“It’s been forty minutes,” Elizabeth was checking time on her 15K watch. “And there’s no sign of him or anyone for that matter.”“Yeah, this is very strange…” Dorothy was growing nervous. She looked at her husband, but Nolan was snoring loudly. He had drunk so much during the party, and now, he was down and out. Even if a thunderbolt were to crash right next to the jet plane, he might not wake up right now.Lisa and Roshan were playing a game on playstation.Selena was checking her mobile for a signal, but there was no signal. “Let’s say we wait for twenty more minutes, and he doesn’t return. Then what?” she asked a question.“Then we’ll grab whatever sharp objects we can,” Jacob said, “and get out together. As long as we fight together, we can chase even the wolves.”“I wish we at least had a gun,” Shawn said. “It was foolish to come so far without a gun. This place is built on a mountain, so no one can hear us even if we shout. Going down the mountain is also too risky. We have to f
“My legs are still killing from standing during the party,” Dorothy kept repeating the same words for the past five minutes, since the jet started flying.“Hey, you,” Elizabeth looked at Benjamin. “Can you not hear my mom’s pain?”“Yeah, her legs are hurting. I can hear that,” Benjamin said. “What can I do about it, though?”“You should massage her legs,” Elizabeth said with entitlement. “She’s old and doesn’t have enough strength in her fingers, so you should help her.”“Sorry, but can’t you do that since she’s your mother?” Benjamin asked what he thought was a valid question.“I’m not good at it,” Elizabeth blurted. “You work at a pizza-shop, right? So, you must have the experience of squeezing dough. Just do the same but with more softness and less intensity.”“Can’t you tell your kids to do the same?” Rebecca asked Elizabeth, clearly not liking how her sister-in-law was trying to make a slave out of Benjamin and also shame Rebecca at the same time. “If you are going to say that th
Dorothy made Benjamin massage her feet and legs twelve different times, which totaled more than an hour. But on the thirteenth attempt, Rebecca intervened and said, “Enough. He has to make pizzas with those hands. Do you want them to smell like your feet?” she was visibly enraged by the fact that Dorothy dared to use her husband like a slave for so long.If Rebecca hadn’t fallen asleep, she wouldn’t have let Dorothy treat Benjamin like this. Once or twice was fine, but thirteen times during the journey itself? This was ridiculous in her eyes. She understood that Dorothy was not just doing this on purpose but probably also had some very ill intentions behind it.Dorothy did not dare to talk back to Rebecca as that would force her to leave the villa with her husband sooner than they would be willing to.So, Dorothy didn’t ask for Benjamin’s services after that.Eventually, they reached the villa in Selena’s vanity van. Everybody happily entered the house, feeling like there was no bette
A few minutes later.Benjamin was on the rooftop, sitting alone on a swinging chair, plucking leaves off a stem. He remembered Rebecca’s words: We’re going to have kids not when you want but when we want.“She’s right, but… if we have kids, it’ll be easier for me to introduce her to my people,” Benjamin thought. “They’ll just accept our marriage without any complications. Otherwise, there will be unnecessary events happening.”Just then, a parrot fell on the rooftop. It seemed to have suffered an injury to one of its wings.Benjamin noticed it but didn’t move and just observed. Another parrot came and stayed with the fallen parrot and tried to help it fly in all ways possible.Touched by their efforts, Benjamin got up. As he got closer, the male parrot screamed and flapped its wings as it tried to defend its lady.Benjamin stopped and said, “She needs some treatment. I can’t do anything if you don’t let me get closer.”The parrot still kept screaming, vocalizing in many different tone
Since Rebecca told him that they were going to watch a movie at a theater, Benjamin waited eagerly for the evening to come.He had already booked two tickets for a movie, and then began to do all kinds of housework as he waited for the sun to go away.In the afternoon, only Lisa and Roshan came for lunch. They insulted Devon when he put food on their plates without asking them first. They also looked at Benjamin and told him to mind his business.He let go of their actions, thinking they were probably in a bad mood, even though they were both busy texting on mobiles while eating.After they finished eating and left the table, Devon began to clean those two spots.Benjamin could see that Devon was hurt, but Devon was good at controlling his emotions. He didn’t feel like he should say anything as it might embarrass the old man.Just then, someone entered the hall and said, “Are you Benjamin?”“Mm?” Benjamin looked at this man who was wearing vintage clothes, and a lizard was sitting on
As Rebecca was driving in the car, Benjamin was looking out through the window and observing the reality of the world. He could see all colors of life from lovers holding their hands to beggars sleeping on the footpaths.Some were living in happiness, but some were breathing in pain.Some were living in the box, and some were living outside.Some people were overexerting themselves and invited pain into their bodies, whereas some couldn’t work properly because of the pain already playing with their minds and bodies.Watching this wasn’t pleasant to his eyes. If watching life in motion itself was painful, then how much more painful should life itself be?And Benjamin believed that love was the only medicine for the type of pain he was having right now.Why was he feeling the pain?There wasn’t any ground-breaking reason, except that Rebecca didn’t let him sit beside her. He felt like he was being treated like a distant person to her, which was something very hard to digest. It would ha
Did Benjamin just break the coconut by bashing it against his knuckles?The crowd went speechless because what he just did was totally beyond their expectations. Even the event manager took ten seconds to recover and then said, “Y-You broke it. Congratulations.”“What?” some of the crowd immediately raised their voices. “How can he break it so easily? It must have been a defective piece!”“Yeah! Are you trying to fool us?”“He must be your set-up, right?”“You planned all this so that you didn’t have to give any of us the gift you prepared!”“What a scam!”As the people ran their mouths, the event manager quickly said, “I don’t know these two. It’s my first time seeing them.” He looked at Benjamin. “Sorry, Mister, but can you break another coconut and show them that you didn’t do it by luck?”“No problem,” Benjamin said and walked to the heap of coconuts put on the stage. He picked one into each of his hands and smashed them together, breaking them in one attempt. The sound it made as
“That was a good movie, wasn’t it?” Benjamin was excitedly talking with Rebecca as they were leaving the theater.“The twist in the end was good. I didn’t think that the protagonist’s brother was the real enemy,” Rebecca said. “He was always accusing others of what he himself was actually doing all the time. He deserved to go to prison for the rest of his life.”“I agree,” Benjamin nodded. “Shall we go to a restaurant? I’ll pay the bill.”Rebecca raised her eyebrows as she looked at him. “You want to pay for me? That’s not happening.”“What’s the big deal?”“I don’t let anyone pay for me,” she retorted. “There’s no need to discuss it anymore.”“Then, why did you let me buy the movie tickets with my money?” Benjamin asked.“It’s just a few bucks. That doesn’t even cover the gasoline that brought us to the theater,” she said, “but you’re right. I’ll give you that money back after we go home. Don’t forget to remind me.”“You don’t have to pay me for the tickets.”“No, I will.”They went