“Sorry,” Jennie’s uncle apologized as another customer tried to enter the restaurant, “we are closed for special event tonight,” he closed the glass doors, turned the knob to lock, and stared sadly at the departing customer, “this better be worth it, we are losing quite a few customers tonight.”

“It will be on all of us, all right,” his older sister chimed in, “now sit down, food’s getting cold.”

Looking around the table, Jennie observed her family members’ behavior, she liked to observe people because, somehow, people’s facial expressions and behavior are fascinating to her. She wondered if those customer knew it was the Lunar New Year today and whether they had come to the restaurant for the sake of celebrating this momentous occasion or for something else.

“Jennie,” her mother’s voice snapped her back to reality, “eat!”

Jennie nodded and as her mother piled food onto her plate, she couldn’t but feel a little sad for those people, they had come so far to be turned down at the door, simply because the owner had chosen to close the restaurant for a family gathering.

Written for Six Sentence Story. The prompt is “Close”.