Post by bubba on Mar 24, 2024 13:56:27 GMT -4
This past Tuesday, there was a peddler near Dover Beach.
She might have been in her late thirties or early forties; was catfish-belly pale; and seemed a bit discombobulated rummaging through maybe one hundred scrap-fabric patchwork pockets sewn to a long apron worn over her petticoats... Yeah, you read that right. She was dressed like some late Nineteenth Century lady. She had her hair up in a severe bun fixed with ivory pins under a little hat. All the historical re-enactment dress and accoutrements you'd expect.
When I asked her if I might be of service, she calmed herself, then replied, "I have no time for gay, meaningless chit-chat; however, should souvenir trinkets be of interest to you, then we might have commerce. My invalid sister crafts sand art."
From her many pockets, she produced a few antique pharmacy bottles with beeswax-sealed glass stoppers. Sure enough, they contained scenes of pastoral cows under the five main phases of the moon. Under the new moon, the cows were sleeping; under the crescent moon, they stood on their hind legs; the half-moon, they danced; the gibbous moon, they gamboled; and under the full moon, they leapt over the moon.
Her pitch went something like, "I concede it must sound mad, but my sister has no means of procuring and pulverizing the sands of which she so carefully fills her medication bottles. When asked wherefrom their source, she will gibe in blithe humor that she collects them from the moon in her dreams."
I offered the lady cash for a bottle of her sister's sand art. The lady looked at the money, looked at me sternly, then stormed off in a huff.