The Mage’s eyes

*beep beep beep* Rose groaned as the alarm blared from her phone as it sat plugged in on her dresser a good five feet from the bed, glaring at it she reluctantly crawled out from under her blankets and made her way to turn off the incessant tone. As she reached for the screen the time gazed back at her 5:30 am. “F**k!” Hurriedly she tapped the necessary button and unplugged the device as she started rummaging through drawers, haphazardly grabbing cloth that seemed to amount to an outfit, before bolting into the shower and speed running her morning routine. … The doll pink motorcycle screamed its way into the cafe parking lot. Not a scream of power, but more like the poor machine was begging to be put out of its misery and scrapped. A small and powerful looking woman watched the engine from the door of the building as it screamed its way to the parking space nearest the dumpster it so longed to climb into, before its rider disembarked and sprinted toward the front door. “6:10, If I didn’t know any better I’d think you enjoyed torturing that poor thing and making me wonder if I’d have to open by myself. What was the delay today?” The woman by the door began. “Miss Barbie not wanta’ wake up?” She jutted her thumb towards the bike that seemed to sag against its kick stand. “Good morning to you too Bess,” Rose looked less than thrilled “no ‘Barbie’ wasn’t the problem today, I was; slept through my first two alarms. And I wish you’d stop calling my bike that, his name is Josh, it’s not his fault that Rob took him for an unauthorized paint job that I can’t afford to correct. Josh would appreciate if you’d call him by his proper name.” Rose pushed the door open as she walked past Bess holding it open for the brunette as she followed. “I’m not calling that thing anything other than ‘miss Barbie’ so long as it’s got that gorgeous paint job, you should be thanking Robby at least now Barbie looks like she runs even if it’s only on a wish and a prayer.” Bess seemed to find amusement is Rose’s dislike of the color. “Now let’s get to the kitchen and your sleepyhead can start getting the pastries in the oven, I’ve already got the prep work finished with Robby and he’s already started on the coffee. So you can get the rest of the work going while we get ourselves a cup before we don’t have time to breathe.” Bess bustled past in a hurry washing her hands and putting on an apron that filled the gaps in the patches of flour that it had previously left behind on her shirt. Rose followed behind following suit and stopping to clock in on the high tech clipboard with the hand written schedule. “Bess, if we were ever that busy Rob would have already fixed the punch clock.” “Are you still pissed at me? When do I get to go back to being ‘Robby’?”a tall man with a shaved face spoke up from his place by the drip machine. “Soon as Josh gets to go back to his original paint job, or at least something a little less garish.” “Aw, common it’s not that bad, besides now no one will try to steal it.” Bess feigned offense, “you’re both far to disrespectful, Barbie is a perfectly steal-able bike no thief in their right mind would pass her up.” Rose laughed as she placed various trays in the multi shelved oven, “Even if a thief fancied taking my Josh for a spin I doubt that he would let them, after all he is quite loyal” “You mean no one else can figure out the right combination of wrong things to do to get him to start!” Robby laughed, “hell, my brother-in-law and I had a hell of a time loading it onto the back of my truck to get it painted, and I had the keys!” “You wouldn’t have had nearly so much trouble if you just left him as he was,” Rose slammed the oven door hard. “Then maybe you’d have been able to get the oven fixed so we didn’t startle customers when we use it, or you’d have had the money for the time recorder when it croaked.” Robby laughed and turned back to the coffee, taking the half filled pot and pouring three ceramic mugs of the dark liquid. “Come on that oven is old enough no one makes parts anymore and that finicky old machine was working just fine for the last thirty years, there was no way I could’ve know it’d crap out on me right then. I’m not a fortunate teller. Besides my brother-in-law just happened to have enough paint leftover from one of the cars he was remodeling for ol’ Josh’s new look.” Rose sighed, what part of ‘finicky old machine’ meant it was in good working condition? “Well changin’ topic, you got any overtime available for me? It’d help me get Josh to a somewhat decent mechanic.” Robby sighed and ran his hand through his short blond hair, “I’d love to, but unfortunately, I can’t afford the overtime pay not with all the young blood moving away and taking their purses with them.” Rose nodded, rent would be tight this month. It seemed like it was getting tighter every month. … That evening Rose made her way back up the stairs to her apartment after tucking Josh into the open lot for the night. The sun had yet to even start to set, but with a tight budget she knew she’d soon have to choose between feeding herself or feeding Josh, so nights in it was. After a sparse dinner that proved to be less filling than she had hoped, she found herself with nothing to do but head to an early bed. She had tomorrow off and even though the only thing on the itinerary was housework she couldn’t seem to find a reason to stay up late. As she lay in bed Rose watched the sunlight change colors around the curtains and slowly fade to black. Then what felt like an eternity later she watched the darkness slowly turn blue then warm up to a soft white as the birds chirping swelled then steadied outside the window. Resenting sleep for his lack of an appearance, she rose from the mattress and moved to the shower stopping only briefly to turn off the alarms before they could sing. Under the artificial rain Rose let the water flow through her hair smoothing down the already straight locks till they resembled a dark water fall void of rocks or protrusions. She watched the flow for a few minutes before quickly cleaning herself and stepping out. There was nowhere to be, no one to impress, so she dried herself and threw on an oversized t-shirt that draped to her knees before moving to the kitchen for a bowl of cheap cereal. She looked longingly into the fridge already knowing the milk she wanted wouldn’t be there before putting her spoon back away and popping a few pieces of the sweetened grains into her mouth. She started cleaning the living room dining room combo dusting what little furniture she had before vacuuming the pre installed carpet she loathed, stopping every once in a while to ingest more of the overly processed meal. She spend most of the morning this way moving room to room before landing in the kitchen cleaning the counter and stove top before mopping the vinyl designed to look like wood, as she finished she looked around for anything out of place before grabbing a book and settling on the living room floor leaning against the couch. Not fifteen minutes later she looked up to a circle of purple light that seemed to have words of some unknown language written about it along with what looked like organized although random shapes. From the center of this artwork rose a man as if he was being unsubmerged from the light. Once his muddied boots were fully above the light and firmly on the floor the light faded and his eyes opened. Upon seeing her where she scowled he smiled, “greetings, miss. How are you?” Barely noticing the man except for his dirty footwear that was dripping Rose sighed and ran a hand through her hair, “s**t, I just cleaned that floor.”