Colleen Anderson
Response
Market Street
By Dominic Mazzilli
Inspiration piece
Market Street. The pulsating heart of town throbbed with wealth and an everlasting flow of people in, but not necessarily out.
Market Street was a wide, seemingly endless street paved with large gray cobblestones. It was only interrupted once on its path around the upper third of town, effectively creating a trap which could only be exited by running the length of it. Aside from that single break, which was Broad Street or “The Gutter” as it was called by the less fortunate peoples, no other roads, or even alleys, led into Market Street.
One could simply enter with the intent of passing through to some errand on the other side of town, and find themselves lost for hours. A constant chatter of a hundred dialects mixed with several musicians and near constant fireworks filled the air, spilling into the world around and diving into the colorful cracks of the crowd. As pinwheels spun ever faster and streamers overhead danced in the joy of it all, all sense was forgotten and all direction lost. Thousands of customers and traders of a hundred races went into the dozens of shops and came away with more than any of them intended. These goods that came and went were the lifeblood of town and everyone eventually took part in this give and take.
As you struggled through the blinding colors and laughing folks you might spy the lanky and yellow eyed hunters of the south or the webbed hands of the fish farmers, but no discrimination was here: everyone was just part of the river. One could see every culture on a single street.
Your nose would be grabbed by the scents that spilled from bakeries and street carts serving all manner of delicacies and treats. Sweet bubbling taffys and hot, steaming, meat pies would make your mouth water, you would think of the hot potato broth and crispy meats that lined up around you.
At one point you may stop, even as hundreds streamed around you, and stare straight into a sky of kites and fireworks. Streamers would whirl above you and a happy bubbling beat would strike up nearby. Dozens of voices would fill your ears and hundreds of fragrant aromas fill your nose as every imaginable object and good was sold around you.
And then you would be back into the crowd: yet another customer of the much too kind shop owners, and an oblivious prisoner of Market Street.
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