==> ENTER NAME.
Your name is Bràs de Oliva Domingo and it was 28 years ago that you were given life and it was then that you were named. You have some interesting hobbies: you write obituaries for the newspaper, but you hate writing about death all day. You are also an aspiring novelist, but you don’t think you’re very good. Certainly not as good as your father; he casts a pretty wide shadow that you’re stuck in. Your passion is writing on the old typewriter, and you have a predilection for Continental cigarettes. Your best friends are Jorge dos Santos and your ever loyal dog, Dante. You were in a long term relationship with a beautiful el Salvadorian knock out, but you’re not together anymore. You don’t want to talk about it. AT ALL!
==> BRÀS: TALK ABOUT EL SALVADORIAN KNOCK OUT.
No. Nope. You are not going to even think about her and how she broke your heart and left you after seven years in an empty apartment for the remainder of the lease, where the ghostly echoes of your fights haunt every square inch of the place. You have not been able to write anything decent for your novel “VELVETEEN EYES” (it’s a work in progress) in seven months! Needless to say as soon as the lease was up you got a new place. But in truth the new one is just as empty as the old one was when Olinda left and only serves to remind you of how desolate your life is just like she said it was even after six months of living here. All this talk about She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is making you tired. You could really use a morning caffeinated magical elixir.
==> BRÀS: MAKE MAGICAL ELIXIR.
Why would you do that? You have already procured and are drinking your morning COFFEE at the Bakery shop that’s within walking distance of your mostly barren apartment. Normally you would prepare your own coffee, but today you are not in the mood for the herculean task of making coffee. You take another sip of the life giving elixir. Just how you like it; strong and black with no sugar, willing the scalding heat to warm the cold you feel inside. Perfect.
==> BRÀS: EXAMINE ROOM.
You are sitting at the counter on the half of the bakery that is set up with tables and seats like a café. The other half has a long free standing shelf in the center and shelves along the walls stuffed with groceries. There is a menagerie of people milling, standing, sitting, or shopping.
==>BRÀS: GO HOME TO EMPTY APARTMENT
You should head home soon. you’ve been nursing your coffee for so long that it’s no longer like drinking molten lava. But you really don’t want to leave yet your home doesn’t feel like home. Besides you haven’t paid for the coffee yet and you can’t simply dine and dash.
==> BRÀS: GET IN LINE TO PAY FOR COFFEE.
Setting the empty cup down on the counter, you stand resigning yourself to returning to your mostly empty apartment, and go to stand behind an elderly woman in line at the cashiers. Wait! You are hungry! Maybe you should get something to eat.
==> BRÀS: GLANCE AROUND FOR FOOD.
Eager to put off returning to your empty apartment/life you scan the room but nothing stands out. It wouldn’t fill the cavern in your heart. Oh, who is that?
==> BRÀS: LOOK AT GIRL OF YOUR DREAMS.
Behind two older ladies and the shelf is a woman a few years younger than you. She is beautiful and you stare openly at her. Her dark chin length hair frames her face, she has a cherry-red mouth with a slight smile, is eating a chocolate Popsicle eyes scanning the store’s wares. As if sensing your gaze she looks up right at you, gold-green eyes meet blue ones. Her smile makes something flutter in your stomach. You both take turns looking away and back. Some unknown foreign thing clicks in place inside your chest. Oh, wait someone is trying to get your attention.
==> BRÀS: PAY THE LADY.
Oh, it’s the cashier lady trying to get your attention. You’re up and holding up the line. The mystery girl breaks eye contact breaking the spell you’re under. You pay the lady and begin the walk home with a nagging suspicion that you’re forgetting something.
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