A Pickle Brewing

Posted on Thu Jan 15, 2015 @ 1:21am by
Edited on on Sat Jan 24, 2015 @ 7:30pm

361 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: Eye of the Beholder
Location: Promenade
Timeline: MD0 Lunchtime c. 13:30

With a forlorn hunch bending his shoulders Squink pushed his laden cart away from the gardens. Where were they? It was the tenth day in a row that his food had gone to waste. Why had his customers abandoned him?

"Meester Squinka! Smile, it might never happen!" The portly chef and proprietor of Benito’s Restaurant said as he clapped a hand on the Ferengi's back.

Squink's face split into a toothy grimace, "It already happened. A month ago I couldn’t make enough food, now," he shrugged, "Now I might as well not waste the ingredients."

"May I taste, no?"

"Its all going down the can anyway, might as well be pouring away latimum."

Bene Benito produced a spoon from one of the folds of his apron, whisked the lid off one of Squink's tureens and dug into the steaming broth. He lifted the morsel to his mouth and chewed. Benito swallowed. "Udon with Vulcan mollusk, a broth of Betazoid origin, seasoned with … squill? Delicious!" he pronounced. "It is your customers who are mad, no?"

It didn't help if the chef liked it. Squink needed his customers … or at least their latinum. At least it didn't seem to be going to the chef. "You're a bit quiet," he noted – it was the height of lunchtime and there were two or three people in the restaurant as far as Squink could see.

Bene sighed and linked his hands together over his stomach. "We have the best ingredients, no? The imagination in the recipes, the art in the cooking. But alas I too am losing my customers. They are not loyal. It was the flu, I thought. They'll be back I thought. But no, they go where?"

"If I find out I'll …" Squink stopped talking as a slender, tall creature passed the shop front a few metres away – to his eyes she glimmered like starlight.

Benito too was drawn to her. "Bella regazza …" he said in a breath as the woman turned slightly, her mahogany toned hair falling to frame her delicate alabaster features to perfection. In a second she had moved on leaving the faintest aroma of grass in the air.

 

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