“Please be food, please!,” Alice prayed. She collapsed her body purposely
to the ground. Her back on the wall. Hands already grasping the box - eagerly.
“Please, God! Please be food!” She prayed again. She opened the box slowly. To
her utter surprise there was a large sewing needle, a role of thick thread, two
buns and a note. The note wrote:
“To my fair
lady, London Bridge is falling, please don’t let it drown.
A bun to
fulfill your desire in the present,
Another for
you to fulfill the desires of another present”
She has been living like this
for years. Scavenging for food and sleeping under the wide sky. But amidst her
hardship, she once lived in wealth until a sudden robbery took place and stole
her mother’s life.
By the end of the note, she has
already gobbled up half the bun. The sensation aroused a smile on her face.
Repairing despair. In joy of eating, she read the note again. The bun in her
mouth fell to the ground. Lights started to beam fast around her. Cars swished
passed her to the horizon of the road until the busy road was deserted. Alice
focused on Big Ben in the distance while bearing the pain.
“What’s going on?!” her heart
screamed in horror. The hands of the clock moved abnormally fast. Doing 360
degree rotations again and again. The numbers flew out of the clock into the
midnight sky. Time was really flying! The walls of the buildings around Alice
bended and twisted around her. Alice’s knees started being disloyal to her.
Without any might left, she collapsed to the pavement. Face down. There were
voices echoing around. It was saying something. The same sets of words.
Repeated. Involuntarily, her hands pressed on her ears. Unfortunate to her
ears, the voices got louder. She curled her body in pain. Legs kicking
hysterically.
All of the sudden, the voices
stopped. Alice was now sitting on the pavement, glaring into the sky with her
wet greenish-blue eyes. Both, the sun and moon climbed together into the sky
and seated themselves side by side. The sky was a mixture of royal blue and
glorious golden hues. Magnificent and hauntingly spooky at the same time. “Is
this magic?” Asked Alice still hypnotized. Through her ears, Alice heard a soft
voice whispering from a distance. “Alice, Alice…,” the voice chanted.
“Mum…mummy…is…is that you?” Her voice trembled. Where was the voice coming
from? She rose and searched here and there. It was her mother, Emma.
“Alice dear, stop. You can’t find me. I am no where to be found”
“Mum! I miss
you, mum! Where were you all these years?”
“I miss you too dear. I never
left you, Alice. I never did. I am always there with you in every step, in your
heart,” Alice felt warm. Emma continued,
“Do remember that I am always
with you no matter what. Okay? I’m sorry, but the reason I’m here is to warn you,”
Alice focused.
“London Bridge is falling down;
build it up with wood and clay, it will wash away. With mortar and bricks, it
will not stay. With iron and steel, it will bend and bow. With silver and gold,
it will be stolen away,” Emma continued with a ghostly tone. It did not sound
like her. Emma coughed twice and then said, “You are the sixth generation of
the family curse. The curse that was given to our bloodline because of misdeeds.
I too, once lived in the streets, but I recovered. I succeeded but by the end,
London Bridge fell once more. The curse was said can only be abolished by a
girl with greenish-blue eyes of the Bridge family. Dear Alice Elixir Bridge, my
beloved daughter, you may be the one. Yes. It is fated. O little one, my
Elixir, be the Elixir of the curse. Have faith in fate, dear. Have faith…” Her
voice faded and eventually disappeared. Alice was puzzled. A bash of striking
white light blinded her eyes. Alice fainted.
London Bridge stood proud
connecting the north and south of London over the River Thames. On the bridge,
cars and buses hurdled to pass through. A car horned shattering the morning dew
off tree leaves. Alice woke up in shock. Her head was buzzing. Somehow, she was
teleported there, on a bridge, The London Bridge. She remembered what happened.
It felt like a dream, but she was sure it was not. She believed in her mother,
she believed in the bloodline curse. She was determined to break the curse!
Alice Elixir sat down on a bench
at Trafalgar Square. Pigeons flying everywhere. It was a beautiful sight. But
Alice was not amazed. She fiddled with the needle and thread, and sighed, “what
am I suppose to do, Mum?” In the nick of time, a woman in a suit was rushing
past her. Her high heels tripped in between the pavement slabs. It was lucky
that she did not fall, what was unlucky was that her shoes ripped from it s
sole. The woman looked at Alice. Their eyes met. Somehow, the woman saw Alice
as a shoe-mender. The woman gleamed in delight.
“Hai little one, my name is Mrs
Gwen. Do me a favor and sew my shoes, will you? I’m in such a hurry. Please,”
she asked politely.
“But, I … I’m not…” and before
she could finish, the woman said, “Oh, foolish me. Here’s five pounds for your
service”. Mrs Gwen passed he shoes to Alice. Alice became silent. And then she
whispered to herself in bliss, “Here it is, this is my moment”.
When she was little, she always
admired how her mother sewed flowers such as daffodils on pieces of cloth. By
observing, she enherited the techniques and skill. She held the shoe and
started to sew. Mrs Gwen who was sitting next to her stared in amazement. Such
beautiful artistry. Mrs Gwen saw a big opportunity in the world of shoe
designing for this young girl. After a few short minutes, Alice did the
finishing stitches. It was complete. She sewed a chain of daffodils at the side
of the shoe. Making it intact again and elegant at the same time. Mrs Gwen
grabbed Alice and hugged her tight. It was very fortunate to Alice, as Mrs.
Gwen was a fashion designer.
“Dear, you’re going to be rich!
Rich!” she yelled. Alice hardly said a word. She smiled.
After years of continuous
hardwork, Alice now owned her very own shoe boutique. Her shoes were all
handmade. . Her unique shoes were known by the whole of England. People love
them, designers adore them. But there was still a problem. Though she was
already building wealth by taking the opportunity of entrepeneuring her skill,
she kept on having a pitch black dream where her mother continuously chanted,
“Beware my fair lady, it is falling down, build it up with silver and gold, it
will be stolen away…stolen away.”
Six nights of cold December with
the same dream, atlast she knew what was wrong. Her mother was rich at the very
most, but her glory was ruined as her wealth was stolen. ‘Silver and gold will
be stolen away’ it totally makes sense. Either way, she was now set to find
that one vital element to put a full stop to the curse. She grabbed her coat
and braved out into the frozen diorama of the morning of a December. She dashed
to the closest library. There she went to the ‘Children’s Section’ in search of
the nursery rhyme. To her despair, the final paragraph of the rhyme was rubbed
out. She sank into a chasm of confusion. She looked in front of her to notice
an alphabet board. “B for Bun,” Alice glared at it. She went to it and realized
that there was a note sticked on it. It wrote the last few lines of the rhyme,
“Give him a pipe to smoke all night, my fair lady.” Alice flashed a perfect
smile. She solved the riddle!
“I need to share my wealth. The
buns! A bun for me, the other to give!”
Ever since that day, Alice
became the elixir of the community. With the money she made through her
business, she helped the poor. She gave food and even opened up a shelter for
the needy. On one night, she dreamed of her mother. Her mother said with joy, “You
did it! I knew you could!” Alice smiled in her sleep. Every now and then she
will remember the adventure that life gave her, She passed on her story to her.
“Succeeding in entrepreneur is a failure unless you channel your money and
wealth to make others at ease,” she told her children. She is happy that she
led her opportunity in her business to a success, and from there she shared
that success with others. To do business is to share.
there you have it. kalau ada draft slips anywhere, just say it out in the comment. thats all, take care. bye ! :D
