The Smell of the Sweater

Pedro was sipping a latte in the window of Saint Aaron’s coffee shop. Saint Aaron’s sat on the only hill in Amsterdam, and walking up it you couldn’t tell. But when you sat in the third floor window of Saint Aaron’s you could see over the façades of the houses in front - even though they all have a regulated and standardized height - as I say: because of the hill. Pedro sipped his latte over the view of Amsterdam’s rooftops. The window stretched from the floor to the ceiling. So from where he sat his feet looked like they were dangling over the canal which split the street in two.

A white foam sat on his upper lip, he didn’t notice until he saw himself in the reflection of his phone screen. Then laughed a little and thought he looked like his dad in Spain. A girl was sat at the other end of the window, a spliff between her fingers, and she turned to look at him when he laughed. She was pretty, blonde, probably Dutch, so he got embarrassed and blushed. But with dull eyes she gave him a flat smile, like she was saying ‘I don’t care,’ and turned back to contemplate the sky.

Pedro frowned, then checked the three solid walls of the coffee shop for a clock. There wasn’t one but when he looked over Amsterdam again he saw a clock built into one of the facades. He had carried (balanced) his latte up the two flights of stairs only an hour ago, it was only three, and seeing this he frowned again, then frowned into his cup as he inspected the thin foamy bubbles at the bottom. He tapped the top of the table, then slapped his thighs a little. The Dutch girl looked over at him again, this time with knotted eyebrows. He tried to smile at her but she turned away and Pedro blushed, his face went so red that he decided to leave the room.

But he hadn’t decided what to do. So, halfway down the stairs he stopped and bit his lip and tried to decide what to do for the six hours he had before he would be dropping in on a friends birthday party. His mind got lost and he started thinking about the girl upstairs and he bland smile and her spliff. Then he did a sort of false-start, taking a step then retracting it immediately, forgetting and re-remembering that he had stopped to give himself the stillness to think. Pedro sat down on the closest step. What should he do? An attempt to decide just led his mind into a tangent again, and eventually back onto the girl who sat in the room up those six steps behind him. He thought about her bland smile, telling himself that she was pretty ugly anyways, then he thought about her spliff. She’s right, Pedro realized, something smoky and a little bit herby to put my head at ease would help me decide. So he got off the stair and headed to the counter on the ground floor.

‘Hi what can I get you?’ Another tall blonde Dutch girl asked him with a wide smile, after Pedro had pushed himself through the heavy curtains, installed to stop the smell and the smoke, at the bottom of the stairs. Pedro squinted at the chalk lines on the blackboard. It was all in Dutch, he only knew Spanish and a little English. Why wasn’t it in English, he thought, that’s what all the tourists can read! Anyway, he understood what was said by the value of the Euro next to it. In other coffee shops, ones intelligent enough to label their products in English, Pedro’s favorite strand was always ten euros for two pre-rolled spliffs. So, it only made sense that the only product labelled as five euros was just a single spliff of his favorite strand. Because ten euros for two spliffs divided by two is five euros for one spliff, as the math went inside Pedro’s head.

‘Mister?’

Pedro stared at her with his mouth open, licked his top lip, then closed his mouth and pointed to the blackboard and showed her five fingers on his other hand. The girl looked at him with her mouth agape too, her eyebrows fighting back the urge to frown. Until she looked back at the board and realized what the man with the macho moustache meant.

‘Five euros please, Mister.’ She swapped the five euro note in his palm for a spliff packaged in a little paper test-tube wrapped with the logo and colors of Saint Aaron’s.

Pedro nodded to the girl then ran up the stairs to the second floor. It was empty, and he liked the fact there were no tall judgmental Dutch girls there. Again, he settled in the window and lay the spliff on the table in front of him.

‘Mierda! (Fuck!)’ He whispered, realizing he had no light. He’d also wanted to get some sweet mint tea! He pocketed the spliff and headed back downstairs.

