the splendid black upholstery of one near Starbucks and allowed it to cradle my sore bones. Then I flipped open my laptop and began to blog.
I fell back to my favorite habit when in public of eyeing the people around me to secretly, stalker-ly draw inspiration. I then caught sight of a lovely couple. The lady was dashing and the man was elegant. They seemed to be getting along very well, from what I have observed.

But all of a sudden, the woman shoo-ed the man away. It was an intriguing interaction, with the woman pushing and the man resisting and pulling. My curiosity got the better of me so I stood up and moved closer to the bar where they were, with baggage and laptop and all, all so I can eavesdrop listen to their conversation better.

“I really am! I am not lying!! A man won’t be able to get to where I am today by lying.”

“OH PLEASE. Stop. I’ve had enough. Just go away.”

“I’m just asking if I can buy you one drink. That’s all.”

“No. Now, leave me alone, mister famous Harry or something.”

Then I realized that this guy is actually trying to pull off the pickup line similiar to the one in How I Met Your Mother, the one where Barney Stinson pretends to be someone famous in order to convince a girl to let him buy her a drink.

Now the reason behind the difference between the success Barney enjoyed and this horrendous rejection that slapped Mr. Famous Harry Something across the face was the wingman. A wingman is an accomplice, if you may, that assists the main man to woo the girl. In other words, he creates a desirable situation where the main man becomes more appealing. And right then and right there, I knew Mr. Famous Harry Something needed me.

So I walked over and went like this.

“Harry? Harry! Oh my goooood!!! Can I have an autograph? *fumbles for a piece of paper* You’re awesome. You’re my idol, man. Really. Keep up the good work, Harry!! I’m your number one fan! I’ve supported you through everything.”

(Gee, I am an awesome babbler.)

~

Then I turned my back to a very astounded and bewildered man, with his signature scrawled on the back of the receipt for my coffee, and marched off briskly towards my flight and away from that interaction that has somehow inconveniently sped up time. But before I turned the corner, I looked back and I saw Mr. Famous Harry Something surrounded by three beautiful women.

Ten Things I Love & Hate (About Subway)

In response to a challenge posed to me by my buddy e, (gee it rhymes) I am going to name ten things that I love and ten other that I hate. Recently, I have also gotten a simple job of serving sandwiches at Subway (a fast food chain if you are unaware). Thus, these things that I love/hate will be from this working experience.

The Rules:

1. Name 10 things you love and 10 things you hate.
2. Nominate 10 other people to pose this challenge to.
3. Notify them of the challenge.

First off,

1. I hate being the invisible newbie, though it isn’t much better because now I finally get attention but only because I made a mistake. And I make a lot of those.
2. Love the beat boxing drink dispenser. It pfffts to pump in the gaseous fizziness whenever a customer uses it and it does produce a sick beatboxing beat when it does. I wish customers could dispense it all day. But of course, their cups are only sixteen ounces 😦
3. Love crushing the crab sticks to make the Seafood and Crab mix with my bare hands. It feels like I’m squashing the brains of my enemies.
4. Hate my supervisor
5. Love free wifi. Who doesn’t?
6. I both love and hate the free Subway employee meal. It’s nice because FREE THINGS ARE ALWAYS NICE, but I am getting tired of it.
7. Hate customers I meet that give the order, “All sauces please.” (they don’t actually say please. I think I have actually never heard a ‘please’ in my eight days of working so far.) Anyway, I digressed, but… WHO THE F- DOES THAT!? WHO ORDERS ALL THE SAUCES!? There are ten different dressings and sauces in total, and I’m guessing certain that them all combined tastes like… like… I have no idea, but it will just be very wet. ALSO, it’s very messy for me and to every ‘all-sauce’ person, I HATE YOU GUYS.
8. Hate people calling the lettuce as ‘salad’ or ‘cabbage’ (wrong use of quotation marks there oops.) Lettuce is LETTUCE. It’s even printed right in your face with images displayed telling you that it is called LETTUCE.
9. Hate other variations of the above point like referring to Jalapenos as ‘chili’ and pickles as ‘that green thing’.
10. Hate that green capsicums have an alternative and acceptable name as ‘Green Bell Peppers’ because if they order pepper, I have to clarify if they mean ‘capsicums’ or do they want me to sprinkle ground pepper for their sandwiches.
11. Hate mustard. I’m biased.
12. Also hate people who pronounce mustard as ‘Moos-tard’. Like what. Do you even English?
13. Hate people new to ordering in Subway because they take like fifteen years to understand the menu. I think Subway should consider having educational commercials once in a while.
14. Hate huge orders. Like this story I’m going to tell: a woman walks in and orders four foot longs. I was careful not to insult her by asking having here or take away. Then all the other staff with other duties, e.g. kitchen shift or dining shift (anything but service bar shift), they had to come to the service bar and be my assistants and they all give out the vibe like I just forced more work unto them. Can they be any lazier? Shit. Don’t answer that. Of course they can.
15. Story two: this bad-ass hiker came in with full gear and ordered 10 wraps. OMG. It was hell to make all of those. Mainly because the wraps had to be microwaved and not oven-toasted. Ovens can accommodate like eight sandwiches at a time. Microwaves, one. Sigh. It was ten times twenty seconds of the customer just eyeballing me while I attend to his order.
16. But some customers are nice too. I love cute looking customers. Come to my subway and I’ll give you extra lettuce 😉 (Note: Offer extends to girls only)
17. I love Sarcastic customers. They spice up my day and keep my mind active with work besides the usual multitasking, remembering veggie and sauce orders. Haven’t met one yet though.
18. I love this one funny customer who ordered ‘onions extra giler (like crazy)’ and “pickles extra giler” and then was about to ask for “olives extra giler” but he noticed it was spilling over and he was like “tak muat? (Can’t fit?)” and I’m like *Sheepish* “Yeah….”.
19. That one customer then proceeded to pay a twenty six Ringgit meal entirely with one Ringgit bills. His girlfriend laughed at him and it was quite a funny interaction. Gotta love anything that spices up my otherwise mundane duty.
20. Hate customers who order their choice of meat before their choice of bread. (Oh, back to hate already? I realize I don’t have much I love about my job. Good news, I’m quitting in thirty-or-so more days.)
21. ESPECIALLY HATE the effing packaging of the hot baking paper we put the bread on. It’s similar to a tissue box and sometimes when I pull out a piece, the subsequent piece doesn’t follow out and I have to struggle WITH GLOVES, MIND YOU, to get that next piece out.
22. Love working whenever it’s not operating hours (like before opening or after closing) because we have this sound system and we’re free to use it and you know we turn it up loud.
23. (There’s thirteen hates and nine loves.)

