Nameless Fiction Project-Sr. 1
Marta, Jessica and I shared the fruits of Nanowrimo today. As we discussed, I will post my project. I hope that people can offer me plot advice, as I seem to have a list of characters, many of which have not yet been introduced, or who do not seem to share any connection to any of the other characters. Should I trust my subconscious to do the plotting, and just hope that I've got one coming?
But I have decided to post it as a serial, which makes it much more managable to read.
Sr. 1--In which the Market is introduced and a goldsmith working therein makes a sale.
In the farthest corner of the market, goldsmiths churn the scraps from the jewelers with callused hands. Vapor mists the details of their eyes; bricks of gold make the air glisten with heat. Who knows what gold flecks gather in the corners, or what fortunes hide in the dust of that trade?
Only black dust is visible, shuffled by every foot. In the tourist's wayfare, bright lights spread haphazardly from merchant's lamps, some held aloft, seeming to float, above the heads of beneficent statues. In the thick light, dust, the smallest particles visible to the eye, mingles from every trade. You can feel the minisculia in the air, a subtle caress that is also the acrid taste of metal and burning coal. Little particles glow like gold dust in the light of the many lamps.
Gold. Thin pools of metal in grudging blackness, like an eye slow to open. The distinction between flesh and metal is very thin in this city: some even wash their arthritic limbs in it, or consume it in little cups of the same substance.
In a shop as small as a monk's cell, under hot light, two gentlemen converse over a necklace of gold tulips.They stand head to head, in conspiracy over the price. One of them, the shopkeeper, fills the little space with his vowels. He castes his a's into the sentence like a silver fish lure as it catches the sunlight. He is overbearing, consuming the customer with his bombastry.
"The dazzle will bring out the spark in her eyes that alights in your dreams, messire."
Buttery wavering flames animate the metal they hold and the sweat on their brows. The intimate shadows dull the customer, loosening his wallet. Swooning into docility, the customer's sanguine face is a clear mark of hypnotism. The ballooning canvas ceiling dilutes the sunlight to ambiguity. As with other things, the time of day is lost here.
"Put the chain against your skin and see how the gold comes alive. We each bring our own colors to this beauty."
The shopkeeper's name is Malmud. In a while, after the customer has left in a daze, Malmud muses that he will retire behind the small wooden counter to eat spicy sausages and little olives that taste of cinnamon musk. His fat fingers, stubby with short nails, are delicate despite their size. The simple gold ring on his left pointer constricts his finger, irremovable, and tells a tale of youth without hedonism. The sausage grease on his hands will make visible the burn marks and scares of his apprenticeship. Nonetheless, he has much upon which to think himself happy. He has advanced past the anxiety of retail and become established, of the rank of goldsellers and jewelers that do not sell, but only wait. A little smile of contentment permanently shapes his figure. With a small smile, he watches the back of the customer as the man leaves Malmud's shop, lighter in the purse, but with a heavier purchase.
Burnt shavings of cocoa husks bitter in your nose; little motes of hay ruffled into the air by gruff ponies; particles of pollen crafted in fantasias; ash and dirt lifted by thoughtless winds. Jute handled by wasteful porters scatters from the packing crates and red camel hair from sprawling carpets catches in the corners of iron grates. Bits of hair and skin collect in a mimicry of nonhuman detritus, as if they had no life.
The noise! The noise is its own substance of "hey!" and "too much," an ephemeral quantity at an unpredictable price. Green grocers decry each other across the isles with mucilaginous insults. Some shoppers, caught unaware, roll like weary ships in a thick storm of invenctives. At a stall selling pastry, a client is blasted, staggering back, by the shout "Five flavors, five dollars--worth six!" And laughter jumps above the murmur, carelessly selling itself to children looking for clowns and buskers. Fish mongers listen, somehow, to the little ticking claws of lobsters and crabs counting down to death. Their life has a price. Within some tents, you can even buy silence.
The wayfare is a circle, ambulating shoppers past familiar pavilions as they wander in a cycle quicker than the tides. Pausing by a newstand, you peruse the advertisements of the local paper to learn of the area:
Residences Available: Private balconies, residences with a-joining rooms, masonry fireplaces, concierge, livery, in-house press and laundry, computers de chambre, children's playroom, private gardens, porte-cochere entrances. One to six bedrooms.
You are familiar with another part of the city, at the north butte of the market, in a peninsula traditionally used for shipping, where the poor rent shambled sublets carved out of old warehouses. Huge rooms divided by pre-fab walls into a hive of lives. Comparing the two districts, you remember that even among the poor, it is the Turk's color, turquoise, and a deep yellow that dominates each day. The dust of orange turmeric defines the market and this area with its color. Those vendors that handle turmeric have yellow fingertips, which they hide with yellow kangaroo-skin gloves. In the old warehouses, the poor live in rooms with yellow walls. Even those that do not sell turmeric have adopted its color; yellow is a color of opulance, of indulgence, of over-eating. You adjust your yellow cravat, remembering.