The girl was gone, no one sat in the ground floor. Pedro leant on the counter as he waited for her to return.

He had spotted the display of Bic lighters on the other side of the counter. A quick vault over the counter could have had one of those in Pedro’s hand in three seconds, he thought, heck, he could probably even make himself some sweet mint tea. But he didn’t, instead Pedro rang the silver bell a few times and stared out of the window. It had started to rain, and the wind was picking up. He knew it was still only early summer but still, he thought, it should be nicer weather than this. It made him think of the sandy hills of Spain and the constant sun. Pedro thought about the times he would ride around town with his friends on their BMXs, how they would do skids and do graffiti on the toilet-paper dispensers on the public toilets, and how it would never rain, or be windy, never like it was up here. He thought about how he would take the girlfriends of his youth into the mountains, to the streams and pools of the nearby Sierra to skinny-dip. It was always hot enough that a few second out of the water would have them both dry. Though Pedro liked Amsterdam, and always was glad that he went to university here. Pedro liked the architecture and the friends he had made there, but that was never enough to stop him from wishing the weather was warm and dry like it was in his mum’s garden in the small town near Madrid.

His thoughts were broken by the sound of the door opening. When the door opened a gust of wind and the sounds of thrashing rain his Pedro in the face. A dark figure came in from the rain. It was a man, tall, Dutch-looking with short blonde hair and a steep nose. The tall man squinted at Pedro, who took his arm off the counter and held it flat against his side. The man frowned at Pedro, and his hand moved slowly to his coat pocket, making a wet, scratching noise as it did. Pedro followed the hand suspiciously, his heart paced.

‘Hello my friend, Pedro? no?’ The tall man roared. His eyes went small and he bared his teeth joyfully.

Pedro nodded, the man did look familiar but he couldn’t place the face.

‘It’s me, Markus! Do you not remember me?’

Pedro shook his head then nodded quickly.

‘You do? That’s great it’s been too long, we should meet up sometime.’ The man’s other hand went into his other pocket, he pulled out his wallet. ‘Now, where’s that cashier huh? Let me tell you something the service in this place is always awful. All I want is a spliff, that one, that very one right there, just one so I can smoke it while I watch the game tonight. .’ He pointed at Pedro’s five euro sign, his long arm almost touched the blackboard. ‘It’s Nederlands versus England, easy pickings I know, but even so it’s fun to watch the creators of a game be humiliated. Damn, I need to go. Okay Pedro, I’ll see you soon, yeah. Nice seeing you.’ He turned and took an eternity to walk towards the door.

Pedro patted his pockets, he had forgotten which he had put it in, but found it in his left-back pocket. He pulled the spliff out and handed it to the giant Dutchman.

‘Pedro? My friend this is too kind.’

Pedro shook his head.

‘Wow, you always were the kindest, Pedro. I owe you one.’ The man thought for a few moments. ‘Look, I can’t repay you for this wonderful gift right now. But come to my shop, it’s just a little vintage store-type thrift shop thing, but I’ve got some killer garments and some really nice jackets and I want you to have one. You can pick, just come whenever you free. I’ll even be open until six tonight if you don’t have anything else to do, so you can come and pick later if you want.’

Pedro nodded, and smiled at the man, who smiled back and winked, then was gone out the door.

‘Mister, I’m so sorry I didn’t hear you ring the bell.’ The girl said, coming in through the door behind the counter. ‘What would you like?’

He pointed at the five euros again, she got another out from a drawer beneath the counter, then he pointed at the lighter, which she pulled out of the little plastic stand that they come in and placed on the counter, and then he pointed again at the blackboard, at the drawing of a mint leaf covered in honey.

‘Sweet mint tea?’

Pedro nodded. And as the girl tapped on her cash-register he noticed that the weather outside had cleared up and the blue sky was back, drying the wet floor like it was a good towel.

‘Okay, that’ll be ten ninety-nine. I’ll bring the tea the tea to you when it is ready.’ The girl smiled and Pedro bowed a little, maybe it was more of an emphasized nod, but either way he felt it was cheesy and he almost ran past the heavy anti-smoke curtains upstairs.

