Lemonada

Money

Withered, and torn. Tangled and disheveled, the young man stood in a pensive moment of silence, uninterrupted by the stomping peddlers roaming around. Not a day went by that he missed the lunch-hour rush of the crowded streets. The little quirks, the minor details, he adored disassembling. 

Today he noticed Tom, the sandglass street vendor that always sported a baseball cap slung over his wrinkled face. He was tirelessly waving his arms and holding onto a faltering smile in order to catch a potential customer's attention. Indeed, an entrepreneur in action was synonymous to a competitor in a Pow Wow: flamboyant, flippant and extraordinarily captivating.

Over on the other side of the street was the enigmatic businessman who always passed by Tom's booth at twelve on the dot. Hunched over his watch in scrutiny of a retardation of a second, he scurried away with his hand firmly clamped to his leather briefcase. Classically dressed head to toe in velvety black and white, he never had a strand of hair out of place.  

The young man never missed a noon gazing at these characters that he so often animated in his imagination. He often visualized encounters with them, wondering what impression he could leave in their minds if he ever had the chance to converse with them. Which of course, would be impossible. 

He never got further than his thoughts would let him, and he stayed comfortable and invulnerable in his own section of the sphere. Should the chance come, he would not be prepared. Should the chance come, he would reject it without much reflection.

He strayed away from the mainstream: the current of impolite robots that displaced rapidly as if escaping a ticking bomb. He detested how they pushed and trampled him over in the midst of a crowd because they were trying to "go somewhere". In comparison to them, he felt bare and purposeless. The vile truth was that they had someplace to go, and he didn't. In ways, he envied the significance of their luxurious lives. He wanted to feel, if only once, what it would be like to hurry on to some pretentious place that would commemorate his numerous achievements. 

The young man scowled. By thinking of privileged life, he would be in despair over his current living conditions. And he didn't want that in the slightest. He was a man of simple flavour, who wanted simple things and owned simple things. Jealousy would not fare well in a simplistic lifestyle. Jealously would lead to spite, spite would lead to greed, and greed would lead to consumption. All of which he specifically did not make any room for in his troubled heart. 

He trampled over to the booth where nine sand-filled glasses were laid out neatly. The first hourglass had the image of a white dolphin with a turquoise belly, leaping over a blazing sky. The texture of the picture was simulated with the stroke of a toothpick that had left trails in opposing directions. He traced the outline of the sand mammal with the tip of his finger. A lidded eye with eyelashes goggled back at him. The young man raised an eyebrow. Did dolphins have lashes? Or even eyelids in the matter? He could tell that Tom had been exceptionally prudent with the making of this one. In fact, he had been there to witness it first hand. The first Thursday of this month at 8:57pm, he had observed the petit man finish his masterpiece. With the flicker of his wrist, he had sprinkled the last pinch of burgundy sand into the vial, and set the finished product down on the table with a drowsy smile. He too had smiled along with him, satisfied to see another work of art born into the world.  

Sliding his left hand against the surface of the display table, he moved onto the next hourglass. This one was an unjustifiable replicate of the first one but with darker colours. The dolphin was much larger, unrefined and scraggly, as if it had been produced by a toddler tearing a piece of paper in half. The sky was a muddy brown like that of an agitated puddle on a foggy day. The dolphin was a dark purple, which clashed too strongly with the dirty sky. The young man teared up upon remembering how it had been made. The day had been an early morning twelve years ago, just at the break of dawn. Trees had begun to crystallize all around, and piles of white "debris" were layered thickly around every nook and cranny of the streets. The old merchant had been sprawled out on the wooden bench nearby his booth, turning around a s-shaped glass on his palm. There had been a girl's cry somewhere in the distance, muffled by the noises of automobiles and pedestrians. But the man had heard it crisp and clear, and so had Tom. He had sprung to action, eyes refusing to close for even the merest moment. Like a doe, Tom had been running to the source of the sound with a trickle of sweat rolling down his forehead. A car had honked at the old man's sudden crossing of the intersection. The curious young man had been following closely behind him. They had both arrived at the urban park located beside a private school when Tom had let out a startling scream. A dark-haired girl was laying on her side, arms crossed over a scarred face.

"Please! Somebody call the ambulance!" Tom had thundered, stricken with anxiety. 

Trembling, the young man had taken out his cellphone and flipped the cover open. The dial had rung and he had, with a flea's voice, explained the situation with a caveman's vocabulary. 

Sirens had rung, flashed and filled the very street with a grim atmosphere. That very day, Tom the sandglass merchant had lost what was most valuable to him. 

It was... The first time that the young man had "met" Tom.