Tomorrow

Mr. Cooker lifted his skirt as he sat on the neighborhood bus station. He was waiting for the 561 however it was delayed. He hadn’t expected that he would be in this situation. But then it was hard to even anticipate what had happened to Mr. Cooker that day.

He woke up that morning at his regular time at 5 am sharp. Walking down his staircase, he heard the grandfather clock chime in the early hours of the morning. Ironically enough, the grandfather clock was in actuality his grandfather’s clock and he could hear both the floorboards of the old home as well as the bones of his older grandmother creak as he walked downstairs. It was an important day for him. He had wanted to get up with the dawn to prepare. He needed to make sure he had a few blocks of cream cheese.

His grandmother called to him as he walked to the kitchen. “Are you ready Husky?” She always called him Husky. Something to do with his dog like face he figured. Or his weight. Probably his weight. “Nano I woke up late.” “Remember the cheese Husky.” “I will Nano, I will.” He sighed. “Nano you are always fretting.” He complained to her that he had inherited her habit of worrying all the time. She retorted “Always better to worry than be unprepared.” It was their familiar morning routine. He lifted his umbrella. It will come in handy he thought. The handle was a bit faded and the springs old, but it would protect him against the rain nevertheless. He wandered to the basement of the old home where today’s assignment stood, covered with the old blanket. He coughed up dirt as he shook the sheet off the table. He carefully wrapped the item in brown paper and put it together with the umbrella and the cheese. He needed to get changed. The bus would be there soon.

The bus dropped him off by the clock tower sharply at 8:00 am. He walked with purpose despite the hot winds, his thin hair sticking to his bald head. As he turned through the winding lane by the red motorcycle, he realized something was wrong. Perhaps it was how his feet fell or the way that his clock ticked a little faster than usual. His gut told him to beware. In a micro second, he felt his hand go numb as he heard the ravenous barking of a dog. The cheese! His mind panicked. The dog must have smelt it! Could he let it go? Could he present without the cheese? Nervous sweat poured down his numb body. He felt the sharpest pain in his back where the dog must have surely made contact. He hoped he wasn’t bleeding on his grandfather’s old suit. Tears of pain shot down his eyes as he turned around to face the dog. Instead it wasn’t a dog; it was a jagged wire from a nearby fence. It had indeed made its mark on his flesh and he saw small droplets of blood on his tan suit. He panicked. This would not do! This really would not do!

With anguish he walked faster, his eyes searching his surroundings for a solution and there in the park she sat alone. His eyes rested on her and she seemed the very picture of serenity. He rushed in desperation toward her. “Do you know when the tailor opens ma’am?”, he frantically questioned. She raised her eyes tenderly, in all manner of composure and Mr. Cooker felt his heart stop. Her eyes were like large placid pools of calm waters. Her silken hair was softly flowing in the wind. As she opened her supple, ruby rosette lips to speak, he felt the most wondrous emotions.  He experienced the greatest desire to continue staring and the fear that if he stopped she would cease to exist. He had never known such sensations. He had never even entertained the possibility of feeling such emotion. And yet, here she was, demanding him to feel in ways that he feared he didn’t have the capacity to understand.

Oh he was stupid. So, so stupid! Walking around town with a clunky toaster, mouldy cheese and wearing his grandfather’s suit in front of her. He chided himself and yet felt he couldn’t muster the same feeling of self-hatred with her around. She made that impossible. And how she smiled! The softest smile, like the unfurling of a tender rose bud; like the first ray of morning sun conquering the night sky. Tepid and yet so commanding and self-aware of its power. She beamed with what seemed to him was the power of a thousand moonbeams, glowing like freshly laid snow. Half of him wanted her to never speak. He wanted to keep this visual of her in his mind forever. And the other half was anxious to hear her voice, greedy for more of this elixir that his soul had just tapped onto and was drinking so deeply from.

She gestured to a corner shop with her hand and then again at his pants. He looked down and realized he had bled much more than he had previously thought. There was a patch of blood where only a small dribble had previously existed. In another life he would have worried about getting tetanus shots and dying from Hepatitis B. But this was no longer that life. He had met a nymph by the lake that had changed him. “Can you take me somewhere to get changed” He asked. “Of course” Those were the first words she spoke to him. “Of course”. He would remember these forever. Engrave them in his heart; tattoo them permanently in his frontal lobe. “Of course”. Her velvety voice like ripples of honey, flowing through gurgling streams. He wondered if she would say some more.  “Follow me” she said. To the depths of the nether world he thought, to the highest heaven and the lowest inferno. Of course he would follow her!

