On a sunny day in Persia, perhaps
NEW OUTSIDERS } In the shop, he came across a glass box. It took him sometime to make out the square and rectangle metal boxes placed perfectly into their fitting spaces in the holding frames. They were all lighters. Zippo.
When he was told the price went above one thousand two hundred rupees, he suddenly had a vision: about the day he’s walking into a busy, glittering Egyptian hotel somewhere in a Persian town, stepping in from the sun, wearing a coffee brown thin tweed jacket with a white filterless cigarette gummed by his lips’ wet grip, with his silver Zippo weighing in the jacket pocket, him feeling the weight against his hip and then slowly picking it out and flipping open its steely lid and the tongue of the flame that sways up and long out of the lighter now licking away his cigarette and the silk shawl of the danseuse who just breezed by so close to him and then the entire hotel itself. He is now standing in a hotel, gutted down.
He put back the silver Zippo back on the rack with a smile. The shop owner had a smirk. “Quite a price to pay, eh?”, the man asked. He nodded and slowly walked out of the shop.
‘He put back the silver Zippo back on the rack with a smile. The shop owner had a smirk. “Quite a price to pay, eh?”, the man asked. He nodded and slowly walked out of the shop.’
Would love to know what the man in the tweed was thinking when he was asked that by the shopkeeper….
Interesting piece Josh! though you’ve mentioned Egypt, Persia and silken shawl, dancers…I still hear the background music of the old western…’Good, Bad and the Ugly’ Each time i read this piece. Tried reading several times to get at least the belly dancer’s persian music going…it’s still the ‘Western’ thats playing louder…Wierd! wonder why?