THE VERMILION MARKET

摘要

The crystals turned the sunlight into fragments of story across the market stalls. There were crystals that hung from strings or were set in place on ornate stands. Some even adorned the bodies of carvers, jewels that bevelled the fragments of poems and flash-stories. One woman wore a pair of haiku earrings; another, a bracelet that was carved in such detail that its planes cast more than a thousand phrases at once. Parents and children stood among them, pointing up at the fountain that would soon bring the off-world buyers to our city. I followed the gaze of a child as she stared up at the tower, waiting for the moment when it would light up and sway with the motion of their descent.