The Word Seller

Bordun’s word market is only accessible by foot. The surrounding area is all rocks and sundried earth, cracked and flattened by travelling writers. I visited on one occasion as a much younger man, but the memory is a vivid one. You could hear the shouting of the sellers a good distance away – well before seeing the bright blue tents, and the stalls behind which men and women promised the perfect phrase for your story.

            “Ten for a word!” said one.

“Fifteen!” said another. “My words will make you cry.”

While I did not elect to purchase a word from that particular vendor, I did hear a sob during my visit, issued vaguely from that direction.

Instead, I continued to walk through the crowd. My instinct was to keep a hand by my wallet, but I had been assured that the place was quite safe, a sacred spot for lovers of the written craft. Fearing that it might seem disrespectful, I made a conscious effort to stop myself from guarding my money.

After a good hour of wandering, I noticed a stall quite different than the others. Its owner, an old dark-skinned man, sat quietly. His scowl seemed carved into the features of his stoney face. I was intrigued.

As I approached, he noticed me, and though he did not smile, he nodded approvingly.

“Good,” he said. He motioned for me to take a seat (there was a stool, wooden and weathered). “You must be a good writer.” There was a shuffle and a boy emerged from a tent behind the stall. The man proceeded to yell at him for a long time in a language I could not speak or place. When this was done, he turned back to me as though nothing had happened.

“Why don’t you advertise like the others?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.

“Bah!” he said. “Do you know that this market used to be free for all? It was one man that decided to start charging a fee. All the fools assumed his words were better than the rest.”

“And you don’t charge?”

He nodded that same, slow nod. “Now you’re getting it. But” – he held up a finger – “I do want something in return. A word for a word.”

Honestly, I was delighted. Here was a word-seller of old, a moment of myth! I accepted his deal quite instantly and asked for a moment to think through my best words.

Tragicomic, I thought, might be a good one. It was a solid adjective, usable and sharp. But as my eyes met his, I hesitated. They were subtly veined, unblinking: the old man awaited. I flipped through the pages of my mind again. Ganga, I thought. It was a Spanish word meaning good deal. But almost as soon as one corner of my mind had produced the suggestion, another rejected it. Of course not, you fool! I stopped myself from shaking my head and returned to the realm of English, now panicked, a child running down alien corridors, opening door after door to unfurnished rooms of white tile. Words! I thought. I need words! Taciturn, flintlock, incarnadine. I strained like a madman in chains, the white rooms having belonged to an asylum, lights too bright above, the child-me staring.

“Where are your words?” he seemed to ask. But I had none, I had no special things to give.

The old man shifted slightly in his seat. I blurted:

“Tragicomic.”

I was sure that I had made a mistake, but I could not read his expression. He seemed to consider it like toffee in the mouth, rolling it around the tongue, eyes widening and narrowing, then closing entirely. His head shifted from side to side with the weight of the thing. When he had swallowed and digested, he gave that famous nod.

“I like it!” He chuckled to himself. “Tragicomic, eh? Very good…”

I was warm with pride. A smile, a real smile, pushes the cheeks up. And when it’s done, you can still feel it, the flesh tired from the act. I was a writer, I thought. A real writer!

Now it was his turn to impress. He cat-stretched and looked around carefully before speaking.

“Squalid.”

I heard it a long time before understanding what he had said. I suppose that I had expected more. It was a fine word, useable too, but I already knew it. And it was hardly magical. I adjusted my seat and, somewhere in the market, there was the sound of people clapping.

“Well?” he asked.

“A very good word.” My sadness was blue ink, spilled and spreading slowly behind my ribs.

The man, however, was blissfully unaware of my disappointment. He laughed, a booming sound, before reaching across to clap me on the shoulder.

“You won’t get words like that for money! Not a chance.”

He offered me some chewing tobacco before lobbing a piece into his mouth. The word seller seemed to enjoy my company quite a bit, enough that I felt oddly guilty for my lack of enthusiasm.

“Would you like another, friend?” he asked, still chewing, but I refused. I explained that I still needed to mull over the first one. This only added to his respect for me.

“Yes, very wise indeed.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, both slightly hunched, I noticed, but for very different reasons. He was relaxed, I was depressed. I thanked him again before leaving his stall. Behind me, I heard his voice bellowing in that strange language (most likely at the boy again).

How strange it was to see the bright blue tents around me, cloth shivering in semi-frequent breeze, sellers hollering through cupped hands: ten, fifteen, twenty for a word! But it was all a few steps further from me, like a book once loved but now scrutinized.

You will ask: why not visit another stall? As this very thought occurred to me, I reached for my wallet. But it was, of course, gone.