Reverie

0. First and Foremost, I Serve Some Workaholics in a Day

"GLAD TO HAVE you here! You can have any dream you want! Reverie on service, what can I help?"

This was a very busy day, or night. Or day. Whatever.

"I am a writer and I need a nourishing inspiration that equals a groundbreaking experience." The lady in raggy green-brown dress, standing in front of my desk, grinned at me. The tartar on her teeth set forth as she widened her lips up to her cheeks. A fish bone was nesting in her middle teeth gap.

Damn, that's a bit surprising.

"Understood. I have many collections ranged from dragon fighting series, fairy series, detective, doctor, rebellious princess—which one fancies your taste?" I smiled. Her wizened face wrinkled on the brow—she tapped her chin with her index finger and her eyes were fixed on my sky-like ceiling. She made an expression as if she's truly considering the offer. Then, she proceeded to scratch her scalp with all her fingers in her right hand, then looking down to the desk before me.

"Do you have, um, maybe, the, uh," she flicked her fingers repeatedly and squeezing her eyeballs in her eyelids. "Ah! It can be anything! I'll take anything for sure! Inspiration is not planned! Inspiration is found and build! Inspiration ...." She started to wander in my room. "Fairies, ladybugs—" she leaped and made happy jumps across the room. Her hands were fluttering about. She began to hum a lullaby that sounded a bit off tone and eerie.

I reached to my telephone at the corner of my desk, still looking at her. "Reverie on the call. I have a guest; she is Lunaire Poppin. A forty-five years old lady, writer, and fainting due to the heavy work schedule. She's in the Not-Yet-Deep condition while also having Yap-and-Flap at my front desk. I'll need two Arrieres to guard her back to the Reality Station in five minutes." Lunaire was still humming the lullaby and dancing in circles with her imaginary partner. I pierced to the I-Wish-Disk in her hand which was supposedly given to me earlier. I sighed. I-Wish-Disk was a plain black round plate with shimmery blue tint on the edge. It was supposedly carried so carefully—but look at this person! Writers were really something—the customers with abnormal orders. I still held the telephone in my hand. It only took me a split second before I put it back on a call. "She has a deadline after her. Make it in one minute."

"Dilly-dilly butter and peach, cake and frog and fish and chick! I pick cake and butter and peach! La da di da butter and peach—no, no, please!" Two Arrieres—Headless Dream Guardians—came nearing Lunaire and locked her up on her neck, strangling her in moonflower vines. In only five seconds, the vines grew to all of her body and now she had been wrapped in there like a cocoon.

I nodded to the Arrieres. "Thanks. What a help."

The Arrieres carried Lunaire out from my shop. The bulky cocoon of the writer hit the signpost hung on the door. The sign Reverie's was swinging back and forth. It made a lingering sound of the creaking rusted irons chain which stringed it to the fitting wood. With a simple clap of the door shutting, this shop felt normal again.

I put back the phone to my desk, only to rethought whether I should make another call for my heart attack. The door swung open again. It's a lady again in her office attire from head to toe. She was panting and leaning her weight to her knees with her hands support—her left hand was free while the right one held a I-Wish-Disk so tightly. Her feet were bare; no shoes. Her blouse was crinkled and she didn't do her button right. Her hair was dishevelled and a strand of hair flung over her head awkwardly. Her make-up rather looked making-down her entire look: smudged lip-tint, melting mascara, and please, don't make me mention her blush. She's all red and also stinky like a fish even from this far.

Really? Another workaholic fellow?

"Glad to have you here! You can have any dream you want! Reverie on service, what can I help?" I smiled to my heart content, or so did I believe it to be. The lady with messy office attire finally stopped panting and walked nearing my desk teetering.