The Rock is broken
By Terrence Oblong
Sun, 11 Sep 2016
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9 comments
Mohammed watched the girl snap the stick of rock in half, then present him with the two broken pieces.
“This rock is broken,” the girl said.
“Yes,” Mohammed said, “I saw you break it.”
“No silly,” the girl said. “It’s broken in the middle.” She’s pointed earnestly at the place where she’d snapped the rock.
“Yes, that’s where you broke it,” Mohammed started to say, then stopped, mid-word, when he realised what she meant. “No words,” he said.
“That’s right,” the girl said. “No words.”
Mohammed picked the rock up and inspected it. Aside from the external coloured pattern, the rock was plain white all the way through. The promised centrepiece of ‘I love Brighton’ was nowhere to be seen.
Mohammed shrugged. This sort of thing happens all the time in the rock business. “Here, have another stick,” he said, and passed the girl an exact replacement.
The girl immediately snapped the rock and scrutinised the centre.
“Still broke,” she said.
Mohammed inspected the sticky remnants. She was right, no message there, just empty white candy. Sugar coated nothing. This meant that the whole batch must be faulty.
“I’ll give you your money back,” he said. You can keep the rock, it’ll still taste nice, even without the words.”
The girl took the money and left, saying nothing, clutching the broken rock in the way you clutch rubbish en route to a bin.
It had happened before, of course, in the thirty, no what was it now, nearly forty years he’d been running the rock shop, he’d seen every faulty batch you could imagine. ‘Labour Through and Through’ in the middle of a Tory Blue rock specially commissioned for the Conservative Party Conference, and worse, rude messages, a disgruntled rock factory employee announcing his resignation in a manner that would never be forgotten.
Not by Mohammed at least, he remembered the little girl he’d sold one of the doctored sticks to. “What are fuck buttons?” she’d asked him.
“I’m afraid we’re fresh out of fuck buttons,” he’d answered calmly, “We have some chocolate buttons if you’d like them.”
But it wasn’t just one batch, not this time, it was every flavour, every colour, every kind. He spent the worst morning of his life as every customer he had stormed back to the shop to complain that the rock was empty.
He tried each of the sticks in turn, but they were all the same. All empty, candied white nothing. He’d have to throw them all away.
He closed the shop at lunchtime after a particularly angry customer suddenly started hurling abuse at him, telling him he should “Go back where you come from.” A few months before he’d have been shocked, but since Brexit, he’s started hearing these things again. Someone even used the P word once, a few weeks’ ago, something he thought had been lost to history.
There was no point staying open anyway, he’d have to completely restock. Something must have gone wrong at the factory, he’d have to clear the shop and replace everything.
It was a strange career he’d chosen you might think, but he enjoyed it. It gave him a sense of purpose, an identity. He was the rock-seller, the candy-man. He’d been selling rock since he was 15, he lied about his age to get the job, he’d run away from home, left school, headed for the coast, somewhere he wasn’t known.
He had moved to the UK when he was six years old. He hadn’t spoken any English at all when he arrived, so he’d learnt the hard way, standing out at school as an immigrant, the foreigner, the one who couldn’t speak properly. No matter how hard he tried to blend in he always stood out, mainly because he was the only one trying to blend in. It was harsh, growing up in late 60s, early 70s Britain, where racism still flourished.
Life in the rock shop was a joy compared to school. Nobody cared that he looked different, that he had an accent, they just wanted his rock. He worked hard, long hours, at first to get money to live. Eventually he saved enough to buy his own rock shop, since when he’d worked harder than ever. Staff were expensive, so he mostly ran the store himself, with occasional helpers.
In all that time, in all those years, he’d never experienced a time like this. Britain had become a place he loved, a place he belonged, his home. Part of who he was.
But that had all changed. He no longer felt secure here, no longer felt welcomed by anyone he met, even though he’d lived here all his life people treated him like a stranger, an invader.. Maybe it was time to shut the shop, sell up. Maybe he should go back where he came from. He wouldn’t be wanted there, he’d been gone too long, there was nothing left of the place he’d left, not one person, one building. But still - he looked at the snapped, hollow sticks of sticky, coloured rubbish to which he’d dedicated his life. There was nothing for him there.
He was living on a rock that was broken, adrift from the world, the candy sweet promises of a better life that had lured his parents here all those years ago were, he realised, empty and hollow. When you looked in the middle there was no substance, just candied coloured nothing. Running through its centre was a pure white ignorance and intolerance.
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Comments
Pick of the Day
A brilliant metaphor for what can only be described as a tragic situation.
An easy Pick of the Day.
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Photo credit: http://tinyurl.com/zkkc7xu
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an original idea, well
an original idea, well written, and very pertinent in these changing times.
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I wonder what that foreginer
I wonder what that foreginer the other terence oblong would have thought of this. My guess is he's be searching for the metaphor but I'm well pleased with terrence. Need to introduce a bit more competition in these straightend times.
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Love this, so poignant and
Permalink Submitted by love_writing on
Love this, so poignant and thought-provoking. Using the metaphor of rock is genius.
love_writing
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