Sale Time #3 (freewrite fiction)

Read the first part of 'Sale Time' here and the second part here. Or don't. Whatever.

_{Photo by Larm Rmah on Unsplash}

He sits up high, perched on his stool, observing with eagle eyes the comings and goings of his weary customers. Tokens clutched tight in their hands, they run as if they'd never been there, wishing perhaps they weren't.

She will spend the evening alone and in the morning, she will trip over the empty bottle of rare delight and she will fall, breaking her chin in the process, but it won't really matter. There will be pleasure for her, coming from the unlikeliest of places. Though not love. People so rarely come to him for love. But her life is out of his hands now, she's heard his price and he's offered his token.

And he finds, with as mush relief as there is panic, that he's never quite let go of the game, that the how-to was always in his blood and coming back was...well, like coming home really. In all his long miserable years of drowned out noise, sadness has followed him around for the life he didn't live. For all that wasted potential.

Which is why the young pimply boy standing slightly aside from the rabble pricks his interest. He's interested in his offer, he's been interested for fifteen minutes, but he hasn't come asking. He can't, although he glances at the stall ever so often, hoping maybe that the price will change.
But no, that's not it, the man sees. That's not what the boy fears. He's prepared to pay the price in that unknowing way that children have – what's his soul worth after all? Nothing.
The man waits for the boy to look again, talking all the while with a soft-spoken middle aged man with glasses and nostalgia in his eyes. He twists the token in his palm and lifts the nostalgia away. Tonight, the man will go home with a renewed interest in life. Tonight, he will feel alive.

The boy looks and the man nods his head, almost imperceptibly but just enough for the boy to notice and stand up a little taller. He can't play around no more. He shuffles his feet, but he must wait in line, the vendor's rules change for no man.
One by one, he hands out tokens to be held a lifetime. He remembers stories from when he was young, when the voices hadn't yet settled in, when he was just learning the trade – stories of people who grew unhappy. Though no, that's not technically true. People who grew afraid, for their time drew near, and they understood a little better what they were about to sell. Or they thought they did, anyway. People who panicked and threw away their tokens, tried to get rid of them anyway they could, planting them in friends' houses, casting them in the river, moving to another city.
And he remembers how all the boys in class would look up, eyes like fire, and ask 'and then what happened?'
But never him. He never wanted to know what happens, never doubted the power of the tokens, just that of the sellers. The rules are strict, the master would tell them, once cast away, a contract becomes void. On our part.
But once your soul is sold, it's gone for good, there's no way to get it back. There is, quite simply, no one who will give it back to you.

So, he lets the boy wait, for he recognizes the fire in his eyes. He's seen his kind before, though not in a long time.
I haven't done this in a long time, he reminds himself bitterly.
And it is night almost, by the time the boy gets up front. He's chased himself around, leaving the long line only to join it again and now, he is the last. The man looks at the boy's face – a child in humanity's eyes.
'And what would you have?' he asks. He does not care much for the boy's name, for they do not deal in names. They deal in souls, and those indeed are nameless.
'I would tell stories like no one's ever told them before,' the boy says, licking his thin lips, but still ready to run. It's too late, little boy, you're mine.
'You already do,' the king replies, watching from a distance as the boy's life unfolds before his eyes.
There's a pause, a boy who is not yet a man does not speak. He has not yet learned how to come int his own, but he will soon. 'Yes,' he says, hesitantly, 'but I would numb the voices in my mind, for they don't let me think sometimes.'
'And?'
'And...I'm afraid. Afraid that they'll poison me, if they can, and I won't ever tell stories again.'
There's a hardness in the boy's voice, like a lump inside his throat that won't go away.

'It will destroy you, the silence. It will throw you off track and you will become a monster,' he looks at him again, his eyes scorching the boy's face. 'Those voices are there with a reason and without them, you would have no balance, you would run too fast. Your stories will become worthless, if you cast the voices away.'
And so will mine, he thinks, as he hands the boy his token.

to be continued

Today's prompt was 'token', thanks to @mariannewest who is hosting the 5 Minute Freewrite Challenge. Check her out!

Thanks for reading,