Trauma Marketplace
Price range: $12.50 through $17.50
The details
The stall did not sell fruit. It sold receipts.
Come for a bruise, leave with a ballad. Come for a ghost, leave with a friend who will not stop explaining it. Prices were flexible. Dignity was not included. Two vendors yelled the specials like the pain had gone seasonal.
Trauma Marketplace ran on volume and bad timing. Nobody admitted they were shopping. Everybody left with a bag. A brick for the story. A song for the walk home. A small haunt for company.
Healing was in the next alley and charged extra. This aisle was cheaper and louder. You came to browse. You stayed because someone finally put a label on the thing you carried and called it inventory.
