Eden

Twenty-Nine

By now, I've been standing where I am for quite a while, looking at the people in the market. And by now, Lexi is getting impatient. I know this, because she's said so several times.

I've mostly been ignoring her when she does. I've just been standing where I am, thinking and staring. I mean, mostly I'm just nervous, and uncertain about trying to talk to these people, even though I know I'm going to have to do so eventually. I'm terribly reluctant to move, and I don't really know why, but at the same time, I'm quite hungry and thirsty. I'm thirsty, and there's only so long I can stand here thinking, without it starting to seem stupid. Because really, this place doesn't make sense. None of this makes any sense. So I'm starting to wonder whether all my thinking really matters, or whether, instead of thinking so much, I ought to just be trying to find something to eat and drink.

Lexi seems to think that, anyway. She's been saying she wants to go, and saying she's hungry, things like that. Now she does again, and this time she sounds like she's getting irritated with me, so I decide I ought to stop being silly.

I mean, there's no actual reason not to go into the market like she wants. I don't see any actual danger, anyway. And since I have no idea how safe this place is, or not, or what danger here even looks like, I suppose there's only one way to start finding out. Which is to talk to some people.

"Please?" Lexi says again. "I want to stay with you, but I'm really hungry, so I'm going to just go over there on my own if you won't come with me now."

I sigh. I nod. I have to go sometime, so it might as well be now.

"Yes?" Lexi says, sounding relieved.

"Yeah," I say. "Let's go. I suppose."

We walk forward, into the market. The stalls are placed so as to leave a clear pathway between them. We walk along this, looking to see what's being sold.

Looking for food, really.

One of the first stalls we pass is one selling jewellery, though, and that actually catches my eye. Mainly because, strangely enough, it looks like every other jewellery stall I've ever seen, at every market, ever. Everything laid out on squares of cloth, in rows, and grouped by what kind of jewellery it is. And that's odd, seeing this here. It's odd enough I almost want to laugh. After all my thinking and brooding and worrying the first thing I see is something exactly the same as at home. I've ended up in a market like every other market I've ever been to, and that just seems weird.