Chapter 6

          Upon walking into Gula, one thing I immediately noticed was the magnificent smell throughout the city. I couldn’t pinpoint what it really smelled like, it was just like one of those moments where I wanted to just close my eyes and take it all in. After hearing those ladies talk about food so much, I was getting kind of hungry. I walked past the name and job table again towards the closest restaurant. There was no line to order food so I immediately went to the front. A lady greeted me at the register.

          “Hello sir, you are new here aren’t you?

          “Yeah, how did you know?”

          “Just the way you hesitated when you walked in,” she said. “Most people want their food immediately.” I looked around for a menu and there wasn’t one to be found.

          “Where is your menu at?” I asked as I kept looking around.

          “Oh, I’m sorry; we have you scan for your meal.”

          “What?” I got so confused from such a random statement.

          “Yeah, we have scanners that take your cravings and favorite foods from your thoughts.” My mouth dropped. That sounded awesome because by this time I was craving some steak “The scanner goes on your head for five seconds like a baseball cap.”

          “Alright, sweet, let’s do this!” she then gave me one of the caps and I placed it on my head. It immediately started scanning. Sure enough, it said that I wanted steak and potatoes!

          “That will be ten Coin please,” the lady said, “All of our dishes are all you can eat and ten Coin.”

          “Thank you very much,” I said handing over ten Coin. Now I had run out of the first bag of Coin and only had fifteen left from the older man. I sat down and started eating the steak. It was pretty much the best steak ever; but I guess having amnesia blocked my memory of what it used to taste like so who knows. Nonetheless, it was wonderful and juicy, cooked to perfection. After I finished, I was still slightly hungry and since it was all you can eat, I went back up for seconds. The quality of the steak was just as superb as the first. Then I was about to leave and the lady at the register yelled for my attention.

          “Sir, there is free dessert!” By this time I was way full, but something about free food just got me. I ate a whole batch of cookies! After eating everything, I was completely bloated. It was definitely one of those moments that I regretted in eating so much.

          I decided to head out of the restaurant and walk down the street. I noticed that the people here didn’t worry about having a specific look. It was a lot more diverse. There were some more people on the street just like at Luxuria-Fornicatio that were on their soapboxes.

          “You are your own purpose, so make the most of it,” the man said. “Satisfaction is found in the fulfillment of your heart’s desire. Seek and you will find everything within yourself.” Yet again another nice speech. I wasn’t so settled in it even though the basics of it sounded pretty sweet. After the man had finished, I began walking down the street again. Then I saw a mall up ahead. I was pretty sure that there had to be some better clothes because the diverse style of apparel. As soon as I walked in, I saw so many stores that it would have taken me three days to visit all of them if I went to each store for twenty minutes, of course that was something I wasn’t interested in doing so I just went to one of the stores next to the entrance. The majority of the clothes were bundled in deals: Three t-shirts for five Coin and two pairs of jeans for ten Coin. The thing I didn’t like was that individual things cost almost the same as bulk. I decided to go ahead and get both deals. I needed some other clothes for sure; I was getting tired of wearing the same overalls all the time. After exiting the store I realized that I had used all my Coin that I had received. I may actually have to start earning Coin. I think that was one of the first moments on this island that I was legitimately worried. It kind of made me wonder why I was so at peace at first.

          It was starting to get dark now, and I hadn’t received any more Coin.
Then I remembered the first thing I saw at both cities; the name and job table. When I arrived, I was greeted with a smile from a well dressed lady, “Can I help you, sir?”

          “Yes,” I answered. “I don’t have any Coin left and I guess I need a job.”

          “You guess?!” she said as if I was unsure of myself. That was pretty good discernment on her part because I was unsure. “How about you know.” Then  she paused for a moment and looked straight into my eyes, which I’m not going to lie, I felt pretty awkward. “I guess I can host you for some work.”

          “You guess?” I said softly. No doubt I realized that I was flirting with this woman, “How about you know!”

          “Oh shut up, but for real, are you interested?”

“Well, it depends.” I said. I didn’t want to venture into another weird situation with a girl. No matter if I thought she was good looking or not. “What will you need done?”

          “I need a babysitter for the weekend. My husband is on a business trip and I’m going to be out and about most of the time. I’ll pay you ten Coin an hour.”

          “Alright great, I’ll do it.” I’m glad to hear that she was married because that would relieve some worries. Also, ten Coin an hour would really help me out, especially getting paid for the whole weekend.

          “By the way, I’m Sarah. I just got off work; follow me.” She gestured as we both started to walk. As we were walking she asked me, “What’s your name? Tell me a little about yourself.”

          “I don’t have a name yet, I feel like I’ll figure it out someday.”

          “You mean your real name?” she said quite seriously. “I’m sorry to say you probably won’t ever find out.”

          “We’ll see,” I said, still hanging on to the idea of figuring everything out. I went ahead and told her about everything I went through since I was conscious.

          “Oh, the same happened to me.” She said real plainly, “At least the unconscious thing.” It seemed to me that was real fake, but who am I to know her character, she is offering me a simple job for what I feel like is good pay. By this time, we had made it to her house because we were in the alley like streets and she started to head towards a door. When she opened the door, I was greeted by the two most chubby kids I have ever seen. “This is Charlie and Jane,” she said. Charlie looked about ten and Jane was around five or six. I was shocked that the kids didn’t resemble the mom in shape. It must have been all of the eating that is offered in Gula or something. “All you need to know is that you can have whatever you like, and keeping the kids happy will benefit you.” Sarah said as she walked out the door.

          “So kids, what do you want to do?” I offered.

          “I’m hungry.” said Charlie. I should have seen that coming.

          “Alright, let’s get you some food.” I opened the refrigerator and it was filled to the brim with all kinds of meals. Charlie seemed to know what he wanted because he grabbed a chicken nugget meal as soon as I opened the fridge. Then Jane and I grabbed our meals as well and headed to the living room where we all ate.

          Before I knew it, the weekend was flying by. It wasn’t too hard to take care of the kids. Jane would occasionally have a fit if she didn’t get what she wanted.
She was already so chubby that I didn’t worry about letting them eat too much. Sarah had also come in each night partially drunk, but sober enough to pay me. The last night was a big shift from the other though. Sarah came in completely wasted. She was rambling as well as being all up in my personal space.

          “You wanna have sex?” She asked very bluntly.

          “No, why are you saying this out of nowhere?” I asked, though I knew that it was because she was drunk.

          “I’d get a raise if I did it.”

          “What? That doesn’t even make sense.” I asked very suspiciously.

          “Well,” she said, “You are.” Then she passed out. So much for that making any sense.

          When morning came around, I started gathering my bag and coin that I had received and Sarah walked in the room.

          “Did you enjoy last night?”

          “What do you mean?” I asked.

          “Well, you know…the sex.”

          “Oh, we didn’t do that.” I said.

          “What? Ah, dang it! That is going to be bad. Well, go on, get out of here.” She said so quickly.

          “Alright…?” I said hesitantly. “Is everything okay?”

          “No, you just will get me in trouble if they know that I had the chance. You just need to leave.” She said as she was shoving me out the door. That left me with a lot of questions as I stood at the front door. Who are “they?” Why would she get a raise for seducing me? Gula was really scaring me at this point. Being kicked out of a home very randomly wasn’t what I expected, but it gave me a motivation to leave Gula. It was not long before I had made it to Gula’s North Gate and made it on a bus headed to Acedia.

i will post the next chapter on march 27th