Squat shop by Stefan Sofiski, red wine

Beaten by burdens, pondering aging, I wait for the trolleybus. I gaze at wet cobbles, city lights.

Sofia is full of them- Roman, Tsarist, communist cobbles... When they dig up the streets, they put them on piles and then lay them back on.

A cheap tobacco smell pulls me from cobble thoughts. - They don’t sell these anymore! - I turn… no one around. Then I see it. - The squat shop! It was here!

Rusty shutters in front of a basement window in an old building.

Squat shops popped up everywhere when capitalism arrived. Basement businesses selling cigarettes, liquor and sweets. A client would select from a display on the street and squat for the transaction… hence a “squat shop”. All gone now, replaced by malls and “proper” establishments.

Memories rush into my tired, sleepy head… fifteen... We’ve dodged school. Stride toward the squat shop for cigarettes and booze. Ahmed, an old Turk with a mustache yellowed by nicotine, greets us.

‘Welcome back… Two bottles for the price of one?’ Ahmed would entice from underground, raspy voice, thick accent. Like a devil.

Party in the park, under towering monuments of dead communists… Push the corks inside the bottles, pass them around... Laughter and mucking about… The taste of a girl’s lips-  cold but soft, hint of wine... eager hands stroking warm bodies under coats.

Occasionally, a coppers’ Lada would stop and chase us away… Our flight slowed by laughing and whooping.

I shake my head and step toward the once squat shop. Shutters hang slanted on corroded hinges. I squat and run my fingers on the chipping paint... I haven’t smoked in years, but crave one badly. - Ahmed must be dead now, - I think.

‘Two bottles for the price of one?’ From the eternal dust of the basement, I hear his ghost.

About the author:

Stefan Sofiski is the pen name of an engineering professional with a badly hidden secret passion for writing.