So I’m Beanie, I’m here, just another shrimp in this giant galaxy hustling for a living. No, not prostitution – I meant selling my time and youth for work just to put food in my belly.

Due to some family woes and a piss-ass Dad who is still having PMS over certain conflicts in opinions, I have been kicked out of the house indefinitely. And he had frozen all my bank accounts so I couldn’t withdraw squat.

I’m guessing Dad is just putting up a front and wanted to scare me. I mean, he has been threatening to kick me out for years, but couldn’t do it till now. I know he will cave in to his doting, fatherly instincts and call me back soon.

Even if it’s already been a week, I’m not anxious. He knows I could survive on a part time job in the meantime. He’s the one who can’t survive the ache knowing I’m suffering and toiling in grime and dirt for long.

So until he gives up being stubborn and drops his bullish front, I just need to hang on.

Having a place secured (I mean, who kicks their kids out but sends a flight-limo to take them to an apartment on the other side of town? See what I mean? –Dad is totally not serious about this), my top priority was food. Unlike some other alien species, a human like myself have the troublesome need to eat and drink regularly or we will shrivel up and die.

So I set out on it, and a complicated route of connections landed me my first job as a casual errand staff at a big ass fancy casino. It was way savvy and mysterious, hanging off the Asteroid belt in a secluded sector of the quadrant.

I was suspicious at first when the bookie gave me instructions via interstellar comm on how to get here, and where my end destination was. He (likely a Huamassur – from his scratchy tones, or could be a human with a bad case of sore throat) assured me that the establishment was such a far way off from regular Astrid cities so it could afford their customers the luxury of privacy. They served ‘premium’ and ‘exotic’ guests, he told me, so I had nothing to worry about.

That actually made me all the more worried, so I was still uncertain. But I was sold the moment he went on to say the salary was 10 squid per hour. How could I pass it up when similar menial jobs earned only half that amount?

That’s why I’m in a fancy, fine-dining Chinese restaurant in too baggy formal pants that was the only pants I could bargain for at the flea market, and an oversized shirt I just got from uniform requisite.

Beside me are thankfully, some other newbies, lined up along the narrow passageway alongside the kitchen and the rest of the back areas where the staff handled cooking and washing. Because I hated being the only clueless one, it made me feel oddly comforted knowing I wasn’t alone in learning the ropes of high-class dining service.

I don’t think the full time regular who eyed us felt the same appreciation as I did. He wore a scathing glance as he swept down the row of faces that screamed ‘please have mercy on us’, and could barely contain his disgust that the bookie sent him all noobs this time.

While he glared at us with a face that suggested he contemplated how to rough us up, I spent that time admiring how the brocade vest stretched over his wide chest, and how his long sleeves fitted his arms snugly, hinting of strong arms that would feel undoubtedly good around my lithe form.

“Okay, listen up,” he snapped sharply, violet dyed eyes looking dark and stormy, “War starts in about an hour or so, so in the meantime, I’ll be needing you with housekeeping.”

And by that, he meant tidying up the place, and preparing the necessary utensils. I was the last one down the line, waiting anxiously to be delegated a task, then was pleasantly surprised when he asked me if I knew how to wipe glass. As in, clean up drinking cups for cold drinks and wine. I nodded vigorously, delighted to be assigned such a simple job.

I hurried behind him who took long strides – because damn his longs were long! – and entered a tiny area flushed all round with metal counters, with a giant sink and a fridge wedged in between one wall, and segregated crates of glass stacked in a column on one side of the room.

“Get them spotless, then get them to the dining area. There’s a cabinet at station three – keep them there,” he instructed quickly, throwing a dish rag on the metal counter.

I nodded, smiling brightly, but it may have been too bright for him because he just scowled and exited.

I hummed happily to myself as I pushed up the too-long sleeves that were supposed to stop at the elbow, but fell over three-quarters on me. I gingerly picked up a glass from the crate that was left atop a counter and blinked, confused because it was obviously clean.

I glanced out the door, where the dishwashing zone was just opposite.

Two Octomus were behind a rack littered with a few dirty dishes, hips perched against giant sinks lining two sides of the walls.

“Uh, excuse me,” I called from across the corridor, gingerly interrupting them from their busy game play skiving on their VR.

“These cups,” I tapped the crates, “They have already been washed, haven’t they?”

They didn’t bother to pause their holographic game play. They just slid a quick gaze beneath their VR portable shades to find the intruder (me), and then grunted in their signature warble.

I took that as a yes, which made no sense. Why would he ask me to do a double job? Anyway, it wasn’t my place to question his decisions.

I continued my job of transferring nine glasses to a medium sized waiter’s tray that was left lying around. Then I gingerly ferried them out to the main corridor, where I realized I had no idea where ‘station three’ was. Instead, I found the guy who deployed my tasks.

The sergeant was at the front, scrunching brows over a stack of – papers? – Which was pretty old school. One would think a snazzy place that catered to the Atas  crowd of the galaxy, would be above writing on dead trees.

Putting that aside, I barely reached five feet of him, when he snapped to my direction, seemingly having radars or something. I was about to ask where the destination for these glasses were, words at the tip of my tongue, when his gaze dropped to them, followed by his brows. The deadly angle of his bushy brows silenced me, setting off an inward question on what I did wrong.

He closed the distance in a single stride, and picked up a glass, scrutinizing it, then glared at me through the cup, magnified violet eye holding me captive.

“Do you see this?”

“See what? It’s clean?” I defended, finding no dirt on the clear surface.

“This,” he pointed at an invisible spot he must be using infra-red or gamma vision contact lenses to see.

“I don’t see anything,” I maintained, riling him further.

“This!” he hissed, stabbing the pristine surface – or not.

I suddenly noticed what his index finger was pointing at – a blurry mark.

“So? It’s just a fingerprint.”

His eyes widened, glare turning incredulous.

“You need to look up lingopedia, because clearly, you don’t know what ‘spotless’ means.”

“Oh, well, you should have been specific.”

He sucked in a sharp breath, puffing up his broad shoulders. I shivered inwardly, seeing his muscles swell.

“Follow me!” he made a half roar.

I scampered after him, returning to the small room that looked even tinier with his massive aura screaming murder.

“You see this?” he picked up a bucket from beneath the basin that was about the size of a head.

“Fill it with water. Then, you get this glass, and dunk it in –” he instructed step by step as he demonstrated.

Then he took a rag off the counter and carefully stuffed it into the tall glass, swirling it round the cylindrical inner. Inside dried and spotless, he moved on to wipe the outer surface, then set it down on the service tray when he was done.

“There, easy?” he sounded a bit more levelled, handing me the rag, “Next time, ask  if you don’t know.”

I just tightened my lips into a fake smile, biting back a retort that I don’t know, what I don’t know.

He could have given proper instructions right on the get go instead of looking at me like an idiot.

He left at my smile, looking somewhat satisfied like he had done me a big favour. I stuck out a tongue at his back, security cameras be damned – in big establishments like this, a small prawn like him wouldn’t have access to security feed after all.