Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Write in the ROMANCE genre (04/19/07)
-
TITLE: Nuts About Nuts | Previous Challenge Entry
By Angeline oppenheimer
04/25/07 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
I’m nuts about nuts. That proved to be my undoing, especially when Romance comes resplendant with Hawaiian Macademias and you cannot make out the person from the seas of nuts.
Since young, I’ve been raised on a staple of nuts. I used to look forward to the snack man, who made his rounds every afternoon on bare calloused feet, balancing his crate of nuts on his shoulders. Invariably, I can spot his bright orange turban bobbing above the rampage of tropical foliage and then I would run towards him with my nickel. Mr. Singh always looked pleased to see me, after all, I was his regular customer and I always knew exactly what nuts I wanted, even though the variety was stunning - soya bean, peanuts (candied or coated with chile),cashew, almonds, walnuts, fried green peas or mung beans, broad beans peering out of crusty salted shells, steamed garbanzos. He would then make a perfect cone with a piece of newspaper with one smooth swirl of his hands and top it with my favorite nuts. Thus endowed, I would then while away the afternoon on a Guava branch with a book in hand and a mouthful of flavorful garbanzos. A perfect escapade for a bored little girl who had to live with a bunch of irritating brothers.
Years down the road, I was walking down the busiest street in Singapore, when God sent a man who knew how to play the nut game. Coming out of the mall, I looked back to check traffic when I spotted a Caucasian. Now, I’ve seen many Caucasians before, but this one looked like a hunk of comic relief as he tried to dodge a sales person selling copy watches. He lunged away like a spring out of a box. I smiled to myself, “These gullible foreigners,” and walked on.
Before I knew it, I heard a voice, and it’s coming from this funny guy.
“I bet that never happens to you,” he said as if talking to a casual friend.
“Hey, I don’t even know you, “ I wanted to say but instead I heard myself saying, “They pick on foreigners.”
For the rest of the afternoon, I couldn’t get rid of him. From our small talk, I came away with a curiosity that caused me to give away my contact number. He was the first Jewish man that I met and I had always been fascinated with the Jewish race ever since I knew my Messiah . He left with a small vital information - I love nuts and my phone numbers scribbled on a napkin.
On his next business trip, he came with cans of Macademia nuts. I’ve never had macadamias before, even though I’m nut-phisitcated, or so I think. Blame it on small time place. It immediately became my favorite and my foolish failure to keep my delight in became my downfall.
After a few more visits and more supplies of macadamias, I realized with some Christian integrity that I could be leading him on, unwittingly. While he was open about his feelings towards me, I can’t say the same.
“Won’t you like to come to America where you can buy macadamias on every street corner?” he joked.
“You know that my mom will never let me marry a foreigner and besides, you’re more than a decade older,” I actually said that.
For a man who knew how to use the nut trap, he also knew psychology,
“Abraham was at least twenty years older than Sarah, and I bet -- so was Boaz. Their relationship worked out well, didn’t they? As for the foreigner part, let’s see, Ruth was a Moabite, Rahab a Cannanite or was she from Jericho? Joseph married a foreigner, so did Moses while in the desert. Now is that enough examples?”
Many long distance conversations later and enough calories to fatten a pasture of cows for the slaughter, I conceded.
My mom pronounced me a nutcase and since I’ve always been a rebel of a nut (first, I embraced a foreign God and now a foreigner), she conceded as well.
Either I can’t see through the mounds of nuts or I’ve been moved by his patience, love and kindness - I can’t tell. But I choose the latter because now I’ve to live with him.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
Past and present tense get mixed up in some of the lines. Would be good to keep the narrative either all past or all present tense.
Great title--that drew me in right away and perfectly fit the story!