Martoons

Cast of characters

Thomas

Mrs Park

*

By the time Thomas had dug through the carton and found a bowl that hadn’t been compromised, break was over.

He broke off a chunk of the dry noodles and crunched it, having seen his students do that.

But that was all the time he had to get something down the hatch.

* That can’t be enough… *

He had his housewives’ class and they not only had zero tolerance for lateness, they talked their heads off – and his too.

On an almost-empty stomach, he slogged through but his blood sugar quickly rock-bottomed.

He’d never realized how much energy and blood glucose the brain sucked-up.

Near the end of the class, the room started going dark; he began slurring his words; his brain initiated shutting-down functions.

* Would he be okay? *

As neurons were switched off array by array, Thomas became confused, restless and irrational.

By the end of class, his brain had disconnected most active and voluntary functions and was maintaining only respiration and pulse.

The last thing he could remember was one of the housewives approaching him; he pushing her away; and then completely blacking out.

That housewife was Mrs Park (at Jiri, the orange lady).

As her husband was diabetic, she instantly recognized Thomas’ condition and the remedy – food.

She easily convinced him to go with her to a lunch place just down the street.

Problem was, moments after the nice lunch Thomas became drowsy.

Park and he walked around the Chinju Rotary but all at once, the long trip and everything else caught up to him.

He wanted nothing more than to sleep – now – right here on this very sidewalk! So he lay right down, curled up and passed out.

Park struggled and quickly shuffled him into the lobby of the nearby Hollywood Inn.

“One hour please,” she requested of the owner, then forked over the $60.

 As soon as Thomas’ head hit the pillow, he drifted off to sleep.

Park stayed with him reading a newspaper, and then accompanied him back to the institute.

It was her first and last trip to the Hollywood Inn with the foreigner, but unfortunately the optics of the situation were bad and the story was grossly distorted by the time it was relayed from the Inn’s owner to Max (his cousin) …

… then to Mr Go (Max’s client) …

… and eventually to Miss No.

Little did Thomas know that as he’d laid there sleeping and oblivious to the world, the seeds of a scandal had been sewn.

*

Tomorrow: Mr Go and Fred prepare themselves for a long drive.