The Walk: 1000 Post Cards

walk2

After what felt like five, looked like three and turned out to be about one and a half kilometers, I find a shop. Not the shop, a shop. Finnish, being what it is, does not read well to the foreign eye.

“Arkoomapahjeknogijluh?” I read aloud from the sign.

Hoping it means convenience store, I approach.

A man with a mullet and two eyes intent on escaping each other each, opens the door.

“Hello” he says to my backwards hat and look of bewilderment. I smile.

“Hi–uh–sorry, Is this the shop?”

“Yes” he says. He motions for me to follow.

It is not a shop. It is a house wearing a shop on its walls.

“We have one-thousand post cards, ” he says, motioning to the wall. I look around, I don’t count, yet I agree. He takes me deeper, onwards, into the store–not store. I start to get nervous. He takes me into a back room. There are art supplies everywhere.

“Wow” I say, feeling wary, ready to leave. I turn. A large woman blocks the door. She smiles, her bottom row of teeth are black.

“Hello,” she says.

“Hi,” I tell her.

“Did you see we have one-thousand post cards?” she says.

I smile. I turn to the man. He is nodding

“Mhm. Yes. Wow,” I say, weakly. The man moves her aside.

“Come,” he says to me.

Like a good boy, I do.

To a deeper room we go. There are statuettes and hand-made pins. The woman follows us; she blocks the door. She is wearing a green shirt.

“You see,” he says.

“I see” I say, noting any weapon-worthy objects and realizing slowly that these people could tie me up, force feed me one-thousand post cards, and leave me in the basement to rot without anyone having a clue.

I smile.

I start nodding and looking around the room. They watch me. Not wanting to be rude, I just keep nodding.

Finally, I buck up the courage to say something. “Do you know where the food store is?”

They look at each other. Then, the man sighs.

“Half kilometer,” he says and starts walking towards the front door. Post cards line the hall. He waves to them, a sad wave.

“One-thousand post cards” he says wistfully.

I smile empathetically, I hope.

Once we hit an open room, I dance around him and make a b-line for the door.

“Nice, nice,” I say, nodding at the walls as I make my escape.

I get back to the road and continue my walk.

…TO BE CONTINUED

 

26 replies to “The Walk: 1000 Post Cards”

    1. I know. You can’t avoid them haha. And thank you. It is just a short one. Tomorrow will be the last in this series. I just had an amusing walk that contained too much to tell all at once.

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      1. Word! Also enjoying reading about your interactions in a foreign country, being in one myself right now. The experience definitely generates some good story material. Keep it up!

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  3. Both yesterday and today nailed it. I loved the descriptions of the behaviors of the shop keepers. My favorite thing is ambiguity. I’m unsure whether the narrator is skittish and paranoid or whether there was something sinister with the man and woman. And I loved that. I prefer to think he made a narrow escape and there was more unpleasantness in store (pun intended) than just lame post cards. Thank you!

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  5. uhhh, very interessting story! I agree with fitfulfearfulphantasmal comment, beyond the fact, that I think, that the postcards are the most valuable thing, that this weired couple has. Very artfull, Flash! I hope the wistful man had just a bad day….

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  6. well, Penny gave me some notes to think over my understanding….kow I have to delete my exception from yesterday…the postcards are really lame,..I misunderstood the whole scene…hahaha

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    1. I came back here, Flash….
      Your stories are really tricky! I always think I have a suitable interpretation for me to decide after a while that it must be quite different ….. hmm with this story I am still at the riddle, but I think I am now clear with the Postcards. It does not really matter if they are boring or great, the more crucial is the fact that you have no horror scenes in the history, I think …..

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