The Wooden Leg (standard:romance, 2752 words)
Author: bharat	Added: Feb 04 2003	Views/Reads: 3228/2292	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A story about a gentleman, working in Redhill London (in winter of '95) and creating magic of what dreams are made of. It is a story about Amanda and The Wooden Leg.

The Wooden Leg. 

Winter of '95 in London, short days and cold long nights. The gloomiest
of all winters and the coldest time of the year, but with the hope of 
the Christmas festivities the stores are lit up with fancy Christmas 
lights, the hanging jingle bells and fake Santa clauses to lure 
shoppers and con the children. 

I was stationed in Redhill, a small suburban town twenty miles south of
London and far away from home. Living there with a pensive thought that 
some day I would get back home and life was going to be fun again. I 
would then be lonely and not alone. The thought that kept me going was 
that I was to return back home end of January. That was just another 2 
months away, 8 weeks and 7 weekends. Well 6 weekends as I would be 
flying on the seventh one, and that does not count. 

Living on upper-bridge road was just a stone's throw away from the
Redhill town-centre and the Redhill railway station. It was also a 
stone's throw away (a stronger throw or a bigger stone) from one of the 
biggest Hire purchase and leasing companies in Europe. 

Like any town centre in any of the counties in Britain, the Redhill
town-centre was in the centre of the town with Sainsbury's Supermarket 
in the centre of the town centre and flower-de-lays and Dixons and the 
Dorothy littles and mother care making a garland around it. The place 
would bustle with activity at weekend with the towns-people making the 
weekly purchases, but morbid rest of the week. 

At this point, I am sure you are wondering about what's this got to do
with "The Wooden Leg". Well, let me get started. 

In the town-centre, between RoadRunners (The taxi company) and
Flower-de-lays (you guessed it!) was Magic Moments; I will refer it as 
MM further on. A small bakery with wall-to-wall glass windows and 
behind them, wall to wall of mouth-watering delicacies. Usually the 
left window as reserved for cakes, birthday, wedding, Christmas, 
anniversary etc. and the right window as for croissants, dough-nuts 
(the plain and cream filled), french sticks, baps and fantastic 
mouth-watering sandwiches. 

Every now and then the MMs' door would open, the chime on the top of the
door would jingle, with a constant flow of people going in and out with 
it aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies with light soft 
chocolate sauce spread across. A temptation hard to resist and the 
thought of calories would be as pronounced as warmth on a snowy night. 

I still remember.... It was a Tuesday the 12th of December. In another 3
days it would be weekend. It was about 5:30 PM but as dark as midnight 
and lightly snowing. I had left work and was leisurely strolling 
towards home like I had done for the last three months. I was never in 
a hurry, as I knew the television was not going to be sad and 
disappointed that I was late. 

It had been a routine to walk into Sainsbury's. The Cereals section was
next to the coke section at the far end of the store. Having filled 
basket with the things I needed (or so I thought) I went to the nearest 
checkout lane, picked up the all important TV guide paid the cashier 
and was back in the cold of the streets a littler more nearer to the 
place I called home. 

Most of the shops in Redhill close at about 5:30 and some of them like
Sainsbury's and MM are open till 8:00 PM. It has also been a routine to 
treat myself with the MM goodies every time I leave office before 
eight. 

Like always (? most of the time), the next stop was MM and as I opened
the door the chimes jingle and the warmth of the heater and the aroma 
of the pecan Danish knocked me off my senses for a moment. Amanda had 
just brought a freshly baked tray of pecan Danish. 

Wait a minute... I have not told you about Amanda. Amanda would always
be in the 4pm to 8pm shift at MMs. She looked like an angel in her 
white uniform with a small black id tag that spelled AMANDA in an 
18-point Arial font. The small bakers cap on her brown hair and a pink 
spotless apron (frankly, I cannot eat a piece of bread without dropping 


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