Christmas Eve shopping a bit in Langley on the Island.
And a short story…
The mysterious man….
It’s early but it’s dark .
Dark with lights that are always festive in Langley .
Langley Washington, it’s a lovely little community on Whidbey Island, the second largest island in the contiguous US.
I come here to enjoy the little shops, the community at night. .. with stores lit up outside/ inside with twinkling lights, festive here anytime of the year.
I think especially festive here now before Christmas in 2023.
Visited the rug store, Music for the Eyes, they have rugs, chapan, yurt bands, jewelry. Items from Uzbekistan and Nepal, Central Asia. Old and new jewelry, beads and all kinds of things for yurts all you know, antique kinds of things and new kinds of things and it’s one of my favorite places on the island, so, when I came out I spotted an unusual man.
It was very dark over there. Not very many lights, he was tall and lean, was wearing a hat that looked like it came from a certain period of time, old and ancient, with a long coat of a sort of, you know, typical of the chapan type but looked warm, woolen, embroidered. Gourded seams creating an elegant flair, his boots with a look of having come off the steppes of Mongolia perhaps. His beard curled upward in a wave from his chin, and his nose, the only feature slightly visible, was classical and elongated, but beautifully shaped. Everything about him down to a small igloo cooler, the way he held it near his chest, looked so different and out of, not only this place, but this time as well.
Maybe from some older time in Uzbekistan; Samarkand or Bukhara, somewhere on the silk roads, …and when he walked, he walked slowly and mysteriously, and you know, like he could be lost or like he didn’t exist at all perhaps.
I had to wonder does he really exist at all?
Later in my vehicle I drove around to see if I could find him. I couldn’t see him anywhere he just dissolved into the night…