As she glided over the stone pathway to the corner shop, he followed her in a trance. Her delicate feet moved as if they didn’t touch the earth. Her hips shifted ever so slightly as she gracefully put one foot in front of the other. She took him into a small shop. He couldn’t tell where he was except that she had somehow managed to sit him down while she brought a bag of clothes for him to wear. “I can mend it” She said. And his heart exclaimed joyously. Of course she was the one who would mend it! He knew that the moment he saw her that she was here so he could be mended. She gestured to the basket nearby and he wanted to let her know he understood. He understood that she would mend him. He changed out of his pants and wore something out of the bag. Her eyes twinkled when he handed her his clothes. His heart ached with the emotions thumping through them. “Does tomorrow work?” She questioned. Did it? He asked himself. Did his future work without her? He knew deep in his heart that it was impossible to continue living without her in any way. Could he wait that long? Could he, Mr. Cooker wait until tomorrow for the rest of his life to begin? He feared his voice would not respond. He feared his lips would say things he couldn’t take back. So he simply nodded. She smiled in return and opened the door to let him out. His feet refused to move. Why would they? And yet he didn’t want to upset her. He never wanted to upset her. His legs seemed to be filled with lead as he tried to make his way out. But he persevered. For her, he thought. For her.

He somehow found himself at the bus station memorising the scent of her hair. He committed to memory her luminous smile, how the wind lingered in her tendrils and how her red sweater paled against her plush skin. He replayed in his mind the first time he heard her voice. The voice of an angel, he thought, the voice of melody itself. Suddenly he heard the loud gong of the nearby church. Dong! It went Dong! Dong! Dong! It was at the sixth dong that Mr. Cooker seemed to wake up. His mind awake from the daze it had been in questioned the six dongs. Six o’ clock? Could it really be six o’ clock? What day was it? His mind paced. Where was he? He had missed his meeting! He had missed the most important meeting on the most important of days! He panicked and looked around. Where was his package?! Where had he left it? He tried to retrace his steps in agony. Where was the wire where he had cut himself? Where was that store he had wandered into? Where could he have left that toaster?  The dog! His mind paced. Where is the dog? Perhaps if he heard the dog bark again he would know where he was and be able to find the park where he had met that woman. That woman. And as he let his mind wander back to thoughts of her again, he questioned himself. Was it really that important to find the package or more important to find her? Mr. Cooker was not a dreamer. In fact, before today the only thing he knew to do was to sell his grandfather’s old invention. Small prototypes of bagel toasters that his grandfather had created. He wasn’t in the market for his own dreams. He had long ago decided to forego any idea of possibility and spare himself the ridicule that usually accompanied those thoughts. He enjoyed worrying as it helped ground him and remind him of his reality. He was a portly, balding, single man of 43 years who lived with his grandmother. Those labels guided his daily missions. Fantastical delusions of love at first sight would happily run away when placed adjacent with them. But today they didn’t. And today neither could he. The only place he wanted to run to was the store where he had left his most valuable possession.  And in that moment Mr. Cooker allowed himself to have his first true smile. The first smile of his life. He had never thought he would have to wait 43 years but here he was. In the pouring rain, without his umbrella and without his pants, united with something that he was afraid he had lost.

His eyes found the garden stone where he had met the woman in red. He walked towards the rock and permitted himself to sit still. He stared at the pond as the droplets of rain created ripples in the water. The next one growing bigger than the one before.  He looked at the adolescent frogs leaping from one lily pad to the next, seeming to revel in the outpouring of emotion from the sky. As he let the rain wash over him, he saw her close her store. It had a red door; he had never noticed that before. He had been down this street several times in the last 20 years and he had never once noticed her store. Of all the worries he had had walking through that lane, he had never thought wearing a red skirt and sitting in the pouring rain was one of those permutations. The thought tickled him so deeply that he laughed. Bellowed heartily like a madman.

As twilight fell, he lifted himself up. He walked back to the station to take his bus home. Soaking wet from head to toe, wearing a borrowed crimson skirt, he boarded the bus leaving behind his cheese and his package. As the bus drove by the clock tower, he couldn`t help but think that he had lost everything he brought with him that morning. But instead of anxiety, he felt complete solace in one small word. Tomorrow.