Get back to writing again

 It’s 6 o clock on a Saturday. The regular crowd shuffles in. 

Existential Aunty ascends her throne and looks around. She notices a new one, a smart little dashing fellow in a beret, he looks eager and full of beans.

“Err, are those coffee beans?”, asks Sr VP, Substances and Spirits.

E Aunty gives him a glare and he transmogrifies into a ‘Keep Calm and Have Coffee’ poster.

“That cheeky b*st*rd”, thinks E Aunty to herself before turning her attention to the beret donning newbie. 

“Hello, and who might you be?”, she asks in her best impersonation of someone who is interested in the answer. 

The newbie looks like he is about to explode with joy at having been summoned, by the old matriarch herself, and pipes up in a voice that carries as far as his big toe. 

Which is not very far at all.

“Umm, are you on mute?”, says a sleepy looking Octopus in a t-shirt that says ‘Humor, Me’. 

“Whaaa? Aren’t you on sabbatical”, E Aunty looks at the Octopus in some surprise but is only met with some not-so-gentle snoring. She shakes her head and writes ‘Do not renew contract’ in her daily planner. 

“You, Mr Beret, speak louder please. We don’t have all day.”

Newbie clears his throat, looks around nervously and this time, louder, “It is the will of the people that we must start again.” 

“Start what again, you mysterious but well-dressed stranger?”, E Aunty can’t help but admire the trendy charcoal vest he has on. She sighs and thinks back to the days she used to have trendy things, and the will to care.

He seems to have anticipated this question, and reaching into the very same vest, produces a scroll. “This is a change.org petition, and as you can see it has been signed by all of us.”. His voice seems to have gotten stronger.

“Yes yes, ok. But what does it say?”, says E Aunty, and as an after-thought, “And who are you?”, and as an after-afterthought, “And for that matter, who are any of us?”

The man is undeterred by these diversions. Over the course of this interchange, he seems to have grown in size, in height and girth, almost rivaling that of E Aunty herself. 

“I am inspiration. Imagination. Art. Beauty. I am that which artists and painters have..”

“Oye hello, short mein batao”, growls E Aunty, who is now starting to get a headache. 

He looks sullen but complies. “Okay, in short, we must start writing again.”

E Aunty considers this. “Hmm, and what do you think we are doing right now?”.