June 2017 RCLAS Ezine, Wordplay at Work, Issue 46

“Okay,” I said slowly, scanning the train for witnesses. Oddly enough, a woman in a burka and a carrot haired character weren’t attracting any attention, whatsoever. The few passengers kept their noses in their smart phones. For a brief, hopeful moment, a ruddy Oiler’s fan stared straight at me with a scowl on his face, then burped and pulled out his phone.

“Okay, Laila,” I repeated. “What’s up?” I’d always wondered what a gun pressed against one’s ribs would feel like. Now I knew. It felt like looking down from the top of a very tall building and wanting to soil my pants.

“The next station is Commercial,” the automated announcement rattled from the speakers.

“We get off here,” said Laila. How quickly the two of us became an item.

Beware what you wish for, my mother used to say. Laila jabbed me hard and I obeyed.

She walked behind me down the Commercial Drive, refusing to answer any questions. It was starting to get dark. My expectation that a sight of me with my rusty mop of hair, followed by a female villain in a burka, would incite an alert in any onlooker proved to be futile. No one walking the Commercial Drive on this particular evening felt compelled to show a slightest sign of interest.

Just as I pondered ransoms and dynamite-lined vests, Laila directed me into a back alley clogged with industrial-sized garbage bins. The smell of spices and rotting vegetables told me that we were walking behind ethnic restaurants and grocery shops.

When we reached a dark square building not unlike many other dark square buildings we had passed, Laila pulled open a metal door and ordered me to get in and up a flight of squeaky stairs. The door slammed behind us with an ominous bang. The only light and noise came from an open door at the end of a hallway, an aggravated male voice adding to the general impression of doom.

The smell of cologne revealed a barbershop even before I saw the furniture and a colossal man sitting in one of the swivel chairs. Shades were drawn over the windows. The man yelled into a phone while holding an open sling-blade razor in his other hand. I’d only ever seen a sling blade razor in the movies where it was never used for shaving. A strange sensation came over my bowels.

By the look of his short white jacket, he was a barber. He conversed in a language of a particularly cruel variety. I admittedly am not an expert on languages,