Birds With Broken Wings

23* Unexpected Encounters

"What's that?" I asked him, tilting my head towards the shopping bags he dropped on the kitchen island and Alfred's reply was to jump over the chair to get to the kitchen like the abnormal person that he was.

"I stopped over at the market to get some," He replied and he started to unpack all the vegetables, chicken, beef, and all sorts of ingredients in the bag, "I watched a recipe video last night and I want to try it out today."

"Good! Just make sure you do the dishes before you leave."

"Eeeh, come on, you know I don't like doing dishes."

I ignored him.

"Let's play Rock, Paper, scissors then. Whoever loses will do the dishes."

"I'm not interested, you know you always win that." It was almost unfathomable, how Alfred always manages to win. It was almost like he could predict what I was going to go for, every single time.

"You're such a killjoy," He muttered behind me and I ignored him to focus on going through the pictures on the TV.

"Wow, what the..." He screamed a couple of minutes later and I spun back to see him standing in front of the opened freezer and eyeing the contents suspiciously.

"Now, I get it," His voice low and somber as if a truckload of grief was going through his mind and he slowly turned to look at me, his eyes mirroring his voice, "Now, I get why you hardly visit me and why you don't miss me like before. Someone else is already cooking for you, right? That's why you don't love me the way you used to again."

"Shut up, Alfred."

"On a more serious note, did you get a cook? Why is your freezer filled up with things I don't remember cooking?"

"Nazeera made all of them, she likes cooking so she cooks all sort of atrocity... All sorts of things."

"Wawu!" He screamed, his eyes lighting up and he turned back to appraise the contents of the freezer, "Look at how everywhere is filled with different foods and stews. I like her already, she'd become my soul-mate if Nadia wasn't in the picture."

I shook my head at his words, "You really have to stop this thing with Nadia Sulaiman."

"It's not a thing, Hussain," He countered immediately, "It's love. I'm in love with her."

"Okay, you'll be fine."

"I'm serious oo. Why are you people not taking me seriously?" He started walking towards me again and he flopped himself beside me, "You should treat her nicely, she's going to become your sister-in-law."

"Shut up."

"Well, you'll be surprised when we finally become official."

I didn't say anything to him. I just focused on looking at the pictures on the TV. They were the pictures I took the other day at the beach and when I got to the pictures of that little girl, the one that walked up to me to kiss me on both cheeks, I felt my lips stretch into a smile at the remembrance. Thinking about it and looking at her pictures with her elder sister and slightly older women that looked slightly older than them now, they all reminded me of someone but I still couldn't remember exactly who.

"I know this cute little girl," Alfred said, his eyes intent on the beaming girl that was pouring sand into her sister's hair.

"Really? Where?"

"Cakes and Creams," He replied, "She must have come to Cakes and Creams once or twice since I started working there."

"And how would you remember her if she had come just twice?"