How Will I Survive?

There was a quiet, eerie silence after the loud knock for a few seconds. Then, she heard feet shuffling as the door creaked opened. Eli looked up to see a substantially taller and leaner woman staring down at her with curious eyes.

"Who are you?"

"Uhh... ahem, Hello, my name is Eliana Rosenthal, Assistant Apparel Designer at Forever 21. I came here to start our new project... have you not heard about this?"

The Lady just stared at her as her eyes grew so big, they were basically covering half her face. Oh no, this was not looking good.

The next few minutes were torture as the manager and Eli tried to figure out what was going on. There had been no communication between the manager and the main shop. This left Eli cursing her boss and anyone else who had told her it would be such a great innovation to come here. So much for innovation. Not only was this town rundown and shabby, the store here didn't even know she was coming! But she decided it wasn't fair to take her anger out on this frazzled woman.

"Hey, how about I explore this town a little and go rest, and I'll get back to you tomorrow. You can try to figure out things with XXI. Don't stress too much about it, it's not like we're on a time frame."

The manager sighed from relief after Eli let her go down to the store to start working. As Eli saw her walk down, she felt bad that this situation, crazy enough, had just jumped on the poor girl. At least Eli had known about it beforehand. Oh well, she might as well see everything this town has to offer before thinking of bailing. She took out her phone to quickly email her boss a furious accusation about the current situation and then turned her phone off. She never turned her phone off. It felt... liberating! She was going to have to do this more and just take the consequences.

Eli walked out of the XXI building and surveyed her surroundings. There didn't seem to be much on this side of the town. And she didn't know where to go, now that her iPhone was off. Yet, she was determined to keep it off, so she decided to ask someone for directions. As she passed by the post office, she saw a man walking slowly her way. Eli asked him for directions to a restaurant, and instead of just telling her, he made her wait till her drew up a whole map of the town. The man left without another word and all she could do was yell "Thank you!" to the back of his head.

She continued to walk until she ended up by a clinic. She looked back at the map. Hmmn, she seemed to be on the main road. If she continued to walk passed the manhole, she would reach a few restaurants. She was about to continue walking when she heard a reminiscent tune filling the air.

" Somewhere over the rainbow~

Way up high~,"

Eli looked around to see where this song was coming from. She looked down next to the clinic door and saw a blob of something on the ground. It seemed almost like a pile of trash when all of a sudden it moved. As it moved, it banged its foot against a tarnished copper bowl. Next to the bowl was a small cd player still belting the sweet dreams of Dorothy. By now, Eli realized that the blob was actually a person, more visibly in the shape of a street beggar. Eli couldn't help but look at the poor soul and feel pity for him. Although both of them were away from their home, she still was in a better situation than him. Looking at him sitting stoically on the ground gave her strength and the will to find a way to make her problems right.

Eli opened up her purse to see if she had any dollar bills to drop in his bowl. But just as if to test her humanitarian nature, she only found twenty dollar bills and 10 cents. The change was definitely too small of an amount to give; it would seem as if she was mocking him. Breathing in deeply, Eli calmly took out a twenty and delicately dropped it in his bowl. She hoped that the man would use the money for food and not drugs. As she was about to walk away to finally feed her own growling stomach, the beggar yelled,

"What will come will come. Even if I shroud it all in silence."

She paused as she looked at him for a minute. The man had turned away and had gone back to daydreaming. She had no idea why he had said that to her or what it meant. But it seemed to fit in perfectly with what was happening to her. Maybe this was fate. Maybe fate was what brought her to this town through such a ridiculous proposition. The more Eli thought about it, the more it made sense. There must be a reason why fate brought her here.

She walked into Casa de waffles for a late breakfast. As she sat down and dug into her chocolate chip waffles, she continued to think about how she would accomplish the project her boss wanted her to do. But for some reason, her thoughts returned to what the beggar had yelled at her. Eli decided to take his advice. She stopped worrying about the project. What will come will come, so she might as well focus on her waffles and have a good time savoring the flavor.

After a cup of coffee, Eli walked back to Castle Apartments into her new home away from home. She was definitely going to have to buy some major decorative furniture to make this room fit for her to live in. She closed the door of #1008 and plopped down on her bed. Maybe she could have a fresh beginning in this town. No more sucking up to phony bosses. And with that comforting thought, Eli fell into a deep sleep.