How was that? For me, I learnt that I hate my job more than I love it. Anyway, for the nominations:

An Elephant Cant  

lilrant    

Girl Next Blog   

Still Life of A Grad Student   

Victoria from Raindrops & Fireflies    

Izzy-grabs-life   

Babs, Host of Mondays Finish the Story   

Priceless Joy   

The Captain’s Speech, Paul   

The Storyteller’s Abode   

I NOMINATE YOU!

Looking forward to all your responses soon!!

PS: I took a while to respond to this challenge because I was accumulating work experience to write for content.

When Death Walked In

The door swings open. It’s a bald, gleaming, shiny head. The bald, gleaming, shiny head. The stench in the air is palpable. It is the stench of fear, and it was an all-you-can-eat-buffet for the nose which belonged to the bald head.
“What are you idiots waiting for? Go greet the food auditor!” The supervisor reprimanded his staff in a hushed whisper.
The staff proceeded to welcome the Grim Reaper wearing a bald-man-suit as a practised choir. Grim Reaper paid no attention, instead stalked straight for the kitchen.

The supervisor trodded behind him, not unlike a freshly nagged kid. Then Death spoke, “If I can taste a trace of food on whatever that used to contain, I’m suspending your license.” He stared pointedly at a container.

The unorthodox test caused the supervisor to take a moment to process what Death uttered. When at last he understood, he began to word his confused disbelief, “You can’t be serious…” But the container was already cradled by Death’s spiny spiderweb-y fingers, and it appeared to corrupt at his very touch. Death opened his mouth, and a tendril slithered out. The air stilled in that room, and a morgue may arguably be a more lively place than that kitchen at that precise moment.

Death’s tendril traced a slimy path on the container’s inner wall and withdrew.

“I can taste it…”

The supervisor and his staff visibly stiffened. Teeth were gritted, veins throbbed, breaths were held and five pairs of eyes widened.

“I can taste your license renewal.”

And nobody imagined that even Death was capable of a warm smile.

The Little People

– A pair of anchors. (C) Alastair Forbes. Sunday Photo Fiction, May 24th, 2015. This photo brings you to the challenge page. Hosted by, Alastair Forbes

Alex and Gilberto were neighbours, but they did not know that.

Alex lived in a bungalow in a rich estate, while Gilberto lived in his garden. Gilberto belonged to the Little People, and he lived in a Little Town in Alex’s garden. The Little People were a happy bunch of people. But Gilberto was an exception. He was a painter, and Alex’s garden was a graveyard of inspiration. 

Then Alex’s birthday came, and his parents gifted him with a realistic toy battleship. Alex took it out to the garden to play. But as he swung the SS Catastrophe around, navigating through a barrage of cannon shells, the anchor flew off. Try as he might, Alex could not find it. He felt sorrowful for losing it on the first day he received it. But Gilberto was overjoyed: the anchor made for a perfect centerpiece for landscape art, among the other LEGO houses that Alex generously ‘donated’ over the past few years.

Word count: 160