After waiting a week or so for my little brother to finish this book so I can start is, at last I got a chance to read it, and I had the very best time indeed. It was just what I expected a Neil Gaiman's book to be. I was sitting on my desk when I started reading, and even though I don't really like reading on my desk, I didn't get up in the middle of the book to go somewhere else. In fact, I knew I was sitting on an uncomfortable chair (at least for reading), and then I started, and finished reading the book, and that was when I remembered I usually don't enjoy sitting there. I was smiling in excitement the whole time. And I appreciate every second of it after a day of doing usual boring things.
And now that I think about it, I remember my own dad, telling us a story with the same vibe as "Fortunately, the Milk". A story he had heard from his father, and I would like to think my grandpa's heard it from his father before that, but I don't think my family can be that cool and dramatic.
My dad's story is called "the Watermelon Story". Because it's about a watermelon. A watermelon a dad buys for his children. they - Dad and his children - are all sitting together and they think they're about to eat the watermelon, but when dad starts to cut the watermelon, the weird thing happens.
His knife falls off and gets lost in the watermelon. They look at each other, wondering what they should do now, wondering how to eat their watermelon. Eventually, dad says he's going to go in the watermelon. He swears that he won't be back without it.
And he will go in the watermelon, where there is a city, a big city, and dad looks everywhere in this city for his missing knife. After a long time of searching, he feels tired. He finds a beautiful tree near a river, and he lies under its shadow, and he's nearly fallen asleep, but he hears two birds on the tree, talking to each other about this poor new man who people say has come down here to look for his knife...
And here is where dad would tell us it's enough for tonight. We had a tiny version of One Thousand And One Nights in our home. Every night he told us a little more about poor dad's adventures in Watermelon City, and we loved it, we loved it, we loved it.
Today I felt the same powerful amount of love in me and I absolutely see it as a blessing. Thank you Mr. Gaiman.
