'Very Big Asset' - Wolfgang Hildesheimer. Hilarious.

About the author: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Hildesheimer

one sunday i was relaxing with a mug of beer in a pub. some weird looking person came to me and asked me if i had any idea of buying a train. anybody can sell anything to me smoothly. because i dont know to say no to things. even then i thought i should be careful this time as it was a big sale. even though i dont know anything about trains i enquired him which model it was, in which year it was made, how the piston, guage.. were etc. i wanted him to know that i was one expert and i was not the one who bought unnecessary things. i dont know whether he was convinced or not. whatever it was he showed me the pictures of the train from all angles and gave all the information i needed. the trained looked perfect. i ordered for it immediately and settled for one price. it was one secondhand train. though trains dont wear and tear easily.. i didnt give the asked price.

the train was delivered the same night. i should have got suspicion at that time that it might have been phony because it was delivered so fast. but i didnt. because i never suspected such things. the door of my house is not broad enough so i couldnt keep the train inside the house. not only that, it was also so heavy even my house could have collapsed. so i kept it in the garage. naturally only half of it could go inside. garage roof was very high. i had kept a very big balloon once. of course it had burst later.

my cousin visited me after this sale. this cousin didnt like to guage things or show emotions. for him facts were facts. he never used to get surprised. he was one expert at describing anything and everything. in short he was a fussy man. after saying hello, to break the silence i started singing " tum paas aaye..yunh muskuraye.." . he finished it properly with " kuch kuch hota hai". he had brought cognac. after we finished drinking a few glasses he decided to stay over that night at my house and went to the garage to keep his car.

he returned after a few minutes and told me in a shaky whispering voice that there was one big train in my garage. i said " yes, i just bought it day before yesterday" slowly. " do u use it?" he asked. "no, not always" i replied. "only when my neighbour's wife had labour pain, i took her to the hospital in that train. she delivered twins. but my train was not responsible for that", i told him.

I had told this deliberately because i am the one of those who adds imagination to facts. i dont know whether he believed me or not. He just heard me out. he must have got irritated by the idea of staying over at my place he just started replying with 'uh huh's to my questions and he left immediately. he never came back.

after a few days when i read in newspapers that a train was stolen (not from this earth, but from one switchyard) i was sure that i have been had and that i was cheated. after a few days i saw the same person in the same bar and i pretended to be innocent and a recluse. This time he tried to sell me a crane. but i didnt want to do any business with him again. moreover why do i want a crane anyway?