RIDDLE OF THE CHAPTER: What has no beginning, end, or middle?
Riaaz comes to the table a little later, with no trace of the cigarette. I smirk as he sits down next to Yasmin and almost choke, on my egg flavored mince and orange juice flavored coffee, when she tells him how nice he smells. Riaaz grins like a little boy and looks at me with a look that clearly says, "Go ahead, tell her. I dare you."
He turns to Yasmin and the two of them sit and talk about something, lost in their own world.
I have just about decided that I absolutely hate him when Hanzala puts something in my mouth. I don't even have time to react before an explosion of deliciousness erupts on my tongue. I don't even get the chance to say anything as the only thing I can concentrate on is this wonderful flavor party that my taste buds are enjoying. Coffee, ice-cream, chocolate cake, cream donuts, toasted sandwiches of all tastes and the most delicious taste of something I've never tasted before. I don't want it to stop but the second it goes down my throat, the taste vanishes.
"Oh my Allah! That was delicious!" I exclaim excitedly to Hanzala. "What was it?" He smiles and takes something out of his pocket. It looks gross. I won't go into the details but it aint pretty.
"Chopsicky, it looks horrible but I've never tasted anything as nice. Each one has a different taste." I frown down at the thing in his hand, finding it hard to believe that it could ever taste nice. "Go ahead," Hanzala says. "Try it, promise you won't regret it." He smiles a really genuine smile and I gulp. I take the chopsicky from him. I can't look at it, it's too horrible, so I shut my my eyes and fast as lightning, I push the chopsicky in my mouth.
He's right, no regrets. Again my taste buds explode into a delicious frenzy of wonderful taste, strawberries, pancakes, iced tea, waffles, cream and again the most delicious taste of something I've never tasted before. And again, it vanishes as soon as it goes down my throat.
"You know something," I say looking at Hanzala and his goofy smile, "I think I'm starting to like you." I swear his smile brightens 3 times.
Later on, after "lunch", Hanzala asks if I'd like to go for a walk outside. I readily agree as I'm very close to barfing over another one of Yasmin's and Riaz's PDA's of "No, you're cuter", "No, you are". The plates fly off the tables as soon as we're finished and Hanzala and I walk to the taps that I didn't see on the other side of the lunch room, wash our hands then walk hand in hand out through the doors into the cool night.
We walk in silence, simply enjoying each other's company, it's a cool night and I feel the most relaxed I've been since I arrived.
"So," I say, breaking the silence. "Is this a good time to ask questions?"
Hanzala smiles down at me, in a cliche moment, I feel my insides melt.
"Sure," he says, "Although I can't promise I'll know the answers."
"Ok," I say, thinking, "What is this place?"
"Alright," Hanzala says, as we sit down on a neatly trimmed floating grass patch. "I don't really know exactly WHERE this place is but, what I do know is that this "place" is called Caymagooglu.
"Cama... What?"
"Cayma... googlu." Hanzala says spelling it out. "It's a combination of two things, Cayma is the native species that we don't interact with or associate with. They're wild, and violent, they smell and they look like socks, the British morning kind, trust me it's not pretty."
I nod, trying to suppress this odd image I've received, while still feeling a bit scared at these strange creatures.
"Googlu," Hanzala continues, "Is our name for the 3 paths where we found you, no-one knows how on earth it even exists, but then again we hardly know why anything in this place really exists."
"Ok," I say, "Cayma... googlu, right?" (Hanzala nods) "But, you're not answering my question, WHY are we here, why does a place like this exist? Call me crazy, but I'm used to a world where water doesn't appear out of thin air, and food doesn't fly to your table and grasspatches don't hang in the air!"
He's about to answer me when someone comes out of a building in front of us, he's really skinny, but he's walking like he has all the muscle in the world and the Queen just knighted him.
"Hey good-looking," he says winking at me. "damn... If you were a fruit, you'd be a Fineapple."
Hanzala bursts out laughing next to me. "Sorry," he says in between fits of laughter, "I forgot it was Testosterone hour."
Whaaat????
ANSWER: A doughnut!
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