Hello Big Mac

I was woken up at 5 AM, by my alarm clock from my normal bedroom. I always get up early so I can exercise before work and I just forgot to turn it off last night.

I was being lazy and lying there, not wanting to get up, but knowing I would have to soon anyway. As I opened my eyes, I noticed something wrong. Big Mac wasn't there.

I slowly got to my feet and looked around the room. Was it just a dream? Was I hallucinating?

I walked into my bedroom and walked over to my alarm and turned it off. "Big Macintosh! Where are you?!"

I decided to look downstairs for him, "Big Mac! You here?!". After checking the kitchen, gym, living room and dining room, the only place left on the ground floor was the garden.

Big Mac was outside sitting on the lawn, looking up at the sky. The sun was just starting to rise and Big Mac was just sitting there watching.

"Hey there, how'd you sleep?"

"Not great, just felt too... afraid to get a good night's sleep. Also a loud beepin noise started goin off, an ah couldn't get back ta sleep if ah tried."

"Haha, yeah I'm sorry about that, I just like to wake up early in the mornings."

"It's okay."

"Do you want some breakfast? Or something to drink?"

Big Mac paused for a second pondering this question, "Ah hadn't really thought bout it till now, but actually ah am mighty hungry.

"Right, what do you want?"

"Anything's fine."

I realised something, "Erm... actually I don't have any food in my house... I can go out and get you something from the shop. So is there anything in particular you'd like?"

"Why don't ya keep any food in yer house?"

"It's not important" I sort of blurted out.

"Alright... D'ya have apples here?"

"Sure, want anything with them? I could make you pancakes or something."

"That sounds nice"

-

After running to the store down the road and grabbing all the ingredients I would need I dashed back.

I was actually a pretty good cook, despite the fact that I rarely cooked for myself.

Big Mac walked around me in the kitchen while I cooked, looking round and eventually sitting in the leather armchair in the corner of the room.

"So what time do you usually wake up?"

"Usually pretty early to work on the farm."

"What do you normally have for breakfast?"

"Usually an apple or a few from our trees."

"Breakfast is ready." I put the pancakes on a plate, along with a few sliced up apples. I was about to grab a knife and fork for him when I remembered he probably couldn't use them. I just placed the plate in front of him and said "Eat up."

Big Mac took a large bite out of the side along with a few apple slices and asked me "Ain't you gonna eat anything?"

I picked up an apple and started to nibble at the side.

"You don't eat a lot do ya?"

"No not really."

"Why's that?" Big Mac asked sounding puzzled.

"I just... don't. I'm pretty used to it now." I put down the apple and idly peeled at the skin of the apple.

"You need ta eat more, ya look like Fleur De Lis."

"Is that so bad?"

"Eeyup, it's just not healthy."

"I'm fine."

Big Mac sighed and shruged. "If yer happy I guess... Say, do ya'll have anything like syrup here?"

I thought for a moment "Erm... maybe, let me check." I looked in all my cupboards looking for syrup. My kitchen was full of condiments, but very little food. Eventually I found the syrup behind some chilli flakes and next to the salt. "Here you go"

"Thanks. These are actually really good. How'd you learn to cook?"

"I just sort of needed something to distract myself, so learning things seemed like a good way to spend my time. I can also play guitar, piano, sketch, paint and I'm learning to code at the moment."

"Coding?"

"Not important."

-

At about 9 AM I called in sick to work. I just told them it was a stomach flu and it should be fine soon. However, I was in the middle of doing a massive heap of work, so I reckoned I should do some of it from home.

"Big Mac, are you okay?"

Big Mac was lying on a rug in my living room and he didn't say anything. "Big Mac?" Silence.

"I need to finish up some work, so what do you wanna do while I work on it? You could sit with me or watch some television or something." Big Mac wasn't saying anything.

"Are you alright?" Big Mac was shaking heavily and I could see tears running down the side of his face." I walked over to him.

"Are you okay? Do you need anything? Do you feel alright?" I kneeled next to him and started to absentmindedly stroke his mane. "What's wrong?"

"Ah jus... Ah ... Ah wanna..." Big Mac gave a dejected sigh, "Ah wanna go home." Big Mac's tears were flowing freely now.

As I sat next to him and tried to comfort him, I told him "I know you do, and I'm so sorry. I just don't know how to send you back, we'll try and figure it out,  but I just don't know." My eyes were starting to water. It wasn't my fault, but I just felt awful because I didn't know what to do. "I'm sorry" I whispered.

"It's... it's not your fault... you didn't bring me here."

"But I don't know how to help" I sobbed.

"Ah don't really know how ya could really." Big Mac

"I'm so... so sorry..."

We both sat there on the rug next to each other, huddled up each of us sobbing. I just felt bad for him, I felt happier because he was here, but I couldn't really be happy because he had been torn away from his world, along with his family, friends and everything he had.

After about half an hour had passed, we had both calmed down considerably and were just on the rug next to each other, lying quietly  doing nothing.

As happy as I would be to just sit there all day, I also didn't want to go insane at work, having to do today's work and tomorrows, so slowly I started to stand up.

"Mac, I'm really sorry but I do have to get some work done, so do you just wanna... watch television or something while I work?"

Big Mac was clearly still very upset, but was considerably calmer, but also not wanting to be alone he asked in a still clearly upset voice, "Television?"

"It's like..." Hmm... how to explain television... "It's like... you have movies where you come from right?

"Eeyup."

"Essentially that, but there are loads of channels you can switch between to watch different things"

"That sounds alright..."

"Do you wanna watch it down here, or up in my office?"

"With you"

"Follow me"

-

My office was a modern office, lots of glass, steel, chrome and leather. There's a television in the wall, in front of a leather sofa that Big Mac currently occupied.

I was working on my computer, a custom build desktop, mainly built for gaming, although it worked well for spreadsheets too.

I was working on some asset management and Big Mac was watching CSI. I was fairly sure he didn't understand what was going on most of the time, but he was still content to sit down and try to understand.

He regularly asked me questions about what was going on, and I was always glad to answer him. This work was boring, not too challenging but still boring, so answering his questions was something I was glad to do.

After CSI, Big Mac started to flip through channels again, and eventually landed on Sky Sports. It was showing a football game, Arsenal v Chelsea. I didn't really care for football, but Mac seemed to enjoy it.

I decided to take a break from my boring work and decided to go and sit with Mac.

I sat next to him on the sofa and started to idly stroke his mane without realising I was even doing it. Big Mac started to yawn and fall asleep, and eventually started to doze off with his head on my knee and I started to drift off as well.