Finally, the spliff was alight. Surprisingly, it tasted different than usual. But its soft clouds were nuzzling the walls of his lungs and his throat like a little cat rubbing its head on a pillow. He sucked it in, then sat back, releasing the smoke towards the ceiling. He had taken a seat in one of the booths lined with doughy cushions. Pedro waited until he had his sweet mint tea, then lay back. He let the high untangle the indecisiveness in his mind. Once the strings were all loose they spelled out only three words “Markus’ Vintage Shop”, and there Pedro had it; he knew what he could do from when he finished his tea and his spliff until the time he needed to go home to get ready for his friend’s birthday party.

Pedro reckoned that he looked like the perfect god of balance with his spliff in his right fingers, smoking lazily like steam from the nose of a sleeping bull, and the clean mug of sweet refreshment in his left, thin and light, cutting through the dust in his throat. He sat for a while in the booth with heavy eyes, then left and wandered slowly down the only hill in Amsterdam.

It hadn’t yet dawned on him that he’d never been given a direction or an address to Markus’ vintage shop. And it never did, it never did need to, Pedro’s light headed wandering brought him to the bottom of the only hill in Amsterdam, on the side furthest from the city center or his single-bedroom flat. He felt the shift from downhill to flat-ground like he was being bounced, and his heavy head flung back and he staggered a little, then giggled it off and carried on. He was so high that his body moved like a wave, or he felt like it did anyway, and all the time he thought of Markus’ vintage shop, Markus’ vintage shop and again Markus’ vintage shop as if the words somehow held their own tangible meaning, like something in a dream that makes all sense in the back of the mind up until the point it is considered.

‘Markus’ vintage shop?’ Pedro thought he heard, then laughed and grabbed his own lips realizing that the words had come from himself and started laughing at how high he must be. Then he realized they hadn’t, a pretty, blonde, probably Dutch girl stood dead ahead of him, not the length of a pencil away, sticking a flyer beneath his nose.

‘Mister (what was it with these guys all calling him Mister, he thought), Markus’ vintage shop?’

Pedro nodded and took the flyer, gabbling something as moved past her. Pedro’s mind was beginning to clear, connections were starting to be laced together again and reality re-materialized enough to give back control of his hands. From where he had passed the blonde girl he had taken five steps before he stopped, and held the flyer in front of his eyes. It gave no address, only directions, which Pedro thought was weird because they led you to the shop from where the blonde girl stood, but flyers could easily end up elsewhere making the directions pure gibberish. But he was inebriated enough not to fully notice, at least not sober enough to fully care or pay it a second thought. He followed the directions and landed before a store without a window, and a garishly green front, with a sign: ‘Markus’ Vintage Shop’. Pedro smiled, happy to have found it, excited to get a free jacket, and entered, the steep, inexplicable smell of vintage shops hit him.

‘Ah, my friend, you came!’ And a happy hand slapped Pedro’s back. ‘Look around, look at my shop, huh, so good!’

Pedro smiled at the tall man, wide enough that he felt the air on his back teeth. He even squinted his eyes for emphasis.

‘But, I know what you’re here for, and don’t worry! You may choose a jacket of your choice, free of charge! As payback for saving my life.’

Pedro nodded and turned into the shop, seeing it for the first time. It had little artificial lighting, though the single beam-light did all the work of five, and the room was lit perfectly, as if he was still outside. Pedro nodded again.

‘Go, go, go and look, my savior. You have deserved it!’

