Post by Ambrose Grail on Jul 1, 2023 5:10:39 GMT -5
Ah, the beach in the big city. Not the big city, but a big enough city that when you go to the beach, you get weirdos. Therefore, no one really noticed the weirdness that surrounded Ambrose. And if they did, they either let it slide or pretended not to notice at all. After all, beach weirdos are a thing. He didn't even bother wearing his mask and cloak today.
He had stolen a kitchen cart from a street vendor and hauled it over here, whipped up some aromatic spirit-fried rice so that the mortals could see him in its vicinity, and started selling food off the cart. Every once in a while, he tended to the rice, keeping the aroma fresh, but he wasn't selling the rice. Even when people asked. He just used the scent of it to attract business.
And attract business it did. Ambrose butchered and grilled eel and fish from the time he'd spent putting together a larder just for this event and started honing his barbecuing talents. At first, his creations got a little too charred and he had to comp some meals. It appeared not everything could take the fires of the pit, so he toned it down a way. He really got a feel for the grill and the other elements of his kitchen.
With his trusty chef's knife and his spirit snacks, he zhuzhed up his creations in one way or another. He even prepared some eel with candied bits to make a dessert out of it. That caught on like wildfire. Word quickly spread about the ghostly beach kitchen, the one with the cook that could only be seen when you were close enough to smell the food.
And that was how he spent his day. It was a nice little outing from Hell. After he was done with the kitchen cart, he returned it to its original owner, counted up his earnings and gave the woman a cut of the profits, and kept the rest for himself. He promised himself he'd do this again soon, though a little more legally the next time. No need to steal a cart if you've got a history of making free money for a cart's owner.
That evening, Ambrose sat in an ice cream parlor. Thanks to the scent of the spirit-fried rice clinging to him, people could still mostly see the sinner, and he was finally able to do it-- purchase an ice cream cone and enjoy it to himself, sitting alone and basking in the fruits of his labor. But they say that Hell is where the heart is. Or something like that.
At the end of his coconut mango cone, Ambrose was still alone. He'd made some fair scratch for himself today, but it didn't fill the feeling inside. What was he missing? And how would he find it? If he didn't even know what it was, how would he start looking? Musing on this lonesome sorrow, he finished the ice cream and sighed.
