Ficlet
The sea gulls swarmed around the young woman as she walked along the docks on auction day. There were rows upon rows of things to be sold and traded, and she came every week, looking for that special something. No one knew what it was. The dock workers doubted that she even knew what it was. But every week, she was found walking along the docks, searching through piles and piles of random bits of metal. One day, a sailor had asked her what she had been searching for. She had said that she wasn’t sure, but she’d know it when she saw it. Before he could make a snide comment, she had turned on her heel and walked the other way, her parasol blocking her from view.
Today, however, was overcast, and the young woman came without the shading accessory. She was walking along the docks, like usual, when she suddenly stopped. She tapped a wooden crate with her foot at the base of one ship’s pile. “Open this one, please?”
The sailor, who was known around the docks for hating auction day, looked down his nose at the young woman in front of him. The other sailors watched in shock as he bowed his head and shifted crates and barrels around until the lid to the indicated crate was freed. She raised her eyebrow at him, and he opened the box with a nearby crowbar.
Other sailors leaned in close, trying to catch a glimpse of what treasures she was looking for along these docks. She had never stopped and asked to have a crate opened before. This had to be exactly what she was looking for.
She leaned over the open crate, shifting some items out of her way. They appeared to be nothing but bits of metal. She came up with a hook, made of stainless steel, and extremely sharp at the tip. As the light slowly broke through the stormy sky, a red hue could be seen on the hook. Looking closely at it, she smiled a sinister smile and her eyes flashed to the man in front of her. “How much would you like for this?”
The man was no fool. He knew she came along the docks every week, looking for something. She had obviously found what she had been looking for, and he wasn’t about to let it go for naught.
“Fifty quid, ma’am.”
The woman looked at him hard. “Excuse me?”
“Fifty quid.”
She looked at him, her gaze unwavering. The other sailors were starting to draw around the two, watching them barter over the price. The woman never said another word, however. She waited for the man to lower the price. She was no fool herself, and waited for the sailor to catch up with her mentally.
It quickly became apparent that the man was not going to lower his price. She shifted her gaze to the sailors surrounding them, then shoved the hooked blade into the large sailor’s belly, his eyes filled with shock.
She turned to the crowd, who immediately backed away from her. “That should teach you a lesson about taking advantage of people. When I return for the auctions next week, I do not want to have to repeat this action next time I find something I am looking for. I will pay a fair price, but I will not be taken advantage of.”
She swiftly turned and walked back the way she had come, the bloody hook hanging from her left hand, her right hand reaching for a handkerchief to clean the blade, a few drops leading away from the dying sailor behind her.