Marmalade Sunset

Chapter 13

It was an April night when Glenn's world changed yet again.

It was also, coincidentally, his birthday; a day which he usually didn't celebrate by any stretch.

He added another number to his name, so what?

Al invited him to have dinner at the house and he agreed since he had nothing else to do (as usual). Glenn figured that Robby must've told her the occasion was coming up.

The dinner was pleasantly unchanged from the other times he came to eat; some fish from the market, fresh vegetables, and some sort of cocktail that was passed to him. Glenn gave it a whiff and smelled vodka which made it clear that Robby was the mastermind behind the concoction. For some reason, Robby always liked the taste of vodka. The four toasted to their glasses and after their plates were cleaned off, Al brought out a fruit cake the size of a party plate and as tall as a history textbook. It was an impressive achievement, he had to admit. Robby turned off the lights, brought out an old ukulele Glenn was sure he had gotten rid of ages ago, and strum the tune to begin a birthday song. Even the toddler joined in with her little giggles.

After the song was finished, Al turned to the cake with a large knife. There was a generous coating of cream, some candied cherries to flare up the looks, and inside, there were strawberries, melons, mangoes and passionfruit. The sight, the smell, the emotions that surged up within him at that point was hard to describe, but it was definitely a positive uptake. Glenn gobbled up his slice.

"It's wonderful." He would say with rosy cheeks.

Al had worn her tight fitting sweater and her olive cargo pants.

She scooped another piece of cake into her mouth and smiled like that was all she needed to hear.

Once they became full of cake, Glenn and Al took care of cleaning up. Robby went out to walk off the heavy dinner, and his wife went to put the toddler to bed. Before she disappeared into her room, she gave Al a cheeky grin.

Al blushed, waved her off, and finished washing the final dish. Glenn stowed it into the cabinet without a clue as to what may happen next.

She led him into her room which had transformed very little in her stay. What once began as a bed, dresser, and table, had become all that and a chair that she had built by herself for a needed addition.

Glenn sat down on the foot of the bed, watching as Al fumbled with the door. She'd close it, turn the knob, open it again, and then close it like she wasn't sure if the door had actually shut.

But eventually, the door became less of a worry and she sank back into her chair with relaxed shoulders.

"Say, Glenn?"

"Yeah?"
"Do you have any dreams that you want to share?"

Glenn mulled it over. To be truthful, he could say the black room was a dream in technical terms, but for the sake of boredom he decided not to say a word.

"I dreamed of a land where the skin of an apple looked like an orange and vice versa. People thought I was crazy for saying that they were eating an apple, when they were actually eating an orange, and they would chase me around until they got ahold of my collar and nailed me to a spinning wheel like an old medieval torture method." Glenn lied, but he responded truthfully. "Really, nothing interesting happened. It's mainly just my brain replaying the day."

She pouted her lips lightly.

"I believe you for the most part. Dreams can be anything really, crazy ones, boring ones, or maybe it's just your brain flushing out old memories, or in your case, just the day. Still, a world where apples looked like oranges and oranges to apples. That sounds pretty fun."