CFCF - Exercise 1 (Entry)

"Plenty of cars will get you killed out there," he spoke furtively, as if someone were watching us. And since he was a salesman, they probably were. "But this one will keep you alive. It looks like hell, doesn't it? Egg-shaped, like they used to make 'em in the 10s, and gaudy with those stripes." I remember thinking he wasn't doing a very good job, and yet there I stood, rapt. He talked without looking me in the eye, his clothes had a greyed quality, he was a faded man, and yet I very much wanted to listen. "But pretty in its way. Ugly as a two-eyed cyclops, my mother used to say." I leapt at this, "What was your mother like?" He didn't even flinch, he either wanted so badly to make the sale, or he was really just an open book, "The most beautiful woman alive. Tall, over six feet, floated, defied gravity. She got sick during the wars, my father fought and sent back money and spoils. She wore his training uniform around the house, kept his weekly poker game going, with all the ladies in their husbands' uniforms. It was quite a sight. My sister ran away when she was 13." He caught himself there, still looking away from me, up into the sky, watching egg-shaped uglies run in soft lines to high buildings. "But I suppose that doesn't have much to do with this. This'll keep you safe, no question about that. Couldn't break it with a wind o' bricks." I almost bought the thing right then and there, when he said wind o' bricks, but instead smiled and said I'd really like to think about it, and left the lot and walked home.

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