On the way I couldn't help but think of Cyrcil and how our conversation didn't go quite as smoothly as it usually did a couple times yesterday. It was a bit disappointing really. Perhaps when I'm done here, I'll have to pay him another visit and try to make up for that. Yeah, that's what I'll do.

So the building itself was brick and sort of dark with a really quiet entrance. There was a sort of courtyard in front of it that was brick on the ground, but the sides were just really short plants sort of meshing right up against the buildings alongside it. The door in was a couple feet up off the ground and there was this metal staircase that curved right on up to it, but what was really dumb was how the door opened out into the staircase so it was really hard to get in. You had to squeeze up against the corner of the railing and slide the door past you to be able to fit through to get inside, almost as if Mrs. Mao's had something against fat people, like 'no no no, you can't get in the door? You don't get a taste' sort of, how you say, disdain.

So, the entryway is really skinny but there's three doorways to get out of that cramped excuse of a coathanger. There's this small room on the right with a couple tables and a large window out over the courtyard. It's pretty dark, but it's got charm with some traditional art pieces that Mrs. Mao brought over when she moved to this town.

In the back is a stairway down and into the restrooms and on the left is the real part of the restaurant. It's a room that's much brighter than the one on the right, but goes much farther back to a sushi bar, behind which is a rack of even more interesting artifacts of Mrs. Mao's and the back right wall of that room has the door into the kitchen.

See, it shows just how distressed I was over the conversation with Cyrcil because when I saw the little lion or tiger, hard to tell the difference in statuary, just that smidge up and beside this little cd player and radio that Mrs. Mao had on her display, I just couldn’t help but become sad again. See, I rarely had times like that with him. Maybe it had to do with feeling a bit distressed over the fact that I didn’t know he was coming, or maybe it was because I was a bit jealous of him maybe getting together with Ivan, or whatever his name was. Actually, I think I’m being a bit unfair. Anyone that Cyrcil likes that much deserves more respect than that. So I told myself ‘I’ll do my best to remember his name then’ and really did give it a good try. It just… it makes me so sad to think that there’s even that chance of losing my best friend, even over something as stupid as a conversation that didn’t go perfectly.

So, I did manage to shape myself up and suck in my thoughts for Mrs. Mao. She was a very small lady, only slightly thinner than Regent, who was easily the scrawniest man I’d ever known. Well, lanky is a bit of a better word, because it’s not like he was short or anything, n’n like that, only his arms and legs and stomach were so thin. He wasn’t strong, not many of us ados really were, but he didn’t give up on things easily, and you had to respect a man for that. Anyway, Mrs. Mao was a very small lady, all dressed up in a nice and fancy robe, and it really was fancy with pink floral patterns on its green fabric. It was that sort of green that you could see in the grass if you got far enough away from town in the summertime. I could only imagine that it was like that over at the lot year-round, when it wasn’t covered by snow or anything like that. She seemed a bit overbearing though, looking out from the doorway to the kitchen over her sushi chef and the waiter who was attending the only group that was here. It was early, so I didn’t expect there to be a crowd anyway, see. She walked over to the sushi chef and asked him if he needed any more supplies and he told her ‘no ma’am’, and then when the one waiter went back into the kitchen, she asked him something, to which he replied, ‘yes ma’am.’ And so I really quickly figured out that ‘yes’,’no’ and ‘ma’am’ were some of Mrs. Mao’s favorite words.

So, all nervous, like, I walked up to Mrs. Mao and really softly told her ‘hi’ and sort of smiled at her. She looked a bit confused and so I said, “I’m here to talk to you about the position.”

“Ah, come.” And she led me over to the empty room on the left side of the entryway and sat me down across from her. “So, Zyolfie…”

“Snowviss, ma’am.”

“Hm. Well, we need a bit of a man who is willing to do just about everything. Help out in the kitchen, bussing tables, going on supply runs, cleaning up and various things like that.”

“Well, I’d prefer to work mostly in the kitchen, but I’d be very fine doing all of that, ma’am.”

“Are you sure that would not be a problem.”

“Yes ma’am.”

And then we talked for a while. She asked me some questions about my personal life and schedule and what I liked to do and what I didn’t like to do. And of course some questions about my personality, like my work ethic and what my ideal job would be and such. It took quite a while to get through everything and about halfway through the whole thing, she started taking notes with this little pen on a napkin.

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“Well, if you’d give me a day to think on it and see if I can get in contact with the other potential applicants, I will have made up my mind about you then. Come back tomorrow morning and you’ll either start then or go home.”

“Sounds fair, ma’am.”

“Good. I will see you then.”

