Monday, 17 September 2012

Interlude I: Jaggery




The pale lady removes something from her bag, something that clinks against her nails, and places it on the countertop.
A green-tinted jam jar holding a yellow round brick. The faded label on the front reads, in hastily scribed cursive, Jaggery.
The old woman picks it up and turns it around in her hands, inspecting it as a miser inspects his gold. The pale-eyed lady seems on edge as the silence stretches on, punctuated by the clock ticking in the corner.
“Yes, very hard to find sugar from palm sap,” the shopkeeper decrees.
The lady’s shoulders sag in relief, tension in them vanishing, dissipating in the air like smoke. 

Text by Lucie MacAulay

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