12-23-2014, 09:26 AM
The car shifted and Enzo swayed accidentally into lady standing next to him. She lifted a brow and glared, and Enzo nodded apologetically. The underground was full today, so there wasn't much room to stand apart. Her perfume reminded him of Mireille's.
With a sigh, Enzo stuck a hand in one coat pocket and retrieved the crumpled card given to him by M. White. In this day and age, business cards of this kind were obsolete. That the store still used them bespoke to an era gone past. A web search said the store was around since the mid 1990's, which meant it was a product of the fall of the USSR.
'They say we will all soon be Soviets....',
he heard his mother sneer from the recesses of memory. Enzo had been one of the many accepting of the CCD's offer all those years ago. His mother had begrudgingly agreed, but she never liked it. Her grandparents remembered fighting the Russians in the Great Wars. How times changed.
The car rolled to a stop and many individuals filed off. Thankfully, the woman with the perfume was not one of them. "Bonne journée,"
he bid her farewell and left her behind.
Under the grand chandeliers of the metro station, he felt a tug on one sleeve. A graying man in a long trench coat stopped him. He spoke with a french accent. "You're in the Central Kremlin District of the Central Dominance. You could get a ticket, or worse, for that."
Enzo blinked. "For telling a woman to have a good day?"
The man nodded.
"Stay with English here. You'll attract attention to yourself otherwise. Attention you want to avoid,"
and with that, the man left by a different set of escalators than where Enzo was heading.
Enzo scratched his head sadly, but when he emerged on the surface, the looming presence of the G.U.M. department stores and the red walls of the kremlin fortress greeted him like a stoic reminder of his presence. How he yearned for the peaceful life on the beautiful Blue Coasts of the Riviera.
The store suggested by M. White was somewhere inside the monstrosity mall before him. In a working man's coat, hoodie, jeans and knit gloves, he already stood out. He pulled his knit winter hat from his head, stuffed it in a pocket, and scruffed the black hair beneath into some semblance of a style. He wondered for the tenth time if there was any other way, and went in, allowing himself to be swallowed by opulence.
With a sigh, Enzo stuck a hand in one coat pocket and retrieved the crumpled card given to him by M. White. In this day and age, business cards of this kind were obsolete. That the store still used them bespoke to an era gone past. A web search said the store was around since the mid 1990's, which meant it was a product of the fall of the USSR.
'They say we will all soon be Soviets....',
he heard his mother sneer from the recesses of memory. Enzo had been one of the many accepting of the CCD's offer all those years ago. His mother had begrudgingly agreed, but she never liked it. Her grandparents remembered fighting the Russians in the Great Wars. How times changed.
The car rolled to a stop and many individuals filed off. Thankfully, the woman with the perfume was not one of them. "Bonne journée,"
he bid her farewell and left her behind.
Under the grand chandeliers of the metro station, he felt a tug on one sleeve. A graying man in a long trench coat stopped him. He spoke with a french accent. "You're in the Central Kremlin District of the Central Dominance. You could get a ticket, or worse, for that."
Enzo blinked. "For telling a woman to have a good day?"
The man nodded.
"Stay with English here. You'll attract attention to yourself otherwise. Attention you want to avoid,"
and with that, the man left by a different set of escalators than where Enzo was heading.
Enzo scratched his head sadly, but when he emerged on the surface, the looming presence of the G.U.M. department stores and the red walls of the kremlin fortress greeted him like a stoic reminder of his presence. How he yearned for the peaceful life on the beautiful Blue Coasts of the Riviera.
The store suggested by M. White was somewhere inside the monstrosity mall before him. In a working man's coat, hoodie, jeans and knit gloves, he already stood out. He pulled his knit winter hat from his head, stuffed it in a pocket, and scruffed the black hair beneath into some semblance of a style. He wondered for the tenth time if there was any other way, and went in, allowing himself to be swallowed by opulence.