“Do you know if there are any details?” Priya asked Felicia the next day whilst slurping from a juice box in the cafeteria. “I have to admit the record is silent on that point. That’s pretty much everything I know” her friend articulated contritely. Nearby, the maintenance man Hancock Richards was mopping the floor, and stood to listen. “Talking about that are you …
hehe … you’re much too young to remember those times”. “If you’re from that generation, you must have lived through it. Did you see him?” Priya enquired. Resting his hands on the tip of the pole, he furrowed his brow as if to remember, “Yup … I sure did. Saw him on the telly. He looks like a guy that just walked out of a bowling alley in full uniform, you know, the kind of douchebag that thinks he would look good dressed up as a pirate, only he’s the most powerful guy in the universe”. “Blimey. … are you pulling our leg?” Felicia blurted out. “Excuse my friend … Do you remember anything about that time before the loan was returned?” Priya asked, and under the table she stepped on Felicia’s foot to quiet her down. “The only thing would be I remember sitting on a bench with my daddy. He was reading the newspaper in the park and ignoring everything as usual. He loved to read the newspaper in the morning. Nearby there were chickens pecking on breadcrumbs. Then a chicken flew onto his lap with a tortilla in its beak and rolled up into it. Then it became a chicken enchilada and he ate it. After that I noticed that around the four corners of the park were walls with the background painted on them that I thought was just the background a moment ago, and we walked out one of the doors, and he told me that was one of his favorite restaurants, but I didn’t really understand what he meant till much later”. “Priya … I think this guy is trying to butter you up” Felicia whispered. “Must have been one of the virtual reality rooms back then. I’ve heard of that as well, how silly” Priya said, vindicating the storyteller, and he walked away, mopping the other end of the cafeteria.
CHAPTER 14 - PROFESSOR HOOK’S BIRTHDAY PARTY
It seemed like a prudent use of time, and so Hook cleaned his apartment three times over until it was entirely spotless. Earlier that day he completed his official duties. Neat stacks of paper lay on his desk. Satisfied, he reclined back onto the couch and adjusted his glasses when all of the sudden the doorbell rang. He wasn’t expecting company. A summer sweater was all he had on to entertain. Luckily, as he opened the door it was no other than Priya and the girls.
Nadine, Felicia and Dominique to be specific. A delightful cake ringed with candles.“Happy Birthday!” Priya bellowed. They all walked in and … it was clean as fuck. Almost like her apartment, but better, and with a vague smell of vanilla. Priya gave him her best happy-to-see-
you smile and please-reinstate-my-funding eye blinks. Felicia came with a green Chinese dress borrowed from her aunt. Dominique was in a long bodied gray coat with big buttons with a sliver of a white dress shirt. And Nadine had accidentally put on something too red and sexy for the occasion with long dangling earrings. With four versus one, they easily put him in his place, which just happened to be in a chair at the table in front of a birthday cake. Hook was confuddled at the tradition, as he normally went to the library for a good rental on his birthday. Priya leaned in close and he smelled like a warm bran muffin freshly drawn from the oven at a shelf of some café that is slowly going out of business. The remainder of the quarters had remarkable upkeep.
From the windows slipped nice ambient light whose consolation could not be ignored. Priya turned her cheek, knowing the moment needed no entourage. “Well old buddy … what do you wish for?” she prodded. Hook stared deep into the nostalgia of the candle light. The question lingered on his tongue for some minutes. From audacious youth his temperament had smoothed.
Academia worked him to the bone but restored him every day with fertile thoughts. Coffees every day of such assortment of flavors. And the perennial meetings with faculty that marked the passage of time. He had no complaints. Lightheartedly, Hook turned and brushed the inquiry aside, “Actually, I have everything I want. By that I mean … I have you wonderful girls to make my day”. Priya stepped back at the assertion. Its vigorous thrust assailed her usual apathy.
Clinging to the emotion, she cupped her mouth and turned back at the others. Restraint was no longer an option. The onslaught of it made them dewy eyed. A partial faint moved the ladies to embrace one another in fast motions. Concessions of friendship. A long overdue exchange.
Nadine looked on, weak for a second. There he was. The cake and its phosphorescence brushing his face like a hearth. Felicia held her arm, as new sensations came, enough to engulf her humanity. Dominique felt the beat of a song but it was akin to emotion. Through the window cars rolled past, ready to move students from home to university. Soon they would don shirts without holes and jeer at each other in the cafeteria. Homebound, their parents would yawn more than usual. They would pick up a hobby, like painting. But the rush continued. Cars cast in primary colors since that was the acceptable thing to do. The winds that day made them aerodynamic. But in the apartment the cross examination was not complete. Priya ran around the table and sat on the other chair facing her beautiful bureaucrat. She slammed both palms onto the maple wood, “Come on Hook, are you going to sit there and not ask for anything? Try to think”.
Hook began the long process of decision making. Sundry thoughts flocked deep within the hollows of his soul. Gears twisted. Steam rose. Men in chains slammed hammers against railroad tracks. Priya looked to the others who were dumbfounded. She got up and leaned over the table gracefully. Her back arched, she stuck one elbow on the maple and let the other push against her cheek. Now she was locked with him. A starting contest unlike the world had ever seen. It was not for sport. It was the maternal thing to do. But as the time dwindled on the clock, and the educator, normally insatiate for knowledge fiddled on, quietly she could not help herself. Hook would think for hours. Preoccupied. Confined in a riddle that was meant to be an easy chore.
Ironic pleasure slowly marched across Priya’s face. Sly humor. It would be redundant to articulate. A delinquent smile fanned across her face as the pressure mounted. Dominique tried not to laugh. Felicia considered breaking the stalemate. Power hungry Nadine leaned in, wanting an answer. Irregardless, his mind labored on. In Priya’s chest she could feel the weight as ideas for very funny and very bad things that were possible to say. Like thuds. Hook sat there; his inability goofy in the furthest extent. Waves of it bashed against the lab-girl. But in the contest Priya knew she had to claim ascendancy. Her eyes narrowed. Her posture strong like a statue. “A cucumber sandwich, '' Hook replied. Without missing a beat Priya raised her other arm and
snapped her fingers, directed to the girls, “cucumber sandwich”. Felicia went to the refrigerator.
Inside was a serendipitous vegetable tray. Around it, pungent smells of a sheep’s milk cheese.
The second in command closed the door. Nadine went and got the bread and took down a cutting board. Dominique just sort of waited and helped with the project management, such as the organizing and making certain that its deliverables were on time and within scope. And she chose the white cream cheese. With a clack the plate hit the maple and slid towards its person.
Nadine backed up three feet. An auspicious participant no longer. She noticed that he did not have the usual gray in his tufts. As he munched, Priya waited for the inevitable critique of cucumber sandwich. Enigma to the others, she had echoed Hook with the name of the refreshment. In unity they felt his appetite. Those tufts wagged with joy. “Do you want anything else?” Priya submitted as he wiped thick cream cheese from his mustache with the back of his hand. Hook would tend to his business, flailing his arms with the delight of bread and cucumber.
Still, she stood firm. It was victory or nothing. Finally, he stopped and was trapped helplessly in her gaze, “Hummus”. Not missing a beat, the lab-girl answered in kind. Its repetition pure and kind. It's copying a thing of envy. Its iteration a thing of seamless song. Priya lifted her head just so. The words departing in good sequence, “Hummus”.