Pedro went and looked, giving himself a brief initial perusal of the three or so rows of jackets that made up most of the shop. His fingers touched them all, testing their texture and checking how worn down the fabrics were. Some of them were old, thin, but most were thick and worthy of the Amsterdam winds. Some were waterproof, perfect for after summer, Pedro thought, but he liked to live in the moment, how could he know what his fashion inclinations would be at the start of October. A brown suede bomber stood out, and Pedro took it from its hanger and wrapped it around his shoulders, pushing his arms through the sleeves. He checked the mirror: too macho he thought. Maybe one day, but never with this moustache, at least not until he had his first grey hairs. The next he found was a gorgeous turquoise-blue leather biker jacket, its front in perfect condition, even with a few extra pins of tiny Harley Davisons. But as he tried it on he did a spin and noticed a tear behind the left armpit. It went back on the hanger and onto the rail again.

He was in there for almost an hour, in his own little world within the shop. Every time Markus asked him how he was doing he nodded and sometimes made the effort to grin at him, but he never did it consciously. His fingers stayed on his lips, massaging them in thought, and he frowned at every garment, inspecting it like a colonel.

Finally, he had compiled a shortlist of five, which he then shortened into only two. And he hung them one in front of the other, switching them when he felt like he wanted one more than the other. But it came down to a lightweight black Adidas track jacket. It was plain and easy, but its logo popped a sharp blue and it gave something else to the jacket. He picked it up and started to walk to Markus.

Something caught his eye though, something he had been looking for since he saw someone in the street wearing it the year before: a grey heather Lacoste sweater, with a rainbow color crocodile on the left breast. Pedro almost ran to it. He threw the Adidas jacket onto the top of the rail and pulled the sweater out, fingering the tag, size medium it said, his size. He screamed a cry of joy in his mind and took it to the counter.

‘Wow I didn’t know I had this.’ The tall Dutchman said. ‘It really is beautiful. I almost don’t want to sell it to you.’ He bit his lip and looked down at the sweater on his counter, then up at Pedro. Markus grinned. ‘But you helped me out today. And besides, I’m not selling it to you, here you are.’ He bagged it in a small paper bag without any logo. ‘You can take that jacket too if you want. You really looked like you liked it.’

Pedro shook his head, taking that too would be too much luck in the same afternoon, and too much luck is unlucky, eventually. Pedro left the shop, clutching the paper bag to his chest. He breathed a breath of fresh air and started to head home.

His walk took him through the city center, through the crowds of tourists photographing the canals in the lovely weather, past all the various waffle and crepe stalls with their sweet delicious aromas, past the coffee shops lining the thin streets which held a fog from all the things smoked inside them. But Pedro noticed, the smell he returned to, after all these wondrous smells, was not the smell of clean slightly salty Dutch air infused with the flat grasslands. No, it was another smell that returned when that of the pancakes and the chocolate syrups evaporated, a smell like someone had fermented a blanket from an old people’s home for thirty years. Also known as vintage shop smell, in Pedro’s mind’s nose anyway, and he recognized it immediately. And though it was a nasty smell, he thought nothing of it. It was a smell that would be gone in a single wash with good detergent, and Pedro had that, and a good washing machine which he also had, heck, the smell could even be gone by tonight, Pedro thought. His thoughts also led to a contemplation of chocolate covered waffles covered in more chocolate sprinkles. So he got one of those and ate it on the way home, balancing the paper bag underneath his arm with the thick waffle’s little paper tray in his left hand the plastic fork in his right. He would be returning home with a victory, this sweater had satisfied him with whatever had happened that weird and stir-crazy day.

The little paper tray, skidded with chocolate syrup and sprinkles and crumbs of waffle, went straight into his bin, the paper bag went neatly on his small kitchen table. Pedro turned on his washing machine and got the non-bio detergent out from below the sink. He gave the sweater one last final smell and held it in the kind light coming through the window to admire it again. Then he threw it in the machine with a capful of the detergent and set it onto low (cold) and slow, to make sure he didn’t shrink it. He watched the water fill up the circular space, saw the heather grey soak and turn into a charcoal grey, and the bubbles from the detergent start to be created. After a long sucking noise the churning began, and Pedro went to get a glass of orange juice and read a Spanish graphic novel until he heard the churning end.

