It was an old trick. Stephen had been using it for years – ever since he moved to the city. He wasn’t the first person to reinvent himself and all those years of high school French finally had a purpose. Ignorance is a great defence when presented in the context of a hapless tourist.
He continued staring blankly at the museum guard and shrugged apologetically. It’s a finely balanced play, appearing to apologize but being clear you don’t understand what the problem is. Stephen reached into his messenger bag. He’d had the foresight to pick up a floor plan in French and now offered it up to the guard. The boy sized man in the ill-fitting uniform jacket waved off the pamphlet impatiently. He kept shaking his head while crooking his forefinger repeatedly over an invisible shutter button.
“Ah flash, no.” Stephen made it simultaneously a statement and a question, nodding his understanding as he prepared to move on. He’d already got the shot he didn’t need to torment the man further.
8 min on April 1, 2014 @ New York Public Library, Fifth Ave.
Prompt from Histoire d’une Fille de Ferme by Guy Maupassant
0 Comments