Pulp Sudden Fiction

A man in his early 50s, not tall, not too short, average build, his once coal black hair now streaked with gray highights above his ears, stands outside the gates of his health club. He carries a backpack. Inside the backpack there is a plastic bag filled with sweaty shorts, a sweaty t-shirt and sweaty socks, all needing to be washed. On the outside of the backpack, the outline of a maple leaf can be still be seen, the stitches having recently been removed.

In the soft evening sunset, guests from the hotel across the street come out dressed for a night on the town and begin to queue up behind the man, all waiting for a taxi. The early evening call to prayer rings out in all directions, echoing through the glass and steel skyscrapers.

A taxi stops. The man gets in and tells the driver where to take him. The taxi driver, a smiling man with a long beard wears a Chitrali, a traditional Afghani wool hat. Although he is younger than his passenger, the leatheriness of his face and his long gray beard make him look many more years senior. The driver looks in the rearview mirror and asks the fiftyish man, "Where from?"

For the first time in too many years, the man does not say, "Canada." Instead he tells the driver, "USA mother fucker. You got a problem with that?"

The taxi driver says nothing. He continues to smile because he wants a tip. His seventh child, a daughter back home in Kabul whom he's only seen once in the past five years, needs new shoes. She will start school soon and enshillah, will be the first daughter in his family who will be able to read and write thanks to the country his asshole passenger comes from. Although his passenger is an asshole, the driver stills gives him his "barack", which is the word for "blessing" in Arabic, in his Qu'ran.

"Say a prayer for the common foot soldier/ Spare a thought for his back breaking work/Say a prayer for his wife and his children/Who burn the fires and who still till the earth"