The sun shone down...

Onto the few thousand tourists that had paid to visit the Zoo that day. And it also shone down on me, even though I hadn't paid the entry price.

I'd got the day off of work, and had nothing better to do, so I'd decided to take a wander around the Zoo. I didn't know if She was going to be working but She wasn't the only person I got on with at work. Sure, She was the only one I'd have moved mountains for but seeing Her wasn't my sole reason to pop in...

I wandered through the entrance hall to the Zoo, waved a hello to whatever halfwit was on duty and walked towards the exit door. Much to the disgust of people who were queuing patiently with their screaming kids. "Fucking tourists." I thought, as one imbecile in the queue asked why I hadn't paid to get in. The halfwit on duty behind the cash desk informed the imbecile that I was staff and didn't have to pay to get in. "I'll need to get a job here." He said.
"I'm sure there's a spare cage for you." I said, loud enough so that he heard it and continued on my way.

I trudged up the hill, made my way to the Members House and slid in through the back door that lead into the staff canteen. The usual strange smell was emanating from the kitchen so I popped my head around the door and said hi to it. It was Alex, the chef.

"How goes it Alex?" I asked.
"I thought you were off today?" He inquired, as he removed his head from the fridge. Not that he kept his head in the fridge you understand, Alex may have been King of the weirdo's but he wasn't that talented when it came to body part removal/restoration.
"I am." I answered. "I only came in so that I could, once more, experience the joys and delights that is your cooking." I continued with just a hint of sarcasm.
"Did you watch WWF last night?" He asked.

I decided that it was best to keep on Alex's side as he had a more insane look in his eyes than usual. "I watched a wee bit in between the motorcycle racing on Eurosport." I answered. Alex was a hardcore wrestling fan who was constantly talking about it and, on one occasion, even went as far as choke slamming one of the staff because he had made the mistake of asking if Alex had washed his hands before beginning cooking.

Alex's eyebrows wiggled as if to show he knew something I didn't. "Wait 'til you see what I've got." He said, bending down to reach into the pocket of his jacket that had been thrown under the service counter. "It's too cool." He said.

I wondered if this was another one of those days when Alex had decided it was a good idea to bring in one of his gun collection but held my nerve. I knew Alex too well to think that he'd intentionally do my harm. Unintentionally, I wasn't so sure. And then he showed me what he had in his jacket.

I jumped backwards, skidding on the tiled floor of the kitchen and clattered against the doorway. "Holy fucking Jesus! You could have had my fucking eye out with that bastard!" I said, watching the long sharp edge of a hunting knife flash before me. It had at least nine inches of blade and three inches of ivory as a handle. The back of the knife had a serrated edge that looked like you could cut down a tree with it.

Alex laughed and flicked the knife over in the air and caught the blade as though he'd done so before a million times. Which, I knew, he had. The scars on his hand were proof. I took a hold of the knife and felt it's weight.

"Holy shit man, if you don't manage to stab the polar bear to death with that you could always beat the fucker to death. Where on God's green and blue did you get that from?" I said, keeping going the running joke that we had between us. The running joke about him wanting a fight to the death against the polar bear. At least I think it was a joke. I hoped to god that it was as Alex and I had the same kind of mind when we were drinking. The dangerous kind. The kind that didn't really register that it might be just a tad silly to go shooting at the Braids after necking a bottle of scotch each.

"My brother in law brought it back for me from Morocco." He said. I decided not to ask anything more as Alex may only have acted like a madman but I'd met his brother in law and knew he wasn't as together as Alex was. A couple of months previously Alex, his brother in law and I had went camping a few miles outside Penicuik and I'd watched in drunken amazement as he smashed empty whisky bottles against his head and took punch after punch from Alex. Just for fun...

"It's a beauty man, pity it's a show knife." I said, as I ran my thumb over the edge of the blade to show him the lack of a sharp edge. "I know. That's why I borrowed the steel and the oilstone from the big kitchen. You're going to sharpen it for me." He said, as I handed the knife back to him and he stuffed it back into his jacket.

