Flights of Fancy

Both exotic and familiar smells, sights and sounds flood my senses from all directions. The early market is already bustling with life as shouts of buyers and merchants fill the claustrophobic atmosphere. People are pushing past each other but barely moving on the wide but busy, cobblestone-lined street, their straw-woven baskets overflowing with crisp green apples, warm bread and freshly made goat cheese. A barefooted teenage boy in a scruffy white blouse and tattered dull brown trousers is leaning against a stall on the dusty ground, strumming low notes on his guitar. Straight across from him, over the heads of the village folk, a smaller boy, maybe at the age of twelve, is squatting on a branch of a colossal oak, clutching a flute in his hands. He begins to play a light-hearted tune, his dark, slender fingers moving swiftly along the silver instrument. The older boy strums his guitar more furiously, playing the same song with a competitive look on his face. People pause in the middle of the street, smiling and tossing cracked gold coins into the shabby hat of the musician they like best. What started out as friendly rivalry heats up into an aggressive contest, the tempo increasing every beat, becoming faster and faster still, until the musicians cannot keep up and stop playing, laughing heartily at each other. To my left, three drunk and unshaven middle aged men sit at a table in an outdoor pub and take turns wolf-whistling at the young server girl who is wearing a revealing striped dress. Beside the rowdy pub, an elderly Japanese woman is standing behind a counter jam-packed with delicate hand-painted urns of all sizes. To her right, there is a table where long, lacquered pairs of chopsticks are carefully laid out; some have cherry blossom patterns running down their sides, some have narrow dragons with white scales, and a select few have Japanese characters painted on them, wishing the user success, luck and longevity. Joyful squeals of two small boys can be heard over the crowd as they duel with their new wooden swords. Their grandmother, standing hunched-over in an old yarn throw, periodically shoots them disapproving glances as she carefully selects a bunch of grapes. As I slowly elbow my way through the crowd to my desired target, the church’s bells start chiming the morning hours. The low, steady beats echo over the bustle and noise, painting a perfect picture of a Sunday morning at a medieval marketplace.