Pedro jumped up off his seat, it was small and round, its cushioning was firm and it was a dark grey, but he liked its minimalism and had spent a whole afternoon looking for it. His flat was a standard size for a one-bedroom, and only a small supporting pillar separated the living room from the kitchen area. He ran past this pillar so fast in excitement that he had to stop himself crashing into it. He landed in front of the washing machine and flung open the door that looked like a window on a boat. He held the garment up to the light, inspecting its size first and foremost. It hasn’t shrunk, thank mother Mary, Pedro thought, but what about the smell? He blew out of his nose to clear his airways, then leant close and took a prolonged sniff.

‘Mierda! (Shit!) Pedro whispered sharply to himself. He’d been thinking one wash would be enough, he was hoping he might even be able to wear it tonight. But the smell still hung in the threads of the fabric. A smell like old fish, fish way too old to even smell fishy anymore, it was that smell. It didn’t even smell that pungent. It was nothing like an unwashed sock, and it didn’t hold a light to the cheese that Pedro had a taste for. The problem was that it told everyone Pedro was lazy, unstylish and distasteful. The problem is that it was just wrong and sort-of gross, not incredibly and shamefully gross like continuing to wear shoes that have trodden in dog turd within a building, but just sort-of gross, on the same caliber of gross as the smell of an office break-room, or the weird tinge that the freezer lends to food that it has held for too long. It was a real unromantic smell, incapable of being considered as part of a larger, nicer culture like the bad smells of French cheese are.

But He shrugged, then threw it in the dryer. Not so Pedro could wear it, but so he could check if perhaps the smell had gone, and that the smell he smelt now was just dampness combined with the residue of the hundreds of washes that the machine had cycled through since he first bought it. He had a brief period of cycling, a few months where he would get back sweating to the ankles, put his bike on its back in the hallway, then throw his dirty gear in the washing machine. It must have kept some of the odors from then. Then he had an even shorter period of running, one which admittedly had him looking better than ever but which he abandoned so he wouldn’t feel so hungry and tired all the time. Doing that he only washed his shorts every few days, but when they were washed they really needed it, and a few times he had even thrown his shoes in there, which had ran through at least thirty different dog shits even before you consider his hairy sweaty feet. Pedro nodded in assurance and returned to his graphic novel, topping up his glass of orange juice and reclining on his minimalist space-grey chair.

The rapid noisy spinning of the tumble dryer eventually stopped. Pedro’s book clapped together and was flung on the chair behind him. He took his glass to the kitchen, sipping it as he knelt down in front of the dryer. He peered into the machine, a fly landed on his moustache and he brushed it off. Pedro slowly pulled open the little door, and pulled out the hot garment. Again, he blew out of his nose to clear the airways. Then brought his nose close and sniffed for a good five seconds.

Pedro threw the sweater past the pillar and into the living room, it landed in a heap on the stand of his twenty-seven inch TV. He brought his hand to his forehead and sighed deep. The smell was still there, obviously. It had socked in in the nose, and now he was rubbing it. The smell was in his airways, and Pedro had to take a long sniff of a bottle of lime washing-up liquid to get get rid of it. He downed the rest of his orange juice, put the glass in the sink, then went over to the TV.

He folded his arms and looked over the sweater. It looked so harmless, so limp, but something in the crocodile logo’s eyes snarled at him with a grin. He snatched it up, and threw it over into kitchen again. It hit the floor and slid perfectly to just below the open door of the washing machine. Pedro glared at everything in his flat as he went to get his wallet and a jacket. He let the door slam as he left.

It must be at least seven, he thought, he’d have enough time to buy some stronger detergent before he needed to get ready for the birthday party. He walked straight to the closest corner shop. But he saw the small housewares section wasn’t even full of things for the home, it had shrunk so much that the owner had started to fill it with various types of one euro per pack biscuits and instant coffees with their assuredly cheap price in red in a larger font than ‘Instant Coffee’ was. Pedro glared at the owner on the way out, who he knew by name but he decided the man would just have to excuse his manners this one time.

