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What is the meaning of "Take a good look because" in the following sentence(Source: Skateboard moves by MATT CHRISTOPHER),

Charlie skated toward the exit gate. He did not see X until he slammed right into him. "You are still here!" X exclaimed. "Surprised to see me?" Charlie sneered. "Take a good look because the next thing you will see is my back. I know you stole my skateboard!" He shoved X aside and skated home as fast as he could.

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Does it mean "From now on, play alone. I will not play with you anymore! You can not see my face in the future. All you can see is my back." ?

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This may be a little bit of a stretch, but I see it as a combination of two expressions: take a good look at something/someone and turn your back on something/someone.

We say "take a good look at [something/someone]" when we want the person to remember the thing or person being looked at. This is often used when the thing or person will be missing, removed, denied, or some similar state. For example, imagine a kidnapper taking a parent's children. The kidnapper might say

Take a good look at your kids! You won't be seeing anytime soon!

Figuratively, when we turn our backs on someone, we reject them:

turn your back on somebody/something

  • To ignore, disregard, or exclude someone or something; to abandon, give up on, or forsake someone or something. It's clear that the company has turned its back on customers. After becoming a successful writer, Jim turned his back on all the people he used to know back home.
  • COMMON If you turn your back on something, you reject it or stop being involved in it. He had turned his back on his Communist past and formed a completely new party. The organisation says that young people are increasingly turning their backs on marriage.

(TFD)

So, although X will literally see Charlie's back when Charlie skates away, I think it can also be interpreted figuratively. I would say it means something like remember me because I will reject you, or more plainly, remember our friendship because we are longer friends (since X stole Charlie's skateboard, according to Charlie).

I'm just guessing that the relationship is "friends", but it could be something else, like teammates, colleagues, or whatever the case may be in the text.

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  • If so, does ""Take a good look because the next thing you will see is my back" mean "Take a look at me, because the next thing you will see is my back" ?
    – user22046
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 9:15
  • Are you asking if we can understand that the speaker means "at me", but did not say that? Then yes, that's how I understand it because that's the most logical inference we can make.
    – Em.
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 9:19
  • If you mean "take a good look = take a look at me?", then no. "Take a look at me" is simply a command. I don't understand it to mean "remember me" like the first one does.
    – Em.
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 9:23
  • I think that a sentence with because mean "Result (take a good look) + because + cause (the next thing you will see is my back)". By the way, I try to interpret it like this. I can not interpret it. does "take a good look" mean "look or take a look"? What does he ask his friend to look?
    – user22046
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 9:50
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It does mean that from now you'll see me fighting against you. Or He won't further help him anyway.

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  • Please compare your answer to the other two listed beneath this question. We are looking for more than one-line answers, with more in-depth explanations about the language.
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 9:42
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Take a good look because the next thing you will see is my back

It's not an idiom. It's a pretty literal phrase in this context. Charlie is angry with X because he stole his skateboard. He doesn't want to speak with X at that moment, so he skated home as fast as he could. He skated away from X.

When you skate, your face usually points in the same direction of the movement, so you can see what you got ahead and can react accordingly with the obstacles, so if someone is standing, looking at you while you go away, the observer can not see your face, he only see your back.

You can not infer

From now on, play alone. I will not play with you anymore! You can not see my face in the future

just from that sentence. It applys only to that next instant. It doesn't imply anything about the future, about the next day, the next week or his lifetime. "From now on", "will not play anymore" ... are concepts that are not present in the sentence. The original sentence is not a metaphor.

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  • If so, does "Take a good look because the next thing you will see is my back" mean "Take a good look at the reason the next thing you will see is my back"?
    – user22046
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 8:46

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