The ice-cream truck

After walking for over a mile and a half over to the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge, I was a bit tired and wanted to eat something. Something that would fancy my craving for hunger and cool me too. That very instance, my eyes fell on this ice-cream truck. My happiness knew no bounds; it seemed liked the luckiest day of my life! I waddled my way to the truck, reaching for my wallet, only to realize... I was living on plastic money past few days, and had no bills or enough coins at my disposal.

The desire to get my chocolate ice-cream was slowly fading away in front of my eyes. The laziness of not withdrawing cash from the ATM was going to cost me, and cost me dear. Seemed liked I would not be able to fulfill my aspiration. Darkness dawned upon me and I fell back on the park bench, sad and dejected.

It’s not what the ice-cream can do for you, but what you can do to get an ice-cream. These great words echoed in my ears, the battle might be over, but the war had not yet been won. I sprang on my feet in quest for an ATM, in search of ‘Bank of America'. Battling through the park, dodging the playing kids and their dodge balls, I skimmed & scanned every nook and corner of every street and every possible red hooded shop to find the ATM


Within a few minutes I was standing in front of a main branch of ‘Bank of America’ at Church Street. It had over 3 ATMs. The place was deserted and bore a quite grim look, as though it had just been raided by the Pirates of the Caribbean. I flung open the door, caught hold of an ATM, swiped my card, punched my PIN **** and got 2 crisp bills of $20.

Grabbed my transaction receipt, rushed out, and crossed the streets, closely watching the 'WALK' signals for pedestrians. I ran back towards the ice-cream truck, being more familiar with the terrain now, I easily dodged the kids, and came to a screeching halt in front of the ice-cream truck.

Fate, fortune, good-luck, destiny, providence… nothing was on my side. The efforts of a fat man to eat an ice-cream were wasted. The trust in fairy god mother of ice-creams was lost forever. A tired man I was, who was tried and tested in tiring times, with the greed of laying his hands on a delicious cold soft ice-cream in a nicely baked waffle cone.

As I fell on my knees tired and broken, darkness surrounded me and this time for real… my dreams just melted away… And to rub salt on the wound the truck just stood there, with the windows closed. I sat there staring at the truck, in sheer anticipation, one day, the window will open and the ice-cream man will sell ice-cream again and I will get a bite of it…