The next shop he came across was one that he had mocked people for shopping at in his student days, it was where all the kids with daddy’s money would go and buy specialty varieties of grape and freshly squeezed tomato ketchup with a hint of lime and sriracha. But he forgave its pretension when he saw its two whole, fully stocked rows of housewares. A square meter of shelf space was dedicated solely to detergent and other washing machine soaps. Pedro scanned the eco-friendly cleaners first, as you should, but he realized that, with their natural essences and locally sourced soap, they would have no chance against the smell of the sweater. How he pictured it was that it would be like rubbing a few flower heads into the fabric until they disintegrated. And he had no time for natural and kind homeopathy now, Pedro needed something industrial, something ugly with clear warning signs and a matte black bottle. And he found it, hidden behind other far safer and environmentally friend bottles, the last of its kind, a beautiful snapshot of a disgusting industrial age. He took the bottle of Blitzkrieg: Über Powerful Detergent to the counter, the blonde Dutch girl at the till smiled at him and wished him a good evening. Pedro returned home almost shaking with excitement.

He threw his jacket over the space-grey chair and jumped to the washing machine, pouring the liquid into the cap and balancing it in the perforated metal cylinder as the visual instructions told him to, he then put the detergent under his sink after screwing the safety lid on tight. Then he turned around. But something caught his foot and sent Pedro chin-first to be with the tiles of the floor. He made a noise as he hit the floor, like an ‘Ow,’ but the real thing, so more like ‘Awgh!’ He coughed and sat up, feeling an early bruise on the bottom of his chin, and what had tripped him, its crocodile-logo snarled again. Pedro grabbed it and flung it into the washing machine, slamming the door and turning it on to the fastest, and the hottest setting. He then went and checked his chin in the bathroom mirror.

It didn’t look bruised, but it would tomorrow morning, Pedro thought. He put some lotion on it anyway, and the creamy coolness settled the slight inflammation for a little while. Pedro took his seat again. He lay back and closed his eyes. When it’s done, I won’t smell it, I’ll just put it in the dryer then I can smell it afterwards, there’s no point kidding myself before that, he thought, and if the smell is still there I’ll just forget about it until the morning, simple as that. Pedro thought all this, but deep down he knew himself and knew that there was a primordial disconnect between his intellect and the urges and emotions of the body in which it resided.

He shook his head in disbelief as he took it over from the door of the washer to the door of the dryer. He held his nose as if he hadn’t already smelt the smell of the sweater, he promised himself he hadn’t, he told himself that the smell he caught was just his own armpit which was sweaty from the day’s walking, or the smell of his neighbor’s old cat which would sometimes sneak into his flat. Again Pedro waited in the space-grey chair, this time without entertainment. No glass of orange juice touched his lips and no interesting character development distracted him through the forty minutes of the dryer’s cycle.

Pedro needed to switch on the kitchen light to operate the buttons, it was getting dark, and quite quickly, this only added to the shaky speed at which Pedro did everything. He blocked his nose with his left and pulled the sweater out of the dryer with his right, then blew out of his nostrils and brought them close.

‘Mierda! (Fuck!) Mierda! (Shit!) Mierda! (Fuck!) Maldito follador! (Fucking fucker!)’

Pedro gnashed his teeth together and with all his might squeezed the sweater like he was throttling it, he threw it towards the door, the kicked and stomped in the kitchen. He came out glaring, the look of murder in his eyes, grabbed his jacket, threw it on, grabbed the sweater, flung it in its original paper bag, ripping it, he threw the bag onto the floor and left with the sweater rolled up beneath his arm.

