fish you have no ambition




High above the stage, his shoelaces whip into his bare ankles. He swings his legs, feeling the catwalk sway oh-so-slightly beneath him, enjoying that mild feeling of thrill. Far below him there is movement, the stage crew running back and forth with props – shiny oak end tables donned with clean doilies, overstuffed velvet armchairs with braided gold lining, dark persian rugs with rows of tassels at opposing ends – being placed in a scene on the wooden planks. He watches them down between his knees with a fascination that has yet to fade over the few years he’s been here, allowed to watch his father’s work.

He also sees his father down below, in the front row of the blood-red theater seats with a stack of paper in his lap, edges dog eared, pages worn thin from many scribbles of corrections. His hair is starting to silver in old age, thinning at his brow and the crown of his head. The boy high on the catwalk doesn’t remember a time when he saw father’s hair its natural black, having only spent a short time on this earth so far. His father catches his eye with a smile and twinkles his fingers at him in a discreet wave, causing the boy to wave enthusiastically back, the catwalk swinging. A frightened look passes over his father’s face at this, but he calms when he sees that his son is in no danger, then turns his eyes back to the action on the stage.

The boy does the same, listening to the actors’ loud voices ring through the empty auditorium, confident and strong. He counts four different voices so far, three women and a man. It sounds like they’re nearly yelling, the boy thinks, but then he remembers that his father told him once that the actors have to speak that loudly because to the audience, it sounds like they’re simply speaking. He likes that concept, that things sound different to different people, all depending on where you are. His father, the big-shot director with his horn-rimmed glasses, has always praised the importance of distance and placement of the actors; knowing how sound travels and where it will echo and bounce back. He says a decent performance can sound like a bag of cats if the echo is wrong.

His son smiles and looks down at his father as he raises his wrinkled hand above his head with his palm up to the ceiling, indicating louder voices, and he thinks, There is so much that I can learn.


xxx

She rubs dried flour from the inside of her left nostril and her mother tells her to stop picking her nose. She scowls up at her, this woman barely a foot taller than her even with their ages so many decades apart, and for just a moment she thinks, Quiet, you. But she’s a good girl and realizes that’s mean, so she apologizes and nods, scampering off to the front counter at the sound of the bell.

Slipping her hand along the spotless glass of the display case, she makes her way to the smooth surface of the particle board counter. A tall man wearing a bright shirt stands just behind the counter, his thick hands touching the base of a cellophane-wrapped gift basket. Cookies and chocolates are piled high in the wicker basket secured with a bow, and the small girl at the till remembers having decorated those very cookies. Giving him a bright smile, she asks him if he’d like anything else, and when he replies ‘no,’ she rings up the price of the basket on the cash register. Her shiny black shoes are firmly planted atop a little stool behind the counter so she can reach.

The man leaves with his gift basket and the girl’s mother appears from the back room, door swinging behind her. The bright afternoon sun streams in through the wide window at the front of the shop, the painted “E” in the bakery’s name casting a shadow on her chest and arms. She wipes her hands clean on her apron and asks how that went, and her daughter replies with only positive words, tinged with another barely-held-back sarcastic comment.

The girl steps down from the step-stool and walks over to the display case, looking through the glass at the rows of cakes and pies and pastries and loafs that she and her mother have made together, all fresh. The tip of her nose smudges against the glass and her mother taps her shoulder, a wordless reminder telling her to stop that. She glares up at her once more but decides not to linger, petting her hair down, looking back at the cakes.

Her mother drifts back into the kitchen and for a moment, the room is quiet. The little girl continues looking at the desserts in front of her, keeping a respectable distance from the sliding glass door. Each one so carefully decorated, each layer and flake of crust and curl of icing precise, just where it should be. Her mother preaches to her daily about ‘quality over quantity,’ about how that’s what customers are here for. They would rather wait a bit for a cake than have one with icing that will slough off the minute they bring it home.

Patience, her mother says. Patience and quality are the two keys to a good cake and a good life. You rush things and you do a sloppy job, which means a dissatisfied customer. You take those extra few minutes and be careful, and you get a customer that returns, pleased. It’s all in the details, she says. The girl looks at the careful swirls of whipped cream icing on a black forest cake, at the cherries placed on top and at the flakes of chocolate so evenly sprinkled, and she thinks, There is so much that I can learn.


xxx

He reaches up and brushes the peanut shells from the counter top into the garbage can below. His mother crunches another peanut open and places the empty shell onto the counter before offering him one. He smiles and nods, taking one out of the bag and breaking it open. His bright brown eyes survey the room in front of him, the few scattered people with laundry baskets, sorting colors from whites. He’s used to this, this room with its people coming and going throughout the day.

This quaint laundromat in the heart of the city used to belong to his grandfather until he got too ancient to run it, so now the boy and his family does, living above it. It’s a nice enough place – colorful tiled floors, thins pipes exposed and running the length of the ceiling above, rows of shiny washers and dryers – and gets its fair share of customers. Often times he and his mother spend the day sitting behind their little counter in the back, keeping an eye on things, exchanging coins, selling little boxes of detergent to those who need it. His mother is a kind woman, wispy and thin as he is, though much taller; the top of his head barely reaches her waist. She enjoys peanuts and puppies and keeping her house and business nice and neat, which she does well.

She hoists her son into her lap then goes to the silver money box sitting in front of her, exchanging a five dollar bill into coins for a lady. The boy on her knees watches her count out loonies and quarters and slide them across the surface to the waiting woman and he tries to count how much she’s getting back, but he can’t count quite that high yet. He watches his mother smile happily and engage in a short, cheery conversation with the woman now holding a handful of change.

He remembers what his mother has said in the past, watching her be so chummy with this stranger of a laundromat patron. She always says: “Kindness makes the world go round. Why do you think people come to our little laundry hub?” she often asks him, ruffling his hair. “Not because ours is better than anyone else's -” His mother is a very modest woman. “- but because we’re kind.”

For a while, the boy did not understand this. What if another laundromat had better machines? Ones that got your laundry cleaner? Shouldn’t people go there instead? His mother had said no. “If we form bonds with our customers, and they like who we are and how we do business, they’ll make an effort to come here instead.” She had yet to convince her son of this who, even in his young age, was very logical. What if other laundromats were cleaner, or offered better detergent, or charged less to use the machines? “They’d rather give their change to us rather than bigger businesses because we’re kind.”

Was kindness that important?, the boy thought. Did it really make a difference? Sometimes he stopped and wrinkled his nose and thought, I have so much to learn.



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