It was one of those uphill dreams: a road so steep, it was vertical.
Zeina was in the driver’s seat, in a little red car that did not belong to her. She had to keep moving or she would lose momentum and fall. She tried to accelerate, but the car jolted and spluttered, struggling to gain thrust.
When she awoke in fright, Zeina counselled herself not to be superstitious about it. But hours later, as she stood in the flooded kitchen of her father’s restaurant, the dream became a sign; an unnerving, crushing confirmation that she had a momentous task ahead of her.
She could no longer deny that her father’s restaurant was falling apart – and she was taking it very personally. Every crack in the painted walls, every squeak of the floorboards, every minor issue that threatened to become major signalled a gloriously expensive refurbishment.
Efforts that should have been made years ago, but Zeina’s father, Nasser, had refused even to dispose of the broken neon sign above the front window.
By the end of its time, it had simply lit up as ‘Casa lanca’. They had long ago stopped switching it on. It frustrated Zeina. Such an easy fix. But whenever she had asked Nasser to repair it, he would ignore her, quick to switch gears and talk about the next- door neighbour’s garbage bins sitting too close to the entrance of the restaurant.
It was four thirty in the afternoon, and service was scheduled to begin in an hour and a half. But instead of prepping, everyone’s attention was on the flood. A torrent of water from a busted pipe, which Zeina and Amir, Nasser’s only employed cook, had managed to stem. The damage was clear: a small lake in the kitchen that meant every step was followed by a gentle splash.
Zeina hadn’t yet assessed the impact on the equipment – as outdated as Casa lanca – but the containers and boxes of produce for the next few days were not spoiled…
Heardle is a music-based game that tests your knowledge by guessing song titles based on their openings. It is a great tool for discovering new music and revisiting old favorites. The heardle is a game that combines music and trivia in a fun and challenging way. You can play it online for free and test your knowledge of songs from different genres and eras. The game is simple: you listen to the first few seconds of a song and try to guess its title and artist. You have six tries to get it right, and each time you get a longer snippet of the song. If you love music and puzzles, you will enjoy Heardle.