He arrived at the all-night launderette with huge industrial size washing machines, true powerhouses and masters of their own trade. He’d come here in his student days, in the mornings after nights out to wash his clothes that were always stained with someone else’s sick or red wine or something which he didn’t want to inquire into the physical composition of. Every time these washers had spat out the cleanest possible version of whatever garments he brought it. There were only three machines, and each were near the end of their own cycle. Pedro sat with the three current users at the front of the shop, and looked out onto the bustling Amsterdam street. A man in a nice Adidas track jacket passed by the window, his jacket was a dark blue, but the orange streetlight turned it black, just like the one Pedro could have picked. He thought about that jacket that got away, and the frustration of this smell in the sweater, and the whole weird and stir-crazy day as a whole. Pedro felt like he did whenever he realized he was in a dream and was just waiting to wake up.

But the old Asian man next to him got up and started moving his things from the monster washing machine into a tumble dryer that looked like it weighed the same as the former machines door alone. The man smiled at him once he had finished and Pedro got up. They passed each other awkwardly and he noticed the man stared at the grey sweater as he shuffled past him. Pedro added the supplied detergent, the same as he used here in his student days, then threw the sweater into the abyss. He then closed the heavy door and pressed hard on ‘Start’.

Pedro was shaken awake.

‘Mister, we are closing now. Your sweater is in the dryer, it will be done in a few minutes. Then you must leave, Mister.’

Pedro winced when he saw a tall Dutch girl leaning over him wearing a light blue boiler suit and a name tag. Pedro was spread out over all three of the waiting chairs. He looked around, the room was dark and the main lights were off. It looked exactly like how closed shops do from the outside, and for some reason this surprised him, maybe because he was actually inside and not just peering in through the window. He stretched and turned, his face was lit up by the light of early dawn and it left turquoise patches in his vision for a while.

There was a noise from the other end of the room like a steam valve being released. Pedro slowly stood up, and moved stiffly over to the dryer. He swallowed and goosebumps pricked out of his skin. Tears formed in his eyes and he felt like a frog was in his throat. But he gathered his strength and with a shaking, hesitant hand opened the dryer.

A plume of steam hit him in the face. When it cleared he saw that it had gotten rid of everything else around them, all Pedro could see was his own hands and the grey Lacoste sweater they were reaching towards. He tried to pull them back but they kept on. He felt the warm doughiness of the garment, it felt lovely in his hand but so wrong too. His hands then brought it back to his nose, and his nose sniffed, filling with the smell of old vintage shops.

Pedro wretched a few times, then vomited down the shaft of the tumble dryer. He wiped his running nose as the blonde Dutch worker shouted at him.

‘Mister, get of of here you drunk!’

Pedro apologized profusely, then vomited a little more straight onto the floor, and wiped his mouth with the sweater. He looked up, his nose still streaming and his eyes blind with half-formed tears, and saw the member of staff coming over to him with a paddle and a furious look on her face. Pedro’s voice cracked as he shouted he was sorry and ran out of the shop.

He didn’t stop running, his legs took him like a heavy gust of the Amsterdam wind. Pedro never noticed where he was being taken until he felt a burning in the back of his calves and below his thighs, the same burning that he felt whenever he would go for hikes with his friends up the Sierras of Spain. He saw the sign and the extra height of Saint Aaron’s pass him by in a blur as he began to descend the hill on the other side. His knees screamed and his feet slapped the floor hard. Sweat soaked his jacket and his brow. He wiped any tears automatically with the sweater. He even blew his nose into it to allow him to breath on this run which his body took him.

Pedro never thought where he was going until he passed a flyer pinned to a lamppost, its top half torn off in the wind. It read ‘…intage shop’ only, and had verbal directions from the very lamppost on which it had been stuck. Pedro cried out and he turned the corner, from physical exhaustion mostly, and he kept running, until his body broke down and collapsed in front of a green store front. He slowly looked up. It had no windows, it had no door, it had no sign. It had nothing but green painted brick and some graffiti, litter and bin-bags sat below it. Pedro stared at the storefront, then stared at the stinking sweater in his hands, covered in snot, spit and vomit. An old blonde Dutch lady walked down the other side of the street, she stopped for a few moments to stare at Pedro, then she tugged on her dog’s lead and carried on.