But I have decided to post it as a serial, which makes it much more managable to read.
Sr. 1--In which the Market is introduced and a goldsmith working therein makes a sale.
In the farthest corner of the market, goldsmiths churn the scraps from the jewelers with callused hands. Vapor mists the details of their eyes; bricks of gold make the air glisten with heat. Who knows what gold flecks gather in the corners, or what fortunes hide in the dust of that trade?
Only black dust is visible, shuffled by every foot. In the tourist's wayfare, bright lights spread haphazardly from merchant's lamps, some held aloft, seeming to float, above the heads of beneficent statues. In the thick light, dust, the smallest particles visible to the eye, mingles from every trade. You can feel the minisculia in the air, a subtle caress that is also the acrid taste of metal and burning coal. Little particles glow like gold dust in the light of the many lamps.
Gold. Thin pools of metal in grudging blackness, like an eye slow to open. The distinction between flesh and metal is very thin in this city: some even wash their arthritic limbs in it, or consume it in little cups of the same substance.
In a shop as small as a monk's cell, under hot light, two gentlemen converse over a necklace of gold tulips.They stand head to head, in conspiracy over the price. One of them, the shopkeeper, fills the little space with his vowels. He castes his a's into the sentence like a silver fish lure as it catches the sunlight. He is overbearing, consuming the customer with his bombastry.
"The dazzle will bring out the spark in her eyes that alights in your dreams, messire."
Buttery wavering flames animate the metal they hold and the sweat on their brows. The intimate shadows dull the customer, loosening his wallet. Swooning into docility, the customer's sanguine face is a clear mark of hypnotism. The ballooning canvas ceiling dilutes the sunlight to ambiguity. As with other things, the time of day is lost here.
"Put the chain against your skin and see how the gold comes alive. We each bring our own colors to this beauty."
The shopkeeper's name is Malmud. In a while, after the customer has left in a daze, Malmud muses that he will retire behind the small wooden counter to eat spicy sausages and little olives that taste of cinnamon musk. His fat fingers, stubby with short nails, are delicate despite their size. The simple gold ring on his left pointer constricts his finger, irremovable, and tells a tale of youth without hedonism. The sausage grease on his hands will make visible the burn marks and scares of his apprenticeship. Nonetheless, he has much upon which to think himself happy. He has advanced past the anxiety of retail and become established, of the rank of goldsellers and jewelers that do not sell, but only wait. A little smile of contentment permanently shapes his figure. With a small smile, he watches the back of the customer as the man leaves Malmud's shop, lighter in the purse, but with a heavier purchase.
Burnt shavings of cocoa husks bitter in your nose; little motes of hay ruffled into the air by gruff ponies; particles of pollen crafted in fantasias; ash and dirt lifted by thoughtless winds. Jute handled by wasteful porters scatters from the packing crates and red camel hair from sprawling carpets catches in the corners of iron grates. Bits of hair and skin collect in a mimicry of nonhuman detritus, as if they had no life.
The noise! The noise is its own substance of "hey!" and "too much," an ephemeral quantity at an unpredictable price. Green grocers decry each other across the isles with mucilaginous insults. Some shoppers, caught unaware, roll like weary ships in a thick storm of invenctives. At a stall selling pastry, a client is blasted, staggering back, by the shout "Five flavors, five dollars--worth six!" And laughter jumps above the murmur, carelessly selling itself to children looking for clowns and buskers. Fish mongers listen, somehow, to the little ticking claws of lobsters and crabs counting down to death. Their life has a price. Within some tents, you can even buy silence.
The wayfare is a circle, ambulating shoppers past familiar pavilions as they wander in a cycle quicker than the tides. Pausing by a newstand, you peruse the advertisements of the local paper to learn of the area:
Residences Available: Private balconies, residences with a-joining rooms, masonry fireplaces, concierge, livery, in-house press and laundry, computers de chambre, children's playroom, private gardens, porte-cochere entrances. One to six bedrooms.
You are familiar with another part of the city, at the north butte of the market, in a peninsula traditionally used for shipping, where the poor rent shambled sublets carved out of old warehouses. Huge rooms divided by pre-fab walls into a hive of lives. Comparing the two districts, you remember that even among the poor, it is the Turk's color, turquoise, and a deep yellow that dominates each day. The dust of orange turmeric defines the market and this area with its color. Those vendors that handle turmeric have yellow fingertips, which they hide with yellow kangaroo-skin gloves. In the old warehouses, the poor live in rooms with yellow walls. Even those that do not sell turmeric have adopted its color; yellow is a color of opulance, of indulgence, of over-eating. You adjust your yellow cravat, remembering.