AAFM - M.I.Noodles: Un Homme Fatale by Alicia

M.I.Noodles: Un Homme Fatale

I am a woman, on a mission.

The registers blinked chirpily. Blocky green digits scrolled across the small screen. Slim white lights lined the bleached plastic ceiling. A sharp crisp beam of albicant fell across the store from the sparkling open refrigerator, shelves and shelves of bottles echoing a muffled shade of their contents. Amy readjusted the worn strap of her handbag, running a thumb along the rough tongue, smoothing it along her shoulder. She stepped past the crates of dull green watermelon, swollen from the heat and their own boastful demeanours as they lay in the brown boxes, begging to be bought. Small cardboard placards appeared from shelves. As Amy stepped further into the packed grocery store, sidling past the two old men bickering in the doorway, more signs jumped up at her like signalling, alert meerkats. Strange black squiggles adorned each one, wrapped around a set of bandied seductive digits often ending in 99.

‘Young lady, have a look at this corn. It’s unbelievably sweet and fresh, we get it from the best possible produce.’ She smiled and walked past the shopkeeper who seized the older woman behind her to persuade.

Another man came hurtling from the spice aisle, patting his worked hands on the black apron tied haphazardly around his hips. Amy opened her mouth to apologise for being in the way, a barely audible little breath squeezed out of her lungs as she spoke. The man yabbered quickly at her in some language, little crinkles appearing between his eyebrows and a clearly spoken frown, before dashing to the back of the store.

‘Okay. Noodles.’ I’m here for the noodles, and then I can leave.

That was her Mission Objective; retrieve noodles, run to Phoebe’s and give her the noodles. It was not a difficult task, even faced with the insurmountable task of wandering into an entirely foreign culture.

‘Sorry.’ Amy squirmed as an older woman pushed around her.

***

Ten minutes later, as she zigzagged her way through every aisle, Amy discovered the six foot shelf of instant noodles. There were a lot, a lot a lot. So many different types of noodles!

For a moment, Amy simply stood, awed at the massive collection of noodles. Noodles everywhere! As her jaw hung open to the floor, a gaggle of three girls around her age of sixteen slid gracefully with well-practiced manoeuvres, past the crowds of people rushing in and out of the front entrance like a midnight tide embracing the bright daylight.

Outside, the busy bustle of cars as they dissolved into the night was a reassuring reminder that Amy had not simply dissolved into this parallel universe of ceiling-high noodles and bright fluorescent lights.

The girls left as quickly as they had emerged, passing through the checkpoint and out into the flowing night. Amy jittered, pacing back and forth amongst the stock, wondering which ones she would buy, fluttering anxiously before remembering that Phoebe had written a shopping list as she lay feverish at home.

‘Beef.’ Great, apart from being very unspecific, I can’t read Chinese.

And then she realised that the price tags were written in English as well. Amy bent down to examine the lower shelves, hoping to find a worthy price for all the options. Another twenty minutes flew by as she read every single label, noting at least fifteen different brands offering a variation of a beef flavoured instant noodles.

She sighed, reaching across to seize the first within reach, her fingers brushing over the soft silky touch of the plastic wrapping. When she had successfully stacked five circular cartons into her arms, Amy turned to leave, promptly walking into another customer and dropping all the noodles on the floor.

‘Sorry!’

Amy bent down to pick them all up as they teasingly rolled at a torturously slow but rapid pace along the muddied plastic tiles.

‘No, I'm sorry, here let me help.’ The deep resonating sound of a young man pulled her from her frantic crawl across the floor. The mystery man pulled her to her feet, ‘Here you go.’ Two of the larger noodles bowls had slid into his arms, or had he conjured them with magic? Amy just wasn’t sure what side of the magical portal she was on anymore.

‘Thanks.’

He smiled, a glimmer of amusement appearing in his – surprisingly – blue eyes, and moved past her, the coarse fabric of his sandy trench coat briefly conversing with the fibres of her deep blue summer dress.

Amelia left the store, a bulging plastic bag in one hand and the neatly (obviously pre-prepared) inked phone number of a certain mystery magician on a shard of Paris postcard in the other.

The darkness of the night swallowed her as she strolled away from the entrance of the little Asian grocery, the thick luminescence stretching outwards until its fingers could no longer find her.

The sky was black with anticipation. Stars winked with the sound of wet dripping paint. Amy’s grip tightened on the slippery plastic bag as the warmth of summer enveloped her in a tight loving embrace, full of hope and wonder. 

Author's Note: Originally 838 words upon story's finish. Now, I'm going to rough-edit and see what happens. [post-edit: 852 words] This story started off very serious, I had intentions to make it sad where Amelia was a despondent child from a poor home, but then midway I just decided to turn it into a bit of a half serious crack (humour) piece. And I also had an idea to end with a love story to be a bit cliche in a funny way? But I ran out of time and couldn't see how I could develop their relationship in that short instance of time; it didn't have the right sort of setting or feel to it. I'm sorry I just feel like explaining myself today. The title is a bit of a weird pun I guess, that actually doesn't even fit with my story haha. The M.I.Noodles is obviously Mission Impossible Noodles. ;) Une femme fatale as my readers might know is French for those women who are deadly attractive, and because I randomly added in Mr Mysteriously Magical, I just decided to make him Un Homme Fatale. Selina, please correct me because I'm not sure if it's fatale or fatal. I actually Googled it. :( Yes, the first line is from that song that I don't actually like. (I am a woman, on a mission, woah~ Nothing can stop me, I'm stronger than ever... etc. by Gabriella Cilmi, yes Google.) 

Anyway! Really long Author's Note, the three girls was a reference to the day Selina, Vanessa and I went to buy instant noodles hahaha. I was going to try set a sense of ambience in the opening paragraph, but then I got a little not-bothered. Haha you can practically see the exact moment when I just stop caring about how well I write it. (the ***) Also, the ending is rushed. TIME is not to be wasted, my friends. 

Tl;dr - So, this is my piece for the week! :D Hope you liked it, or at least laughed a bit? Smiled? Inwardly...?