✔️The single housewife (Completed)

The Colourful river

ERA's POV

"Wow, I can't believe that you don't want to put hot chocolate stands over near the venue!" said Nisha as she assisted me in putting up the stalls.

"Because I don't want to repeat the same mistake as the people in the outside world do." I smiled as we finished setting up a small stall of hot chocolate.

If you wonder what we were doing at 9:00 pm amid the city borders, let me tell you what we were doing at midnight. People were supposed to reach the event by 3:00 am at night. Amid the route, as they would reach the border, they should find a lovely little stall, fully lit by colorful bulbs, providing the guests with hot chocolate. Of course, we had decided to charge them nominally, to recover the expenditure of the event. The Council was generous, but it was my idea to recover the spending from planning a grand event in the upcoming month so the Council won't feel stretched. The stalls had a dustbin nearby so that the place and the scenic venue wouldn't be polluted.

Loads of things were happening for the first time. It was the first time when an event was held outside the town, amid the lap of nature. It was the first time when an event would be covered by our publishing team live. Usually, we would write the stories only after the event would end. But this time, I wanted to write the things straight-up because there were no televisions in the city and people relied on newspapers for every bit of information. That was the reason why I had instructed Vivek and his team to choose a strategic place for placing their cameras. I wanted the issue to be on the colourful front page.

I sat behind Nisha's cycle as we headed towards the majestic venue. We reached Mount Cerulean. I agree it was tough to find the route, not to mention that the roads had been a bit slippery. That was why we had placed neon signboards, showing the direction to the cyclists as their cycles would flash their lights on the way. (I got the idea when I realised that their bikes were equipped with powerful lights).

We had requested the medical team of the Cerulean Hospital to come there with their emergency kits. You know, just in case.

So Nisha stopped our vehicle in front of the majestic frozen river, its perimeter lit up by the lights.

"Hey!" I saw Vivek waving me from far away as he witnessed my arrival.

I saw the volunteers placing chairs for the guests at one side of the lake. One of the places has a considerable board stating the instructions. Neel and Mihir were busy setting up my music system while I connected my phone with the aux cable to get it started. The system boomed with a loud voice, and almost everyone present there cheered up.

"Vivek! I want you to go up, preferably on one of the close mountains and set up the camera. The view from the top would be breathtaking!" I suggested. He smiled and assured me that he would hike up to some elevation and get pictures from there.

As everything was set, I took the microphone and requested the 20-something volunteers and my intern team to grab their metallic paints and partially colour the ice skates of the townspeople.

"Hey, what's going on?" Said Aisha as she came early. She was amused seeing us sitting on the bench and painting the shoes.

"Hey! Join the party!" I said as I asked her to sit on one of the benches and handed over the ice skates and a brush.

"Sorry, it's a part of the protocol by the Council to visit the venue in advance and sometimes help the volunteers." She grinned.

"You guys still don't trust us?" I laughed. It was hilarious that the Council would think that my ideas could ruin the event.

"You have my unconditional trust." She smiled after checking off all the points in her pocketbook. She put it inside her pocket and joined my team.

It was fun because the music was still on, and everyone was humming to a now-familiar tune. I looked up to the nearest mountain and found a light at some height. It was probably Vivek, positioned above like an armed sniper, ready to click pictures at any given opportunity.

"How did you manage to get the skates of all the townspeople?" Asked Aisha.

"We had asked every townsperson to scribble their names on their skates with a permanent marker. They deposited their skates in our office." Said Neel as he coloured the other skate with glowing red while I coloured its pair with red.

"I repeat, we are not required to paint the whole skate, just paint laces!" I announced and met with many thumbs-ups. The other volunteers organised the painted skates in alphabetical order so that the guests could collect them quickly as soon as they arrived.

By 2:30, almost all the laces were painted with a glowing colour of either red, green or purple colour. A few volunteers continued to colour the remaining laces and place them on the shelf. The signboard stating "Rules" was already set up close to the river.

"Ready, people?" Neel shouted

We all shouted a big yes and waited for the guests to have the best time of their lives.