The Bazaar

The intro for a short piece from awhile back, just setting the stage. Well, more of a marketplace really.

Bazaars are unique in the world. They are like no other marketplace. They are the lifeblood of countless, the spine supporting so many fragile lives. They are festivals as well as abodes of business, home to merchant and buyer alike.

The competing thrum of voices pierces through the air, each vying to top the other, only to realize they must contend likewise with the sound of thousands of footsteps and the chaotic rustle of dozens of hands exchanging money. The sky is all but blotted out by the rickety overhangs towering above, casting warped shadows down onto the heavily trodden earth beneath. Nothing will ever again grow there.

Then there are the bodies, the millions of individuals who crowd and squirm through the commercial labyrinth. Their stampede is merciless. It is their feet that pound the ground and cause the earth to quiver, it is their puff of breath that saturates the humid air and makes it intolerable. It is their greed that spurs this cesspool into existence and tears everything else apart.

A bazaar is dangerous. One can be torn from one’s loved ones by the mobs. One can find themselves lost amidst the soulless, grinning eyes of traders and hollow-shelled shoppers. One can be crushed by the pressure of a hundred bodies all pressing down towards one particular booth whose shiny objects attract the people like moths to a flame. Fortunes are made and lost here, windfalls dropped into people’s hands only to be swiftly snatched away, whether by choice or not.

And then, at night, the chaos silences. The many booths close, closing unto themselves to starve off the bone-chilling cold. The populace vanishes as madly as it appeared, leaving an empty vacuum gasping for its fill in the streets. The only sounds are the shrieking winds, finally free to revel throughout the shacks and the pitiful flickers of a few flames as poor souls hunker down for what could be their last night. These stragglers are the worst. They sit there, watching throughout the day only to piece the facts together by night. When approached, they’ll speak terrible truths that one would better wish hidden. But their simple words cannot be denied for they have done nothing more than sit quietly on the fringes, observing with a bird’s-eye view at the swarming hell that is life to everyone else. These vagabonds are dangerous; some may wield fearsome weapons and bear ill intentions. There are never friends in the bazaar, but after twilight one can only worry about which of whom these ever-present watchers are the most prominent threat.

Some would say it’s you, for ever stepping foot into such an abominable place like this.

Author's Note

I usually proofread my works, however as always I'm sure there are typos and syntax errors. I appreciate any and all notices of that, and will work to correct those. If I haven't do know that I did acknowledge your notice and try implementing it, but found that it detracted from the effect I wanted and so omitted it.