A few places popped up in the search results. Thai Green Village, Suko Thai, Thai Ocha, and an odd one at the top of the list, Tuff Luv Restaurant. He had eaten at all of the restaurants but the Tuff Luv spot. He knew the old abandoned Tuff Luv baby food factory, but he didn't know there was a restaurant there now. Lime grew up in the area when the factory still manufactured baby food. He grew up eating the stuff. In fact, when Lime was little, Tuff Luv was all his parents fed him.
Travis and Lime used to take their BMX bikes out to the factory. It was a far ride from their houses, but it was worth the trip for the dirt mounds. They would ride around until the custodian would come out in a golf cart, smoking cigarettes, yelling at them to get the fuck out. Then they would move to the other side of the factory and do it all over. Then one day the entire property had a tall barbed wire fence put up around it.
He tapped the restaurant reviews, and sure enough, the Tuff Luv Restaurant was open for business and raking in decent reviews.
Before the moth touches the bulb there is an electromagnetic rising. Before the damp wings ignite, electrify, and sizzle, the space between them and the neon spattered cage rushes out beyond itself. The air contracts infinitely fast in an infinitely tighter space. The ultra-violet light becomes bigger than the sun. Everything is vastness and vibration. Lime pendulated in and out of that space until he was almost entirely engulfed in the pulsing pudding of atoms and light. He eventually reached stasis, pushed equally forwards and equally backwards.
They moved around him making elegant wakes that rippled in the humming air and fluttered outward into nothingness. They received revitalizing force from the echoing glow around them. It was no longer green like everything had been that night. No green curry, no green nothing. Beams of something conjugated the air. It was colorless and simultaneously colorful. It was bright and dark.
The others had auras that communicated to him that they would live forever, but there was a vast pit in the parts of their souls, right where stomachs should be. Those parts were gone forever in exchange for endless health. They looked, sounded, and acted like angels. However, they were all dicks. Jerks. Assholes. Shit heads.
But Lime saw them as alive and well. What did it matter if you were a dick, but you, your family, and your dog would be guaranteed long, healthy lives.
With each step, her stilettos kissed the stage with a loud knock. It was out of rhythm with the bass line; she superimposed herself over the music, steps cadenced for the audience's lustful eyes, brushed over the hourglass textured bass thrums. Light glanced off the bright red of her stilettos, they matched her strawberry lips. She didn't just look amazing; each movement, down to the smallest, inspired a wave of hope in your chest. That to watch her dance -- maybe some of the beauty stays with you.
Lime's feet were burning down through his shoe's soles, down into the oak stage. His head steamed. If you had some wontons, you could pop the top of his head, stash the wontons in there, wait 12 minutes -- 15 if the wontons are frozen -- pop the top back up, pull them wontons out, and have yourself a delicious snack. You’d just need some sauce.
"Chill out, relax," Babe said, softly poking Lime in the chest, pushing him into the back of his chair. She swayed back and raised her arms so her elbows were pointed out to either side and her hands were in front of her face. She started loosening the fingers of one glove.
