Built into the walls bookshelves were made to hold a large quantity. The brown smooth shelves were neatly polished covered the walls. Surrounded by shelves the room was closed in. The tiled floor was white and freshly waxed. It shined with the utmost clean sensation one would expect from a mental institution. Four small tables sat in the corners of the small rectangular room. A glass half-wall separates the room into two parts. On the see-through glass sits a bulky register.

Francisco built this shop from the ground up. He worked his fingers to the bone to keep the place up and running. A little simple wooden stool was where he sat behind the glass counter. He worked the register everyday of his life. This was his shop. He came to this country with a vision to do what he loved and make some money while he did it. What Francisco loved to do was make cheese. Now all these years later his locally-famous cheese was in the glass case and lined the walls on the shelves. His never-ending grin spread ear to ear as he sold his cheese to all his customers. He sat and waited as the faint signs of aging began to take their toll on him, grey hair tucked behind his ears and the locking of joints were present while making his many batches of his cheese.

Ding, a new face walks into the tiny shop. His eyes widened like he was placed into a room that had a cobra with a crossbow. The customer stumbled to the counter. Now, what I mean is the cobra knows how to use the crossbow. Like it is not just a room with a cobra and a crossbow. The cobra is very well-trained in the art of firing a crossbow. It is rather impressive. So the cobra can fire at any moment, terrifying as one can imagine. Can you wrap your head around how a cobra could do that? Because, like I said, it is not a situation where the cobra is in the room and the stranger is placed there to fight the cobra and there is a crossbow that he can use. The cobra has the crossbow and can use it. Of course the crossbow has more than one arrow. The cobra is not an idiot he (or she I can never tell with the snaky bodies. How do you tell if one is a male or a female? Weird.) has more than one arrow and can reload. Great, we are both on the same page.

“Can I help you?” Francisco asked. The stranger looked like he had traveled to hell and back. His hair was wet and mangled, and he used the counter to prop himself up in a sort of standing position, gently shaking his body from absolutely no reason.

“I… I don’t… I don’t think so… Ah-Choo!” the stranger sneezed. At the very moment that the sneezed all the cheese in the building transformed. Little fury bodies exploded off the walls. As the rodents took to the floor to run around, like the scene in Rataouille. “Sorry” the stranger left as quickly as he came. The aging cheese shop owner’s mouth hit the floor. The broken man stumbled into the rain. A man with no place in this world. In the months afterwards, “Francisco’s Cheese Heaven” had changed its name to “Gerbil World.” Limping in the rain he talks to himself and dragging his pained foot through the puddles of the city streets. That lone strange customer would go on to use his gift for good as the legendary superhero known as Gerbil Man.

“They’re Hamsters,” he says softly as he walks away in the rain.