The Magic Box at the Farmer’s Market
By Achuloh
Vignette 1: Sarah (bitchification)
Sarah walked through the stalls of homemade soaps, fruits and vegetables and handicrafts. She had already gotten everything she needed, and spoken with some of the shopkeepers she was acquainted with, when she noticed that there was a new stall she hadn’t seen before.
Sarah walked up to it, but was stopped by a beggar.
“Can you spare any change?” the beggar asked.
“Of course!” Sarah said, smiling and handed him a dollar and some leftovers of the lunch she had been nibbling as she shopped.
Then she started towards the new stall again.
A hand-painted sign above the stall said “Rajesh’s Mystical Sundries.”
Sarah smiled. She had always been a little into witchy stuff, so she decided to look around.
The guy behind the stall (Rajesh?) was a short Indian man, whose face was weathered with age. Deep wrinkles next to his mouth revealed him to be a man who was constantly laughing. His stall seemed to contain a number of crystals, items with astrological symbols, and small bottles filled with herbs, among other knick knacks.
Sarah had seen all of these kinds of things before, but behind Rajesh was a beautiful mahogany chest that had a price tag on it.
“Can I take a look at that chest?” Sarah asked.
The old man smiled at her and nodded. He put on some gloves and gingerly picked up the chest, clearing a few items with his elbow and putting it in front of Sarah.
“Is there anything inside of it?” Sarah asked.
“Why don’t you take a look for yourself?” the man said in richly accented English.
Sarah ran her fingers over the wood iring the intricate geometrical shapes all over the chest, and felt something like a spark. She pulled back her hand in surprise, but when nothing further happened, she picked up where she left off. Then she unlatched the lid and opened it up.
Sarah was surprised to see the chest full of things. It hadn’t looked that heavy when the man had picked it up, but she could see statues and books and lots of little chotchkis. What was weird was how perfectly everything in the box matched her tastes.
Everyone one of her hobbies was represented: there were hiking backpacks, a yoga mat, a globe, a writing journal and so much more.
She found some clothing items and found that they were exactly here size.
Then she saw a beautiful heart shaped pillow with a symbol on it.
“What does this symbol mean?” she asked.
The old man smiled.
“It stands for kindness and generosity. It says a lot that you were drawn to this item out of all of the items in this chest. Would you like to buy it?”
Sarah looked at the pillow, it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
“How much for the pillow?”
“For you, $25. And I warn you that I do not allow returns.”
Sarah rooted through her purse and handed over $25.
Then she put $5 into the chest.
“A tip,” she said.
The old man closed the box, and Sarah shivered. She felt strange. Different.
The man smiled at Sarah and waved goodby and she pursed her lips coldly and walked stiffly away. One of the other shopkeepers waved at her as she ed, but she stuck up her nose and ignored him. She didn’t have time for people like that.
Sarah walked towards her car, and another beggar tried to stop her. She groaned. This city was starting to be infested with filth like this.
“Can you spare a dollar?” the beggar asked.
Sarah pushed the beggar out of her way.
“If you want a dollar, you should work for it, you lazy bum!”
When Sarah got into her car, she looked through the things she had bought and the pillow caught her eye again. Looking at it in the shade, she wondered what she had seen in that ugly old thing. Plus, there was the meaning of that silly symbol—“kindness” and “generosity.”
Cry her a river! All that mattered in the world was money, and if you were to dumb or lazy or weak to get it, that was your own problem. You could go die in a hole for all Sarah cared.
Sarah sighed. If she hadn’t heard about the no return policy, she might have walked right back to the stall and forced the old man to take it back, but as it was she was stuck with this thing now. She grabbed it, and threw it on the street outside her car. Who cared about littering?
Sarah looked at her calendar and saw that she was scheduled for a volunteer shift at the soup kitchen later that evening. Sarah groaned. She would probably blow that off.
As Sarah drove off, she started fantasizing about all the ways she could make more money. She had been wasting precious time on caring about people, and she wouldn’t be making that mistake ever again.