Dunking Ink (7)

18^th Friday, 7.30 pm, thirteen days to deadline, Firal and Rosa tried to get a cab and failed. They started to walk towards Cosmo Tower almost a kilometre away. It was windy. Firal wore stilettoes and on the main street it was fiddly to find a foothold too crowded of people. Pavement blocks tilted. Rosa’s frock caught in the breeze. She wore a pair of peep toe heels. They passed an area of the street under construction…another Libran effort to rebuild the roads.

Outside the west gate facing the waters, crowd was thick. Despite the wind, Firal felt wet inside her vinyl swarming with sweat. Two security officers by the gate checked every person collecting cigarettes and lighters in a trash container. Following that, another standstill at the elevators as they allowed ten at a time to climb.

Finally, Rosa and Firal entered the elevator and swiftly climbed to the 24^th floor. Then took the staircase to the 25^th floor where they were seated according to the invitation cards they carried. Two doormen swung open the panels and the girls entered a vast hall filling up and dimly lit in florescent blue. Ball lights slowly rotating on the ceiling creating shadows on the walls and the music of Adele’s, ‘Someone Like You’, softly played on a hidden speaker system. Sometimes tiny blue jewels sparkled the floor and the walls from the sequin mirrors of the globes. She could smell a fragrance of fresh freesias meticulously arranged in rows to align the orange blossom evenly.

Firal felt the coolness at once turning her sweaty skin to stick in the cold. She’d dehydrate without a sip of water. Waiters in white coats passed trays full of drinks and fresh towels.

White cladded service tables topped with snacks and confectionery in silver platters; savouries, desserts, appetizers and drinks. Every culinary item was delicious. Particularly for the locals what mattered most were salty and spicy snacks.

And soon they got absorbed in the crowd having a wonderful time. When the dancers stopped, somebody with a beard climbed the low platform and addressed the guests in welcoming them. “We urge you kindly to join at the tables to win your luck. Any amount you win will be donated to charity in this campaign to raise funds for the work undertaken by the Peace Foundations for humanity, provide for the poor and the needy, mentally challenged and the handicapped, scholarships and pilgrimage. Each of you can collect up to one hundred thousand gaming chips from the tables for free. Your gamble will be to take ten percent with you. It means, if you made ten thousand, you take one thousand home. Please remember to return your hands and convert to cash before you leave.”

At that point, Firal grew aware of a ringing note in her ears and it had been there for quite some time. She had forgotten about the aromas. It was growing hot. Rosa and Firal were playing pool. She looked around to find a good crowd dancing for ‘Set Fire to the Rain’. Overjoyed to hear they could make a gamble.

As a bank staffer she wondered, “Rosa! Have you thought of where the money comes from?”

She burst into laughter so loud and just couldn’t hold it, “Where? We don’t know! That’s a laugh!”

“Come on! Be serious!”

“Are you serious!” she laughed aloud to see that Firal was a bit cautious. “Let’s go play! Come on! Perhaps we can make a few bucks. Let’s try our luck!”

“Who is giving one hundred thousand free?”

“Who cares!” Rosa laughed, “Make ten thousand, take one thousand.” She dropped the cue and pulled Firal towards a poker table. Each collected a value of 10,000 in rectangular chips that came in two different colours and denominations; 1000 and 500 – red and blue respectively. Each required to scan the code on the invitation card and fingerprint in order to assess free distribution.

Firal and Rosa placed the bets and won a double. And then they were in for more. Everybody was laughing and enjoying to place the bets and win easy money. It was awesome. They were winning in millions. This casino was made for winners.

Firal clapped hands, jumped about and laughed. She made a win again. “Fifty thousand rufiya!” she cried. And then she caught a framed canvas on the wall; a face of a wolf peeping behind a tree in the dark. She stared for a long moment. In the deep blue lights, those faces could hardly be noticed. She turned pale. Those eyes of the wolf belonged to a human. They moved and disappeared just like that.

She nudged Rosa, “Look at the picture!”

“What’s wrong with the picture?” chuckled Rosa, “Isn’t it scary!”

“I saw a pair of eyes!”

“I’m sure you did,” she laughed spilling out from her mouth, “That dog finds you attractive.” She couldn’t differentiate a dog from a wolf because these animals do not exist in the islands.

“Those eyes roving like this,” she rolled her eyes to mock and her focus stopped at a woman walking up slowly in the crowd in complete nude. Firal blushed and gazed at the woman as she passed. She even tried to grab attention of Rosa by prodding her arm but Rosa was lost in the game. And that woman turned to look back at Firal who instantly stopped nudging. Nobody seemed to notice the naked woman.

A steward reached her and whispered in her ear, “Lady over there is calling you.”

She glanced and there stood the woman she saw few minutes ago but in an orange gown gesturing with a finger to come over.

Firal stepped after him with a heap of red poker chips in one hand and her bag on her shoulder.

“Don’t be long!” called Rosa by the poker table.

“Hello! How are you doing?” this lady picked her arm and escorted her away from the crowd, “Enjoying the evening so far!”

“Certainly,” returned Firal.

“I thought we met before!”

“No, we never did.”

“I can’t quite remember…”

“Did you pass by a moment ago?”

“Oh yeah, I think so…can you please help me to the lift! I dropped my bottom…”

“Sure,” she responded cheerfully.

“I think the buttons came undone.”

“It sure did,” they laughed.

They turned behind a panel and exited out of the glass-fitted doors, somewhat blurry with vapour, to the entrance hall on the south-east side of the tower building. Two stewards grabbed her by the biceps and descended the stairs two levels below to the twenty-third floor.