Pylon Creative Writers' Workshop 1

Last weekend, we were asked to make an article from pieces of information we randomly drawn.

Mine was:

•   a restaurant owner
• busy streets
• cold and misty morning
• reminiscing

                I am a five-star restaurant owner in the busy streets of the city of love. Paris. I am well known food critic and a famous chef. I am an owner of culinary school for financially challenged children. Everyone calls me “The Mr. Alvaro”. But as they all say, “Carbon is turned into diamond by extreme pressures”. As I watched my employees working and the people enjoying the luscious meals served on top on their expensive plates, a bitter past knocked my hard skull.

                My birthplace is also the birthplace of poverty. As if it is handcuffed to my wrist ever since I came to existence. My mother accepts laundry and my father sleeps behind bars. I was working in my aunt’s food store since I could ever remember. I couldn’t help but put all the responsibility on my young shoulder since I was the oldest of my seven siblings. Scarcity wakes me up every dawn and I usually take a sip on a broken-handled cup filled with nothing but hot water just to lift my heavy eyelids. My childhood is like a cold and misty morning. Shivering in cold embrace of life’s reality trying to find a pinch of light in the thick mist of uncertainty.  When I was old enough, I became my aunt’s assistant when she cooks food. I was inspired so I made cooking my key to open the lock in these chains that binds me and poverty. I only took a charred metal pan, a very old ladle, and tons of determination to master my aunt’s dusty cook book. My aunt saw the passion burning inside of me so she enrolled me in a culinary school. With nothing but my pen and wisdom about cooking, I passed the entrance examination with flying colors. Ace every test and cook every recipe assignment with perfection. Eventually, I graduated as the most outstanding student. After graduation, I received a stream of phone calls desperately hiring me as their chef. My fate has finally changed.

                Skipping to remember all the achievements I made to be where I am today, a young waiter pushing a trolley came close to me. He gave me a porcelain cup of tea brewed from the freshest tea leaves. A drop of tear fell from my idle eyes. Once I was just a child struggling to let go in the grasp of poverty, and now, I am a well respected man that has everything to be proud of.

:) it's not a true story. but it will be. . .hahaha xD