2007-08-07 - 4:09 p.m.
I'm at a flea market. Tables displaying all manner of near-garbage are arranged inside a building which probably normally functions as a gym. People here look as though they are enjoying themselves. I'm not. There are too many things and too many bodies inside this room. The air feels heavy and over-used.
I'm also in need of a toilet.
And then I realize an additional cause for concern. How long has it been since someone has looked at me? I mean, I haven't yet recognized anyone that I know here but, as a young lady of a certain stature and possessing, as I do, a certain commitment to personal grooming, I've become accustomed to drawing at least a little attention and/or curiousity in public spaces. Children especially, and there are plenty here, just seem to like looking at me. But I'm realizing that no one has paid the slightest attention to my presence in a long time and it's making me feel mighty uneasy.
I get the impression that it's possible I've slipped into a different plain of reality from that of everyone else here. If this is true, my plain of reality has a very bad feel to it. I don't know how I got here, but I want out.
All of this is making me more and more upset when I catch a glimpse of one of the items on a table and suddenly feel quite calm.
I walk towards it to get a better look.
It's an egg-shaped piece of glass sitting upon some sort of bronze-coloured stand. Something is inside the glass, but it's hard to see what because the glass has become cloudy.
I bend down a little to get a better look.
It's a tiny cottage, next to a stream, with a waterwheel. And the cloudiness of the glass isn't what it first seemed. It's fog. There's depth to it and a sense that it was made to look that way intentionally.
I pick it up to get a better look.
It slips from my hands and bumps on the edge of the table. No one seems to have noticed what I've done, but people are noticing me again which is kind of reassuring. I examine the glass for signs of damage. The fog has disappeared, and there's a little depression and a tiny crack where it hit the table.
I return the piece of glass to its stand and casually ask the lady who appears to be running this table how much it is.
Five thousand dollars, she replies.
Is she joking? (She doesn't look as though she is.) The most that any of the stuff on this table should cost is two. I wonder if she knows that I wrecked it (she doesn't looks as though she does) and is only asking such a ridiculous price because she knows that I now feel obligated to buy it from her.
I'm still thinking about this and trying very hard to convince myself that, in any case, the lady behind the table is being greedy, and that that's nobody's fault but her own as I walk away from the table and out the gymnasium doors. I worry a little about the consequences for what I've just done might be. I've been reading an awful lot of folk tales lately and assume it to be only natural that there will be consequences for this.
But, at the same time, I'm laughing at myself for being so silly. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Will my water jug stop flying down to the river to bring back water for me? Will the gods come to take away from me a beloved child whom I originally found inside some sort of vegetable? Har dee har har...
If anything, my luck has been better since.
