Bobby, his surname was Swizzlestick - that wasn't a real family name; he adopted it himself; he loved the sound of it as much as he enjoyed the product, a sweet sherbert candy dip from which he ripped the name. You see, Bobby's legal name for the sake of a birth document is Robert Smith; the most mundane name you could have. If his name was an object it would be a plank of cheap wood, cut from some tree which nobody ever bothered to find out its species, in a part of the world where names didn't matter too much - the dimensions of the plank of wood would be a boring, unfussy, two by four.My head hurts thought Bobby; it throbbed from all the artificial additives which made Pickie's Jelly Beans TM such a delectable habit. He had bought a hundred bean bag from the popular Joe Schmell's candy store in a trendy part of Queen Street. Bobby wrapped his hands around his head and applied pressure to the sides of his head, hoping that somehow the pain would go away. He had already eaten over three quarters of the bag which he handpicked from the dozens of assorted flavours in their rainbow coloured bins; all the colours in the bag were the same, he only chose one flavour, his favourite which was called Green Monster Puke. Bobby couldn't cook; he ate candy for dinner.
You have to understand this thing about Bobby, it may make you like him more, or less even; that does not really concern me my dear reader, but it is something you should know - Bobby's skin is green. He never saw a doctor about his skin colour, although if he had, the doctor would have discovered high levels of a toxic green addictive, found exclusively in a particular brand of candy, after examining tissue samples. So Bobby has a green tinge to his skin colour, oh don't discriminate against him (my dear reader) - it's his own fault... oh but the beans, they taste so good, he'd say when someone suggested that they were no good for him.
Minding it's own business, the newly opened Nancy Reagon's Samosa Bar sat idyllically at the corner of Dufferin and Queen West. It's hand painted sign on a white washed rectangle of chipboard hung lopsided over it's door. An hour later, a man with a greenish skin walked through that door clutching his head, he walked up to the counter where a woman who looked like a fuller version of a former US president's wife was rolling pastry on the small space of a cluttered counter; a till sat uncomfortably on a pile of spoons, pens and notepaper lay scattered among pieces of dried pastry. Even though a bell rang when Bobby walked through the door, she continued, uninterrupted. I need food, and this is a place which sells this stuff which makes my body work, thought Bobby as he read the crumpled motivation posters which looked like they had been printed on a cheap inkjet on the wall. One had a clipart picture of a monkey eating a banana with flies around it's head, the slogan, "WORK HARDER!" formed a foundation for the monkey's bum. Another one had a pixellated photograph of a man carrying shopping bags, "NO PAIN - NO GAIN!" was it's loud capitalized message.
Eventually, the woman, who looked like Nancy Reagon, sleepily raised her neck, though her back remained hunched; she continued to move the rolling pin back and forth although she was now absentmindedly banging it against the drawer of the cash machine. Bobby noticed that her knuckles were bleeding. "How can ahh help you?", she drawled, the words appeared to suck her vitality as she spoke them. Bobby looked nervous, he had never purchased food (directly) from a person before; it was quite strange, but it forced him to contain a giggle.
"I need some food substance. My head hurts. I have been eating jelly beans. I need something to overtake the jelly beans in my tummy." He said forcefully - communication not being one of his fortes...
Nancy Reagon narrowed her eyes and looked at him with pursed lips for what seemed like an eternity, but was actually more like three point two seconds. "We have a variety of samosas, all hand-cooked, individually parceled in a crispy crisp crust for that extra crunch." She swung her hand over the cluttered counter where unbalanced baskets of cold samosas fought for space like farm animals waiting to be slaughtered. Bobby smiled, and looked at the labels which he read out loud.
"Beef!" He shouted excitedly. A customer who sat at a wobbly rustic table rolled his eyes and went back to reading his newspaper and sipping his coffee. "Chicken!!", the sound of an angry meow came from the back room of the store. "Pork and Peas! I want pork and peas!" The sound of agitated coffee sipping could be heard from the other side of the room.
"Cold or hot?" asked the woman who now looked mildly awake.
"Ummm..." Bobby thought for a while. He knew that if he answered the question wrongly, he could end up with something that did not quite achieve his cullinery standard. "Hmmmm... Ummm...", he placed a hand over his mouth and rubbed his lips as his other hand wrapped around the elbow which belonged to the mouth hand... (hmmm, well you get the idea, my dear reader - please don't make me explain too much), anyway, those fingers drummed on his elbow with the rhythm of a flat footed marathon runner. A bead of sweat grew out of his forehead as he glanced at the woman who seemed to grow increasingly awake. "Ummmm... Hmmmm... just gotta think..." The woman looked at her watch, sixteen minutes and fourteen seconds had elapsed.
"Okay," exclaimed the woman after the long silence, she swallowed Bobby with her eyes, "let me cut you a deal, K?" He nodded. "I'll make you two samosas, one hot and one cold, K?" Bobby nodded. She grabbed two pork and pea samosas from the basket, liberating them from their insufferable anxiety, she snatched Bobby's hand and slapped one samosa into his hand, "that samosa," she checked his eyes for acknowledgement, "is the cold samosa, K?" Bobby nodded slowly and wide-eyed. The woman shuffled backwards and reversed to the microwave which balanced precariously on a wonky wooden stool, her eyes remaining fixated on Bobby's, "See look, now I take this samosa," she punched it angrily into the air, and pressed the door release of the yellowed plastic Japanese magic cooking box, it popped open, "and then I put it in..." She tossed the samosa haphazardly into the small space, it banged against the back wall of the oven and then settled as if knocked unconscious on the rotating plate. She slammed the door shut and quickly pressed the buttons. Beep, beep, beep. Bobby looked bemused as he clutched the samosa rigidly. "Go and sit down now, eat that thing in your hand, the other one will be ready and I'll bring it over to you." Bobby did as he was told.
Bobby settled his large behind on an old, rickety school chair next to the customer who was lost in a news article. He brought his hand onto the table, and like blooming petals, slowly straightened his fingers to reveal the cold food product which he had unwittingly purchased. It looked like an overgrown fortune cookie, except that it had the colour of a mahogony stained toilet bowl. He had long forgotten about his headache, as far as his brain was concerned, the headache had never existed - it faded as fast as it had onset. He brought the cold parcel of pork and peas to his lips; it smelt of fried lard, he thought to himself. By the way, the dear reader might be interested to know that the pig which the pieces of pork once belonged to was named Geoffrey; it was once the pet of a cute little girl named Annie, but it was sold to an unscrupulous butcher in order to pay the hospital bills of her dying parents. Hmmmm food, Bobby stared momentarily at the clever assembly of animal and vegetable matter before biting voraciously into a corner of the said nutrition object.
One hundred, thirty-two and a half seconds later, the only remainder of the food form were the peas, pork and pastry bits scattered over the wooden surface of the over-stained and over-varnished table. If an expert were called into assess the situation of the table, he probably would have called it 'messy', scribbled into his notepad and estimated that only sixty percent of the original samosa had entered into Bobby's food tract. Bobby sat back and rubbed his stomach. Seconds later, a steaming samosa thudded onto the remnants of his last meal, scattering them again.
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