Colors danced across the page, revealing cobbled pathways and quaint houses lining the street. She stepped down the smooth road, footsteps mingling with the laughter filling the air. She entered the market and gazed around at the exotic chaos surrounding her. Clutching her coat around her tight, she entered the crowd.
“A colorful scarf for a beautiful young lady,” a handsome young salesman enticed, waving her to his stall with a beautiful grin.
She nodded with a returned smile. The market was full of people of all ages. Old women sat to the sides, sorting and making wares. Young men and women selling and shopping, bustling from one stall to another. Young children ran through the crowd, playing an endless game of tag, or watched with longing from their mother’s clutches.
She felt at home here. The smells of spices, sweets, and incense were nearly drowned by the tang of sweat, but it was comforting to her content senses. It was a place where people went every day, falling into patterns that they didn’t think to divert from.
Darting around people–left, no, right, then forward–was an exhilarating rush, barely allowing her to take in the unique sights surrounding her. But the market went on forever, as long as she could walk; so she stopped at an ornate door, intricately painted in blue and gold, and entered a crowded store stocked with endless bottles.
Tall, short, fat, skinny, dark, opaque, larger than her whole body, smaller than her pinky. The jars and bottles sat against walls, stacked shelves, and filled the room with a million bright colors.
The door swinging behind her brought a silence to the room; noise muffled to a background hum, and with the dust floating through the air, lazy as a disturbed sleeping cat, the room filled with an old, comfy air.
“Hello,” the girl called, stepping over ceramic pots, painted bright reds and yellows. Her words echoed back at her, slightly distorted from the walls of glass made by the endless bottles.
Slowly making her way to the front of the store, she suddenly stepped into a square of light filtering in a million different colors, reflecting off glass and shingles from a small ceiling window, surprisingly clean and free of dust. The girl stood in the circle of light, feeling as if she was under water, flecks moving over her arms as sunlight illuminated from above the depths.
“Good day, young Madame,” a throaty voice interrupted her reverie. The girl was used to being called young; it was not merely her age though, but a natural look of youth and innocence, big eyes and soft face, that made people think of fleeting times stuck between too young or too old.
“How may I help you?”
The women at the counter was nondescript. Not a forgetful plainess, or unattractive, but a prettiness in the most common of senses.
She was not sure what she needed, what she wanted, but she approached the shopkeeper with a friendly smile.
“Do you have knives?” The words appeared from nowhere, escaping her lips on an exhale.
The shopkeeper was not surprised, though that was obviously not the specialty of the store.
“Yes. Follow me and watch your step.”
As if by magic, a door was behind the lady. It opened with a slight sigh, as if relieved to be exposed and in use, as she came behind the shop’s counter. Our feet echoed through the dark tunnel, tall and black. She followed the shopkeeper, watching her back as she slowly grew sharper and more defined; the purple of her skirt deeper, her shoulders stronger, her hair whisping out at the corners.
The tunnel led to a large cavern-like room. It was hard for her to imagine it stretching below the giant market above, so cold and quiet. It was also filled with weapons. Almost as prolific as the bottles upstairs, she saw everything from small knives, smaller than those found in the kitchen, to giant crossbow machines, resting on wheels and looking impossible to take out of the room through the narrow tunnel entrance.
She was entranced, wide eyes sweeping across the room with enough weapons to arm a small army.
“Why do you need a weapon?”
She jerked her head up at the sound of the shopkeeper’s voice.
The shopkeeper’s shrewd eyes stared through her, trying to pick apart motives.
“I’m going on an adventure. When one travels paths that most abandon, they need something to keep them safe.”
The shopkeeper seemed surprised and she let out a snort. “Adventures are for foolish little boys.”
“Foolish little boys seem much happier than the adventureless adults that surround them, do they not?”
“It sounds like you’re just looking for trouble. Stay at home, young girl. Be safe in your bed and content in the healthy life you live.”
“I can’t, I *won’t* do that,” she strode to a table and picked up three pieces she’d been eyeing, “How much for these?”
“Down that way lays hardship and heartache. Turn back now, before it is too late.”
She is quiet for a moment and when she speaks again her voice is firmer.
“How much?”
She quickly pays and exits the shop with a million sparkling lights, buys tucked underarm in a parcel.
As she walked through the market again, going down a path that would lead to the old towering mountains, sellers still tried to sell from the sides, enticing her with their exotic goods, begging her to stay. She didn’t want to buy exotic goods though. She wanted to explore those exotic places for herself, see the trees ripe fruits hung from, walk the paths the brave and reckless trod, and live a life full of color. It was easy for many to sit back and let their lives be lived for them, but she refused to give in, to give up.
This was only the smallest part of her journey, and it would never end. People could tell her she was foolish. Staying in one place, afraid of more and better, could seem promising, but she would not give up.
As she set down her paintbrush, and looked at fresh paintings of markets and glass and a mountain in front of her, she knew she would come back tomorrow and continue her adventure. She was free. Always free. And no one would ever convince her the magnificence in her mind wasn’t good enough. Her art mattered. She mattered.
Becoming Writer 2016 Anniversary Contest 