"I'm what?" I asked.
"I want you to put an edge on it for me. I'm shit at sharpening knives and you do all the knives for the chefs upstairs. I figured you could do this one." He said.
"If I sharpen that fucking thing you're likely to cut your legs off just playing with the bugger." I said. He promised that he wasn't going to use it for anything other than skinning rabbits that he regularly went shooting for. "Ok man, I'll do it tomorrow." I said.

I told Alex I'd see him later and popped upstairs to see Louise. Lou was the office junior and she was someone I got on well with. I stopped by the office and spoke to Lou for a while about trivial matters and she asked me if I had came in to see her. Or Her.
"I don't know if she's in today." I said.
"That'd be a first. You've checked the rota everyday for the last month just to see if she's going to be working or not. I know, I've seen you, you're like a lovesick kid. It's the talk of the department. Shit, you've been in every day she's been in regardless of whether or not you've been working." She said.
"Jealous?" I asked.
"Fuck off." Lou said smiling.
"I think you are." I said.
"No, I mean fuck off, the boss is on his way in." She said.

I took the hint and told her I'd see her later on. "I'll get you at lunchtime." Lou said as I walked out of the front door of the members house. "She's in kiosk two!" Lou shouted as the door was closing behind me. And it was kinda nice that she did, as I'd have quite a walk ahead of me trailing around the kiosks trying to find Her. I headed up the hill past the Rhino enclosure and waved a hello to the keeper that was busy trying to get the rhino to come out of it's pen and not be gored to death in the process.

I walked along the pavement towards kiosk 2 and saw that there was a lengthy queue of parents and children screaming at each other. Usually it was something along the lines of "Want that one; Not getting that one; Want that one; Not getting that one; Want that one wahhhh; Stop making a scene; Waaaaaaant thaaaaaat one! Ok, but don't ask me for anything later on.

I pushed open the door of the kiosk and quickly slipped inside before a kid thought it was a door to a magical kingdom where sweets and crisps were free and wandered in behind me. As several had on previous occasions.

I saw Her standing looking flustered and stressed out at the baying horde of kids and parents and smiled when She turned around and looked at me with desperation in her beautiful eyes. "Oh, jaysus, save me!" She said in that accent of Hers that turned me to jelly. "I can't handle this, oh Jaysus." She continued to plead.

After about fifteen minutes we managed to get rid of all the customers by working together. I'd had more experience in the kiosks than She had and had the technique down to a tee. Sell to the parents through the kids. Wave high priced ice cream and sweets and watch the parents cave in to the screams of their children quicker than they would if the local Catholic Priest was fisting them in the pulpit of the church, during Sunday mass. The queue gone, I opened the fridge and grabbed two cans of Pepsi. I handed one to Her as I opened the other one and took a large drink.
"Hey you, I'm responsible for the stock in here. If I'm two cans short I'll have to pay." She said.
"Then don't mark the stock down as short. Just fill in the stock as though you had two more cans than you actually do, everyone does it." I said, looking at her and smiling.

I hung around shooting the breeze about nothing in particular for an hour or so and helping out when a queue formed. As I stood, or sat as the case may be, chatting about things we had in common; She liked art house Movies, I'd seen Back to the Future 26 times; She liked to read classical literature, I'd read almost every Doctor Who book in existence thanks to my brother being a mad mentalist when it came to all things Whovian.

Listening to Her tell me about all that She wanted in life I realised something. I realised that I wanted to know what drove Her. What made Her want to fill her life with wondrous experiences when all I really wanted out of life was to make her smile. Smile that wonderful smile. Laugh that lovely laugh. What made Her sparkle so? And I wanted to spend the rest of my life learning the answers to those questions.

When Chris came to give Her her lunch break I walked down to the staff canteen and hung around chatting with Alex while she ate her lunch. The rest of the staff on duty that day stood chatting and slagging each other off and I would join in the banter whenever I felt it was deserved. After Her lunch was finished and we'd had a sat on the grass in the suntrap that was the members gardens I walked Her back to Her kiosk and told her I hoped we could spend more time together. And then She broke my heart.

"You know I've got a boyfriend Ross." She said, smashing my heart into atoms and scattering them across the universe.