Under the blue-and-white umbrella outside the store, is the gift wrapping station. The man who wraps gifts is called Hakim. He comes in every morning, puts away a plastic bag that holds his things and rolls up his sleeves. Then for 8 hours straight, until the stores shuts, he wraps all kinds of things in a variety of papers.
His area is a festival of pretty paper; some shiny, some chic. The children are fussy; apparently Bobby’s present has to be wrapped in a paper that says happy birthday. Hakim hardly speaks, his hands move through the air with the air of a magician. Scissors and ribbons come in on cue. Ribbons that curl; ribbons that look like flowers. On dull summer afternoons, sometimes the ribbons look like swans.
The pay isn’t great but they give him tea and lunch. A boy in dowdy clothes comes and pours piping sweet tea into a steel tumbler. Hakim doesn’t speak to the boy, just nods in acknowledgment.
The store is packed with women in the afternoons. They buy hairdryers and make up kits. They buy bright coloured school bags for their kids. They always stop by the gift wrapping station. Hakim is convinced that a lot of people get things wrapped only because it’s free. What is the point in getting things wrapped when you’re buying them for yourself? He wonders about this more often than not, while he swiftly covers up a curling iron in silver paper. Who is silly enough to be taken by surprise by things that they bought a few hours before, he thinks. Then he looks up at the women whining incessantly about the food at their parties and their delayed pedicures and he has his answer.
In the evenings, he picks up his plastic bag and rolls down his sleeves. He puts away the gifting paraphernalia and sweeps the area around the gifting station. Scraps of silver paper speckled with blue fly around like birds in fairy tales.
He walks home, smoking a cigarette. That is the only luxury he allows himself. Outside of the one where he takes in, hungrily, the smell of fresh wrapping paper every morning. That speck of happiness keeps him going; despite knowing well that the paper will end up in the dustbin of a rich kid by the end of the day.
His area is a festival of pretty paper; some shiny, some chic. The children are fussy; apparently Bobby’s present has to be wrapped in a paper that says happy birthday. Hakim hardly speaks, his hands move through the air with the air of a magician. Scissors and ribbons come in on cue. Ribbons that curl; ribbons that look like flowers. On dull summer afternoons, sometimes the ribbons look like swans.
The pay isn’t great but they give him tea and lunch. A boy in dowdy clothes comes and pours piping sweet tea into a steel tumbler. Hakim doesn’t speak to the boy, just nods in acknowledgment.
The store is packed with women in the afternoons. They buy hairdryers and make up kits. They buy bright coloured school bags for their kids. They always stop by the gift wrapping station. Hakim is convinced that a lot of people get things wrapped only because it’s free. What is the point in getting things wrapped when you’re buying them for yourself? He wonders about this more often than not, while he swiftly covers up a curling iron in silver paper. Who is silly enough to be taken by surprise by things that they bought a few hours before, he thinks. Then he looks up at the women whining incessantly about the food at their parties and their delayed pedicures and he has his answer.
In the evenings, he picks up his plastic bag and rolls down his sleeves. He puts away the gifting paraphernalia and sweeps the area around the gifting station. Scraps of silver paper speckled with blue fly around like birds in fairy tales.
He walks home, smoking a cigarette. That is the only luxury he allows himself. Outside of the one where he takes in, hungrily, the smell of fresh wrapping paper every morning. That speck of happiness keeps him going; despite knowing well that the paper will end up in the dustbin of a rich kid by the end of the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment