Going out for food

The rest of the morning, nothing else that was out of the ordinary happened. Rana was spacing out, his heads in the clouds, as he was dreaming of his potential future achievements with the new skill of his.

He could see himself doing the most incredible things, standing above all. He dreamt of solving mysterious unsolved crimes, saving damsels in distress basically being some kind of superhero. But he did not know how soon reality would catch up.

All of a sudden, he was startled as he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at saw his colleague in front of him. It seemed like had been standing there for a while trying to get his attention "Raanaaaa, heelloooo!". Rana shook his head to get himself back to earth. Seeing that Rana was present again, his colleague Peter asked "Hey, are you okay Rana? We were about to go eat, and wanted to know if mister dreamer here wanted to join us?".

"Yeah, I am fine. Sure I'll come with you guys." Rana had the habit to go having lunch with a group of his colleagues. After spacing out for a few more seconds, he grabbed his coat and hurried after the others that were already waiting for him.

While leaving the building another of his colleagues came up to him

"What is going on with you today? All morning long you have just been glancing holes into the air." Rana still felt a bit out of it, so he took a second to react "Oh, just had a really strange morning today…" The colleague laughed "Just don't let the boss see you". They went one to their the place they usually went to. Talking and joking around, but Rana did not talk much today, he was way too annoyed by all the disgusting smells hanging in the air.

In front of the shop they usually went to eat, Rana almost puked then and there. Pinching his nose to protect himself from the horrid smells of old oils, old fish and food additives that his enhanced sense of smell he could not take due to his enhanced sense of smell, he pleaded the others to take a look for a better restaurant.

They were surprised by his actions, but indeed some of them had trouble digesting some of the food they had eaten her, so they all agreed. A few of them immediately proposed restaurants nearby that they had heard off. So they went on to the closest one. Unfortunately Rana could not stand it either.

The group ended up walking from restaurant to restaurant, but Rana really would not have been able to eat in any of them. His colleagues were starting to grow more and more hungry. And some of them were throwing annoyed glances from time to time at Rana.

As they arrived in front of 8th restaurant, they were out of ideas. They looked at each other, just when Rana was about to give up and let them eat on their own, Peter remembered a special place he had heard of. He took them to a small street until they arrived in front of a small shop that did not have any sing or name on its front.

Rana smiled, this shop did not have the ounce of a bad smell coming out of it. No additives, no bad oils just the most tasty smell he had ever smelled. As his stomach growled, he could not hold back and entered, the others following him feeling relieved.

Standing in the entrance they looked around the shop, it was pretty plain, the shop owner just looked up and pointed at a menu hanging on the wall saying something in a language Rana did not understand.

Rana looked at the menu it was completely written in Chinese and had only one item on it, that had an exorbitant price. He just nodded at the owner making a sign that he would take a serving. The some of the others almost fainted as they saw the price, they could only swallowed down the pain, too hungry to go somewhere else. Each of them also ordered one serving and sat down.

Soon they all received a serving of egg fried rice, they shook there heads having expected more, and Peter almost went crazy seeing they only got a plain serving of fried rice. Receiving his serving, Rana did not wait for ceremonies. He immediately took a bite of the egg fried rice, as the taste slowly spread through his mouth he could only think 'heavenly'. After that, he could not stop eating until he had finished his bowl. Then still wanting more he tried to order another plate, but he got blankly refused.

After the others had finished their food, they all quickly paid up. Even though the service was unfriendly in this shop, Rana felt completely addicted and new he would be back soon. The others felt the same and could only cry in silence about their future empty wallets. Having taken so long to find a good place to eat, they hurried back to work not to be back too late.

The afternoon passed by in a flash, Rana was still not able to focus on the work at hand. He really wasn't to interested in it. Most of it were boring repetitive tasks, like entering and manipulating some incoming data, that almost anyone could do. The only interesting things were the tasks from the field he was specialised in. Unfortunately, even though he was the only one in the company who could take care of them they were not enough to fill a full time job, so he had to bear with it. He was reluctant about having chosen this path in university.

Rana felt that he would not be able do more work today, so he chose to leave a bit early. Taking the elevator down, he saw Becky hurrying over as the doors were closing. He could only shake is head, when he thought about what had happened with her today.

Nothing unusual occurred on his way home. He made himself dinner and went to sleep shortly after, feeling tired from this weird day.