“That cable is new.
What’s that from?”
She sits in the kitchen. The bright vinyl tablecloth printed with halved oranges is littered with shredded tobacco. She pounds and slides the small mechanism, shoving the tobacco into the paper tubes.
pound – pound – swish – swish
She sets the fresh cigarette atop the others in the dented golden box and looks up at me over her glasses.
I point to the one of the two sawed off heating pipes, the one masked in pink fabric roses, the other has a brand new grey cord coming through it, swirling down to the ground and across the kitchen doorway disappearing into the sektziya.
Her eyes look up, following my finger, and then return back down to me, she silently laughs, a quick series of mischievous exhales.
“You fished a cable down through your cut heating pipe?”
– silent laugh –
“So that means he has no pipes either.. why wouldn’t you throw a cable through them? I love this way of thinking.”
– silent laugh –
“Only in Trakiya.” I say.
– the silent laugh stops-
“No this is legal!” She insists.
“When you have a contract with the cable operator, you have the right to two televisions! TWO! Where am I going to put 2 televisions in this studio apartment?”
“He gets a TV and I get a TV. Like that. If we had 2 rooms, it’d be different, but here in these studios, we only have one room.”
“You see how smart I am? Not only did we get rid of the King’s tax they charge you for the pipes going through the apartment, but we cut a cable bill in half!”
She nods, sure of herself and full of pride.
pound – pound – swish – swish