"A pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a bottle of Coke."
Griffin Jones walked into the convenience store and tapped the glass counter displaying a wide assortment of cigarettes.
It was a small chain supermarket right outside his home, the sort found everywhere, with nothing remarkable about it.
Yet stepping inside filled him with delight. After all, being here meant he was almost home. This was the feeling of home, the feeling of freedom.
"How much do you want to spend on the lighter? What brand of cigarettes?"
Only when he heard knuckles tapping on glass did the middle-aged shopkeeper, who had been staring listlessly at a small television on a shelf to the side, realize a customer had arrived. He asked with some impatience, his mind elsewhere.
"Ah!"
"Are you going to talk? Are you going to talk or not?"
"No! Kill me, and thousands upon thousands more will take my place!"
"Heh, still playing tough? You don't get a choice. I just happened to get some high-end gear from the Americans..."
The television was quite loud, screams and harsh demands coming from its speaker.
The noise distracted Griffin Jones a little as well. He took a closer look. Some espionage drama seemed to be playing, and it happened to be showing an interrogation scene.
"This crap gets faker with every show. It's downright sickening, an insult to the fallen heroes."
Griffin Jones lived nearby and occasionally shopped here, so the shopkeeper was neither surprised by nor unfamiliar with his foreign face.
Seeing Griffin Jones distracted by the drama and not answering for some time, he casually felt the urge to "exchange" his impressions of the show, muttering as he curled his lip.
Griffin Jones came back to his senses. As a foreigner, he naturally had little reaction to