(no subject)
Jun. 17th, 2005 01:26 amThe boys were awakened by some kind of quiet pinging sound that gently nudged them to arise. A few minutes after the pinging ended a knock came to their door.
David was up like a shot and across the room.
Sadly, a burly teenaged boy was in the hall.
“I am here to take you to the breakfast room,” The boy said in a voice that could have been made of crumpled construction paper.
He then waited the three minutes the boys took to get up and ready. When the fellows him in the hallway they were not alone.
Everywhere the corridor was peopled with those of all ages and sizes. They passed children and older people of every recognizable race, and a couple who looked barely human.
The diversity was positively intoxicating. Mickey wanted to ask everyone where they were from and what is was like where they were from.
David could hear all kinds of languages flowing in the air as they passed on their way to eat.
When they came into the dining hall, both boys were struck with the smells of so many different kinds of food that they could barely control themselves.
They walked to the serving line, and picked up trays. While moving down the line they didn’t know what half the things before them were.
Mickey started to take a bowl of something green and the large brown man behind the sneeze guard looked at him.
“Have you ever eaten that before?” He asked.
“I don’t even know what it is,” Mickey giggled.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have that for breakfast.” The man said as he took back the bowl. “Stay with things you know today, there will be a lot of new and exciting things happening today. Food you can experiment
with later.”
David looked at the amazing variety of food.
“We have people on varying schedules,” The man informed, “Some are having dinner and others are here for breakfast.”
Mickey couldn’t decide between oatmeal and hot and sour soup, so he had both.
David had chicken fried steak and tiramisu. (He always had chicken fried steak, since their father had always used this as a gauge for the quality of a restaurant. If they made good chicken fried steak, the rest of the menu could be trusted.)
Mickey was amazed how well the oatmeal (with a touch of maple syrup) and hot and sour soup went together. David like the chicken fried steak, but the tiramisu wasn’t what he thought it was. He wasn’t crazy about the taste of coffee and so was taken by surprise by the dish.
The food wasn’t their real focus though. At the table just to the right of theirs was a large man who appeared to be Scandinavian. He was light skinned and blond. But that was not what made him fascinating. It was his eyes.
They wouldn’t stay put.
As he ate and spoke with his companion (a plain looking black haired woman with a sincere concentration on her face) he had wandering eyes.
These eyes looked all around the room all the time he ate. His head never moved, and the eyes seemed to look straight ahead all the time. It was just that those orbs moved around his head.
Like the eyeballs were some kind of creature crawling around under a blanket, the eyeballs wandered to the back and top and sides of his head.
David was so fascinated that he caught himself being caught by the eyes looking at him.
He ducked his head in embarrassment and then glanced up to see the pair both looking in his direction. Then the woman looked at him too, and that was too much. He turned in his chair and faced the other way.
Looking that was he saw a man with no eyes at all.
The figure was coming through the entrance way, and while he was a good six feet tall he had nothing on his face at all. No mouth, no nose and no eyes. At this point he raised his right hand and there was the missing eye. He had an eye in the palm of his right hand.
Now David had no idea where to look, so he concerned himself only with his food and his brother.
“We ain’t in Kansas anymore,” Mickey thought.
He had seen everything.
“Tell me about it Toto!” David thought back.