[Academy RP] The meal

[Grenesia]

The dimmed light of the restaurant sharpened the guests' senses of taste and hearing. The sounds of blues made by the band on the stage were battling with noises coming from the promenade outside, loud conversations of regular customers, spontaneous laughing and the clang of cutlery as Andrew and his wife Christina, a couple of tourists, were quietly consuming a hot bowl of hunter's stew for their starter, which consisted of pork, cabbage and sauerkraut. It was contrasted by borscht with kefir, served cold right after.

This year's summer in Karlitch turned out to be unbearably hot. It was two in the afternoon and most of the locals began to come to their homes or restaurants for dinner. The mothers were calling home their children playing football outside, the fathers were commuting back from work and the stores were shutting their doors for an hour. "Kashtelanka" Restaurant had always been full of people and quickly became popular with tourists, probably because of being so close to the main square and city hall, maybe due to a large variety of traditional foods and drinks, perhaps because of frequently invited bands and singers, or maybe because of all three. Its recently repaired air conditioning barely moved the thick air inside despite operating at full capacity as the lovely couple was patiently waiting for their main course, eyes glued to their smartphones.

Something felt off.

Something was wrong, and the crowd felt it. It became quieter and quieter around the two faces illuminated by screens of their mobiles. Suddenly, the trumpeter cut off his solo as if he took an arrow in the neck. Then the pianist stopped when he was about halfway through a variation of b-flat major passage, followed by the drummer, and the contrabassist. They all remained on stage, in silence. Everyone around the foreigners stopped talking. No visitor could have missed the phone ban notice on the front door. These hang on every Grenesian tourist-oriented pub or restaurant. None in Grenesian though, because Grenesians do not need to be reminded about that, they already know that. And yet these two chose to stare at their nightmare rectangles instead of enjoying their meals and socializing.

"Ehm, excuse me", an old man turned around to them and whispered in broken Anglish, as politely as he could, "Using phone in dinner is consider rude, could you please turn off?" Christine gave him a brief askanced look, but she tucked her phone into her purse anyway. And as soon as both of the tourists complied, both the audience at the tables came back to life and the musicians started playing slow beats of cool jazz. Shortly afterwards the couple was erved their main course - braised rabbit with sweet cream, onion, garlic and spices, skinned potatoes and salad bouquet.

After they finished their meal, the mysterious man who had admonished the two tourists caught up to them and asked them to stop to talk. He introduced himself as Dobromir Siak, a retired history teacher. His casual pose, friendly chubby face and lush grey hair made him look both authentic and knowledgeable. He offered to show them around the old town. Since the couple had plans no for the afternoon other than sightseeing, they both agreed. Andrew was was just taking out his wallet to pay him in advance while they all three were heading for exit. "No no no, I'll do it free", he said. "No need to pay".

 

EDIT: I had planned to continue this but I couldn't make it consistent, entertaining or suspenseful enough for me to be satisfied, so I'll drop it right here and start working on sth new..

Edited February 15, 2020 by Grenesia (see edit history)