Slot Machine/Syrian Neighbor

Part One: The Slot Machine

I inherited a slot machine my mother was keeping in the attic.

The slot machine:

      1) Digital display on top to show the rotating fruit symbols and
           choice of prizes.

      2) Vending-machine-style glass showcase below with prizes in coil-loaded slots.

      3) Prizes include: lottery tickets (long-since expired), dried fish products, half-evaporated bottles of ro-zay.

      4) The slot machine is about the size of a cigarette machine.

      5) There is a small chamber in the back, behind the prize slots, presumably for the operator to squeeze inside for the purposes of restocking prizes and performing maintenance. This chamber is large enough for a hunched-over person to get entirely inside the machine. The chamber is brightly lit by fluorescent bulbs. The floor is composed of black and white checkerboard tiles like that of an old-fashioned drugstore. The chamber is accessible through a panel on the side of the slot machine.

       6) The slot machine has a peaked roof with asphalt shingles to keep the rain off if the operator decides to place it in an outdoor location and resembles a small garden shed.
  
       7) The slot machine is about the size of a phone booth.

       8) The slot machine is in my mother's back garden on the brick pathway overgrown with old, brown plants, flush with the wall of a medium-sized garden shed.

Stripping away some of the old, brown plants from the wall reveals that the shed is, in fact, a disused guest-house that the slot machine is the entrance to.

The disused guest-house:

         1) The slot machine chamber is an antechamber to the main house, accessible through a wooden door.

         2) The main area of the guest house is a small, angular chamber from which three small, plushly-furnished bedrooms can be accessed. There are floor-to-ceiling mirrors on the walls and high windows that admit bright sunshine. The furnishings are not exactly my style, but I can change them out later.

         3) The guest house floor is covered with thick, light-brown-colored carpets.

         4) The guest house has no central air or heating. But the guest house will be comfortable on spring and autumn evenings.

         5) A stairway leads to the second floor on which there are two additional bedrooms.

Part Two: The Syrian Neighbor

I am employed as a clerk at a small corner-shop in the city. One day, a brown man came in with his young son to buy some things. The brown man was short and stocky, with black hair and a mustache. At the counter he presented me with Nigerian dollars as payment. The Nigerian dollars are very brightly-colored with orange, yellow, red, and green, and have Nigerian symbols printed on them. The owner of the store, whom some people call "Old Man Bossly", said that we could not accept Nigerian dollars as payment.

Myself: Are you from Nigeria?

Brown Man: I am from Syria.

Myself: Are you new in town? We don't have very much in common, but you can stay on the second floor of my guest house.

And so, the Syrian man and his son came to stay at my disused guest house. And also, some other friends and family and women I have sex with came to stay there.