Social markets

©Roger Bultot

It is said you can learn a lot from a country and a society if you stroll through its markets. And that’s what she always did when she visited a new place.

But this time it was different.

She wasn’t visiting.

She was there forcefully, without even having the option to choose. There was no alternative. That’s what she was told.

The market was not a hospitable place, nor one you enjoyed walking through.

Merchants were trying to rip-off their potential clients, and small children were deftly trying to steal whatever they could without being caught.

‘Ideal’, she exhaled, despaired.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

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Who do you run to now?

It’s hard to lose your best friend.

The one who was always there for you. Who you would look into their eyes and just know that everything will be alright. Who would sense that you were not feeling well and come cuddle with you in bed or on the couch simply so you wouldn’t feel alone. Who would sit and watch a movie with you, silent, even if they didn’t care much about what was happening on screen. Who would look out for you, so much that you would wake up finding them sitting right in front of you as they were checking to see if you were still breathing, just to make sure you were ok. Who would be silly just to make you laugh. Who would let you sit with them even if they felt like sleeping. The one who would understand you even if you never said anything.

A friend like that is a friend for life. Because no matter the disputes, the arguments, the scratches that you may cause each other, somehow these are easily forgotten simply by looking into each other’s eyes. You can tell that they don’t hold a grudge, and how could you? The benefits of such a friendship are so much more and so priceless that it doesn’t even matter why you fought before.

It’s to a friend like this that you can run to with every problem you have. Sit beside them after a long and hard day and cry your eyes out because that is the only way to vent out the tiredness, the frustration, the sorrow. And this is where you feel safe. Because you know they will never judge you. Rather, they will be there for you, no matter what. And a hug from them is all you really need to regain that feeling that there is something still going right in this world. All it usually takes is a word. No matter how incomprehensible it may sound, the intonation is always right. And this friend always knows when to say what and how. And soon a smile creeps its way back onto your tear-wet face. It’s hard not to laugh with friends like this. They know just the way to bring you up when you’re down. And that is why losing them causes an unprecedented suffering and a wound that will never heal, and will definitely never be forgotten.

Sometimes all you need is a cat (or a dog). Because that is where I had found my best friend and family.

It’s hard to lose your best friend. It leaves a void in your heart that can never be filled.

The refuge that we seek

There is a tree in the back garden of Mrs Wilson’s house. A sycamore tree that has been growing tall for decades. I have always remembered it there. Offering its shade in the stifling summer heat, and its protection from the gushing winter hail. It has always been there. An ever-present protector.

Mrs Wilson says it was her grandfather that planted the tree. But she herself isn’t so sure about it either. How many generations have sat on its branches, pulled its leaves, climbed up its thick trunk and even hung from it self-made swings to play with. The incidents and life-experiences this tree could have witnessed are beyond measure.

Gemini, Mrs Wilson’s small Yorkshire dog was attached to this tree. No-one realized why. Ever since he was a puppy he would crawl up by its trunk and fall asleep. Whenever he was scolded for something he would run outside and hide under the shade and large, falling leaves of the tree. It was his haven. And even in the rain and thunder, he would stare outside the window at the tree and howl, upset that it was suffering the bad weather all alone when he was stuck inside.

It is amazing how creatures become attached to one another so intensely, so absolutely, so tightly. Things that some may consider so unimportant, things such as a tree that people simply cut down if it is in their way, things that do not offer some apparent benefit. It is these things though that provide the refuge, the protection, the support that we so often need.

Gemini found it in a great, old, sycamore tree.

Mrs Wilson found it in a photo of her husband who recently passed away.

And I, I find it anywhere, depending on the place and circumstance – in a soft-toy given by a loved one, in a picture of happier times, in a letter of love, in places that come from the heart.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Oasis