So, you see, when I walked out of there, I felt really relaxed and laid back, like it was all going to be okay. I mean, I won’t lie, I was nervous about it, but I felt good in the sense that I thought Mrs. Mao liked me enough to hire me. And to share the news of an interview gone well, I headed to the shuttle and took it over to the post district and made the rest of the way on foot to Cyrcil’s place. It probably would have taken just as much, or maybe less time to just walk the whole way from Mrs. Mao’s, but once I got to the park, I felt a bit shaky in the legs and wanted to sit down, so I took the shuttle, like I said.

When I got there, I saw him up on his roof again, leaning out over towards the factories. He had on his wide-eyed grin that he had when he was focused off in the distance, and, once he let me in and we got up to the roof, I can't say I blame him. It's this brilliant view of the smokestacks with these amazing streaks of light cutting through them out into the forest out behind 'em.

“They're beautiful, aren't they?”

“Absolutely.”

“Do you know what they're called?”

“No.”

“Crepuscular rays.”

“That sounds neat.”

“Yeah, I had to look it up just earlier because it was so beautiful.” We had a good laugh at this and I leaned up on the fence beside him and we started talking again, but this time it all went really well. We talked about my potentially new position and work and he congratulated me several times and we looked into the possibility of me getting a chance to finally get out of this town for a while with this new income. Nothing big of course. But, we did figure that after two months of good work I would probably be able to get a ride into the next city and take a train in to the capital and see the sights, stay some nights and then get a ride back.

The idea fascinated me. I was practically jumping at the prospect of getting to leave for a bit and see the world like Cyrcil got to every day. I wanted to be like him, really, in just about every sense. And, well, I can't think of anyone who I'd rather be. And so when he looks back and up at me with those raccoon eyes of his, I smile back with the widest and most sincere grin that I can give him. I mean, he deserves more than that, so I hug him too, patting him on the back, you know, in that really firm way that ados do that between their best friends when they think n'n's watching.

“Tell you what, Zyolfe. If you get the funds for yourself in order, I'll make sure I get off work to come with you, if you'd like? Plus, some nice meals out, on me.”

That reminded me a lot about the one flaw I did see in Cyrcil. See, we've a mead factory in town, you know, the one I said that Regent worked at, and so anyone who lives here either works there and hates the place or just hates the place. It's all disgusting and too many people are drunk on the mead around here, well, they used to be before people started cleaning up themselves, and so none of us ados wanna drink it. It's a bit confusing as to why, I'm sure, but simply it's fucked up our lives enough that we don't want anything to do with the stuff, but cause Cyrcil got out before this was sort of ingrained into him, he likes the mead and drinks it a bit. So when he mentioned meals, I thought about him drinking again, and it made me a bit sad, but he's such a good guy that I'd always let that slide. 'I'll never hold that against him' I thought, and really meant it. But, sometimes he'd be a bit more than, well, mouse tipsy, and I'd see him around him stumbling home on the arms of various other ados. It made me sad to see it, but I'd never say anything though.

We settled another round of cards over a drink. Tea, of course. Cyrcil was smarter than that, the devil. But after that, I wanted to go meet Regent for lunch and share the news with him too. Thankfully, Cyrcil had some clocks lying around his place, cause without other people's help, I didn't really have a way to tell time, which made me think about buying a watch sometime this afternoon just so I'd have one for work, if I got a position, see.

And Regent was so nice about the whole thing, really happy and cheerful for me. He even gave me a bit of cash to get a cheap watch after our visit. See, I knew where Regent would be for his lunch because he always went to the same place for each day of the week for his lunch. Today was Tuesday, so he was at the Dusty Moon. It was a nice place with some billiards tables in the back, but if you were a real ado, you'd never say billiards of course. If you were playing billiards, you'd be home before midnight and without a stain on your trencher. But you see, if you were playing a real game of pool and were playing with some true ados then by the end of the night, at least, if there was a welcher in the group, you'd see a pool stick up someone's ass and a lot of blood to clean up before sunrise, so you could get home and dress your wounds and get a tad bit of sleep before having to get up for the next day. Anyway, the dusty moon was known for its pool tables and for being sort of the town’s pub. Pretty good grub for a pretty good price, especially their burgers, I’m told. But I didn’t eat anything. I was just there to see Regent.

He also asked me to stop by our little alleyway for another set of poker hands, so I had that to look forward to as well tonight. So in the meantime, waiting for all of that to happen, I went back to Ursula’s place and began preparing dinner, even though it was only lunchtime. Because of all that, I really took my time getting dinner started. Like, I didn’t even set the stove on high. I put it on low and just slowly brought it up to where I wanted it, taking at least twenty minutes just to get the water boiling. And sure, that was a lot of time, but it’s not like it made any difference. Good soup takes a lot of time to prepare and I was fine not sitting over a stove waiting for water to start boiling. So, like, I just chopped up some vegetables, started preparing some corn and cutting up some beef too.