It's a story I might add to, an edit of something I've already posted on one of my Facebook notes, inspired by a font no less!
Here you go.
-THE MAN IN BLACK-
There was once a man who had a knack for blending into a crowd. Tall as he was, and thin, and insistent upon wearing black, he wove himself in seamlessly as you like into whatever group of people you put him in; or, rather, into their background. Among the colorful dresses and jaunty feathered hats of this particular peasant marketplace he caused no disturbance, regardless of the difference between he and them. He did not exactly flit from shadow to shadow; he was a shadow, one you would rather ignore than investigate. It was a gift the man had, a gift that would have to be inherent rather than learned, an instinct.
Well... a little dust on the black suit also helped. People paid so much less attention to you when they thought you were poor.
The man in black, whose name happened to be Zlatan for this particular mission, went along for quite a while unnoticed until he ducked into a stall almost as nondescript as himself. Inside he was vociferously accosted by the stall's owner as soon as he'd given the laid-out wares a paltry glance.
The owner was portly, his suspiciously raven-black hair slicked with olive oil and combed so finely you could see the gleaming tracks his morning toilet had left. In an obviously put-on French accent he exclaimed: "Excellent choice! C'est excellent, mon ami," and widened his greasy grin even further. "'Ow would you like..."
Zlatan wasted no time. "Drop the pantoime, Victor, I'm here on official business," he said, not bothering to raise his voice above the din from outside, or to meet the other man's eyes. "You're ordered by the Baron to close your shop for a short time in order to relay your report verbally."
Victor took a deep breath as though in protest. However, he was composed and still by the exhale, and by the time he took another breath Victor had become another person entirely. His hair still shined faux under the dim lights of the stall, but cunning was in his face where there had not been cunning before. His eyes narrowed, his back straightened just a bit; he cast a careful glance around before taking a ring of keys out of his pocket. He darted to the front of the store, with a speed belying his portliness, and drew a rusted steel mesh gate across the stall's opening - with a loud screech - before locking it.
Finally he drew a ragged, oil-stained grey curtain across the door, and beckoned for Zlatan to follow him to the back of the store and through a door that led to a back space which was common to all stalls in this marketplace. It was usually used as storage for wares, for a workroom where private accounts could be settled, and in some cases it even doubled for living quarters.
He entered a narrow corridor, Zlatan just behind him, whose walls were completely covered in stacks of cardboard boxes that stretched up to the ceiling. Presumably, they contained wares - probably shoes - but judging on the appraising eye Zlatan cast upon them, they contained something that might be...
More volatile, we might say.
Far more volatile than any innocent shop-owner's merchandise.
Those boxes contained the reason Zlatan had been sent here. After all was said and done, one thing must be understood about the man in black: his comings did not always bring on joy.
-TO BE CONTINUED-
No comments:
Post a Comment