No One Knows Where The Circle Ends

Bernie the Baker reached for four chocolate eclairs.

It was for the same kid who had been buying them every
Friday afternoon now for the past 2 years.

The kid didn't say much. Just bought four
chocolate eclairs. And left the shop.

Bernie looked at the clock. Yep, just after
4 o' clock- the same time every Friday
the kid bought them.

There was a late afternoon rush of business
people on their way home who stopped to buy
his goods.

At 6 o' clock, Bernie closed up shop.

He walked around the block to the little
deli where he ate every Friday night.

He couldn't handle going back to his apartment
alone every Friday night.

Friday night had been his and Estelle's night to go out-
have dinner, a glass of wine and then go to a movie,
a concert or a stage play.

How he missed those times.

He didn't think Estelle would have been the first to go.

Then he thought.

That was selfish of him.

How did he think Estelle would have felt had he been
the first to go?

Living life without the one you truly love must be hard for
anyone male or female.

Being the one left behind is not easy for anyone no
matter who they are.

Of course these days there were plenty of husbands and wives
who felt quite relieved when their spouses die.

But that wasn't true for him and Estelle.

His and Estelle's had been a golden love story- one of those
rare and too unfrequent occasions when two soulmates actually met
and encountered one another in the right place at the right time-
the encounter that the rest of us can only dream about.

Some of us may even think that such a love does not exist.

Because it's not part of our life, our experience.

Bernie ate his cold meat sandwich and thought back on his
life.

He thought of Richard's Milkshake Bar.

Wow. Richard's Milkshake Bar.

He hadn't thought of that place in years.

A place he had visited when he was a kid.

Oh, how he had loved Richard's Milk Shake Bar.

Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, blueberry, raspberry and seemingly
every other flavour under the sun.

You know he had never tasted a milkshake as good before or since.

There was just something about Richard's milkshakes that was different
and better than any other milkshake.

What was that secret ingredient?

Probably love, his romantic of a mother would have said.

Some people carry out their jobs with love
and it makes all the difference in the world his mother
told him. Love. Passion. It's what created excellence not greed or desire
for fame, his mother told him.

Funny, the time he had walked into Richard's Milkshake Bar
and had been told the old man had died came as a stunning
blow to him.

He had felt Richard would always be there. Always be there serving
his delicious milkshakes. But he was gone.

Still Bernie ordered a mikshake from the new
owner.

But it wasn't the same.

And it would never be the same.

Funny, the day he walked away from
Richard's Mikshake Bar the day Richard
had died, Bernie knew then that he would
look on this period of his life as a golden
age, a golden age as far as milkshakes were
concerned.

Bernie finished his sandwich and got
up to pay the bill.

As he did so, Bernie felt a sharp piercing
pain in his chest.

He fell to the floor gasping for breath.

Someone call an ambulance, the deli
manager shouted.

Bernie looked at the whirling images
of faces now around him.

The manager, the cashier, the waitress,
the paramedics as they came rushing
through the door.

Then he looked at the woman to his immediate
right.

Estelle.

It was Estelle.

How young and beautiful she looked.

Bernie looked up at her and smiled.

And then closed his mortal eyes for the last
time.

Paul entered the bakery promptly at
4 PM the next Friday afternoon.

He looked around for signs of old Bernie.

Where was old Bernie?

He looked at the chocolate eclairs.

What was up with the chocolate eclairs?

They didn't look the same.

"Can I help you?" a gruff voice spoke to him.

"Um... where's Bernie?" Paul asked.
"Bernie's dead," the voice answered very
unsympathetically, "he croaked last Friday
night."

"Um..." Bernie looked at the chocolate eclairs,
"I'll have... I'll have... one chocolate eclair please."

"One chocolate eclair?" the man answered, "is
that all?".

"Yes," Paul nodded.

As he walked down the street after
leaving the bakery, Paul bit into the solitary
chocolate eclair.

No, it wasn't the same.

And even though young as Paul was, he
felt the voice of wisdom telling him that somehow
this was the end of the golden age as far as
chocolate eclairs were concerned.

He would never again taste a chocolate eclair
as good as Bernie's had been.

15 years later as Paul sat on a bench
on a promenade overlooking the river
valley, he munched on a ham and cheese
sandwich and started thinking about
Bernie's Bakery.

Funny, he hadn't thought about Bernie's Bakery
in ages. Bernie's Bakery. And those yummy
mouthwatering out of this world chocolate
eclairs.

What was in it that made them so good?,
Paul wondered.

"Hi, is it all right if I sit here?" a soft gentle
feminine voice asked him.

Paul looked up. A beautiful woman in a multicoloured
spring dress stood there.

"Sure," Paul stammered somewhat.

Paul had always usually felt comfortable around pretty women
but this woman somehow felt different.

Not that Paul didn't feel comfortable in her presence
but he felt extremely awkward as well for some reason.

Both extremely extremely extremely comfortable and at
the same time awkward. It was a strange sensation.
The more Paul and the young woman whose name was
Laura talked, the more comfortable he felt.

They got up and left the bench and walked on a
path along the river.

They were so busy looking at each other, of course
neither of them would notice the tiny plaque on the park
bench.

For the city encouraged people and businesses to donate
money to pay for these park benches.

And plaques would be put on the back of these
benches naming the people or business who
had sponsored this particular bench.

As Paul walked away with Laura, he thought to
himself, yes the golden age of chocolate eclairs
was long behind him but he couldn't help thinking
to himself that some vaster greater golden age of
something far far more wonderful lay just ahead
of him.

As for the plaque on the very old but extremely well
kept-up park bench, it read,

Bernie and Estelle- two people who were very much
in love.


The End.