Mistake (1)

A glass wine bottle shattered onto the floor. The paper label on the bottle displaying 'made in 1922' slowly descended onto the ground as its shattered pieces flew into the air, landing near the old man wearing a typical butler uniform. The edges of his white sleeves, from his perfectly ironed uniform, were strained in crimson red as he wiped off his bloody, furrowed forehead.

It all started when Hazel was watching his TV series he recently got obsessed with called Lost Ocean.

Hazel took a brief pause and reached out into his bed covers to find that nothing was there. Whenever he watched his favourite thriller, he always had snacks to accompany it.

Hazel arrogantly pulled out his smartphone to call the number of his family butler. The phone didn't even ring twice as the old man received the phone call immediately as if he was at Hazels every beck and whim..

"How can I serve you, young master?" The old man asked in a professional, yet distant tone.

"I want some bottles of cola mixed with whisky and Kernal's Popcorn, Caramel Flavoured, right now," Hazel rolled his eyes while recalling the perfect combination of food he needed.

Hazel hung up the call as he didn't need to bother to wait for the butler's reply. He felt more annoyed and irritated with every passing second as he felt that he was missing out on the whole, packaged experience the television show offered without a good snack.

He was almost about to call the butler again to yell at him for his incompetence as the meek butler knocked on the door to declare his unwelcome presence.

"Can I come in?" The listless butler waited patiently outside his bedroom door.

"Just get me my snacks," Hazel quipped back.

The butler walked into the room with a rolling cart filled with his requested bottles of whisky and the lightly salted flavoured Kernal's Popcorn.

Hazel carefully looked at the label to find that the butler had gotten one of his orders wrong. He had clearly remembered that he had asked for Caramel Flavoured Kernal's Popcorn a few minutes ago, not the lightly salted one.

"Didn't I tell you to retrieve the Caramel one," Hazel yelled.

Hazel threw the nearby pillows on his bed in frustration at the butler. When he ran out of things to throw that was on his bed, he moved onto the items on his desk.

The pain was overbearing, fueling his every motion. .

He couldn't stand the butler's incompetence and wanted to turn him into a burning, useless effigy that resembled his lack of ability.

Hazel wrathfully swiped all the small stationary objects on his desk onto the floor as the room was filled with the clattering of objects.

He couldn't get rid of his anger. Even with the newly created mess in his room, with shards of broken mechanical pens and bottles, and the pierced loui vuitton sofas that were like a symbol of his wealth and power.

"Beg. Beg for mercy and I'll tell father not to fire you for your mistake today," Hazel pointed at the lightly salted popcorn scattered on the floor, his rage somewhat subsiding.

The butler had a family to support and could not risk being fired from a highly paid job. He endured the humiliation from the spoiled young master as he went down on his knees alongside his non-existent pride.

"I have made a mistake. Please forgive this old man who is both incompentent and dumb enough to mix up the flavours of the popcorn you wanted," the butler bowed down as he couldn't hide some sarcasim in his wobbling voice.

Hazel instantly felt more offended as he couldn't feel the butler genuinely reflecting upon his great mistake. He kicked the poor butler near the ribs twice in the same spot.

"I'm sorry." The butler coughed repeatedly, and held at the pain in his chest.

"I hope that through this, some of your anger will be resolved." The butler grunted and stared up at the distressed eyes of his young master..

When the show was about to reach the climax of the episode, Hazel lost interest in the butler that was groaning in pain.

He decided that rather than spending more time on educating his useless butler, it was better to watch the rest of the episode.

Hazel reached into the paper bag with the remains of the snacks not thrown onto the floor as he munched on them while being immersed in the scene where the plot twist was revealed.

While Hazel clicked onto the rest episode to continue the series, the butler bled on the floor with his uniform stained with blood coming from his injuries.

The butler couldn't bear to move as some shards of glass dug into his skin while he held onto his ribs. Where the throbbing pain from his forceful kicks remained with one of his hands.

The butler's vision started to waver as the last sounds he heard were the crunching sounds of the popcorn being eaten with the small voices coming from the flat television screen.