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| C A R P E T N A P P I N G: a s h o r t s t o r y | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Far as I was concerned the man who leapt out the giant vase at Greater Houston Oriental Rugs had every reason to be enraged. He claimed to have been trapped in there for ages and ages. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| He said lots of things. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| When the vase exploded, I wasn't paying much attention. I was half asleep. I mean, it was too early to buy my daily cup of Starbucks - I was dreaming of lychee flavored frappacino for lunch (plain coffee is just too boring). Not to mention I was too busy pursuing my ever long mission to explore all the antique stores in the Greater Houston area. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Anyway the vase was an ugly thing even before it'd shattered. Or had been. Dusty and crisscrossed with faded blue lines (that had clearly been repainted as of recent) it looked nothing like the delicate Ming Chinas my mother-in-law collects. It sat, a looming center piece of the showroom where they kept the most expensive stack of rugs. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The situation changed so quickly; one minute he was just another unsatisfied customer like us, wearing an Indian style turban and ridiculously -- harmlessly -- long whiskers, yelling at the manager with pottery shards strewn about his feet. Don't touch the glass, don't touch the glass. Speaking incomprehensible words like '"flying" and "it's mine anyway." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Next minute he was fumbling with a gun. God knows where he found it. Teenagers? That hunting and sporting goods store on Third Street? An errant policeman? And then. Then we're all paying attention. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| "Alright now. Nobody move, Nobody move a muscle and we'll be out of here in a jiff. Hey hey, I said no sudden movements, now... really. No sudden movements! Do you want me to make your wishes come true? I will. Hpmh. Perfectly ridiculous. In my day we never had to pay for transportation. Fine, you folks. I have what I need. And unless you folks are so fortunate as to have royal blood, we shall not meet again." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| He waved us farewell with the pistol then, quick as wink, he'd turned the corner, footsteps crashing up the stairs. Officer, all I can say is it's a damn shame you weren't able to catch him. He couldn't have run far with his stolen carpet. No, that's the last I ever saw of him, officer. Listen to the words of this amateur antiquer, hm? Again, I repeat. He ran upstairs. And then you ran upstairs, but no one ever found him. Well anything except the windows, which someone had left wide open. Just the windows, the ten foot drop and despite what one would expect, no dead, desperately suicidal body lying on the pavement below. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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