The Market

It had been a couple of months now since insomnia had taken over his life (again), and as usual he hopelessly spent the first week rolling around the bed in hopes of defeating insomnia and catching some rest. It didn't work.

One hot humid night while he was lost in his thoughts and the cigarette smoke, he saw some bright lights across the river lighting up in sequence from left to right, turning that gloomy building into a bright spot. 

"What the fuck could that be?" he thought to himself. 

He lived in a very quiet neighbourhood, everything was closed after ten and by midnight you would never see a soul outside. It was now 2:30 in the morning and he felt intrigued, what could that be? This thought was quickly lost while his mind drifted away following the spirals of smoke emerging from his cigarette. He stayed like this until the sun started to rise, the warmth on his face brought him back from this trance. It was then when he felt the strike of hunger; he walked to the fridge only to find it empty.

Several nights he spent in the same manner, same ritual, same thoughts. On the seventh night the lights turned right on schedule and a weird red light shone in the very center, it seemed to be directed at him.

"Weird," he thought to himself while sipping the last of his green tea.
"I should get another one"

He took his orange bicycle down the elevator, briefly glancing at his reflection in the elevator mirror.

"I should get some sleep," he thought to himself when noticing the dark eye-bags that probably had been on his face for weeks.


He rode into the night, hoping to get a nice cold can of green tea, he could still see the red light through the mirror mounted on the right of his bicycle, at the junction he forgot about the tea, turned left and crossed the bridge. A big sign he had never seen stood right down the bridge, pointing towards the light across his place. 

"Tourist Fish Market," he read intriguingly.

Reluctantly he turned left towards the lights, he found a brightly lit building, tons of red banners and stalls. The place was, surprisingly, empty. He sat outside puzzled by the emptiness of the place, if this was a tourist attraction, shouldn't it have at least some people inside? This was probably the insomnia playing tricks with his mind, but he could hear the buzz of people somewhere close. He closed his eyes and briskly rubbed them.

"What the fuck is wrong with me?!" he thought to himself.

"What wrong with you?" said a man with a heavy Chinese accent. "Wake up! First day no? Today, you clean."

The man was old, brown skinned, rough, probably a fisherman, he held a lit cigarette between his teeth and was grinning with red-tainted teeth (probably due to the betel nut), he looked like a simple and happy fellow.

He followed the old man to the end of the market and was given a pair of rubber boots and a big brush.

"Now you clean," said the old man. 

Lacking a better thing to do or the will to complain, and despite the fact that there was no people around, he got to this knees and started cleaning. 

The sun started to shine in the horizon, he closed his eyes and briskly rubbed them. 

"What the fuck is wrong with me?!" he thought to himself.

"What wrong with you?" said the old man, "Second day, no? Today you carry clam."

The night had come again and he followed the fisherman to the first stall lined up on the right, once he was in front of it he noticed an endless line of rafts with dim lamps hanging on their backs, it looked like and endless golden dragon extending through the night. The people on the rafts was getting impatient, shouting what seemed to him like gibberish. 

"Go, carry clam," said the old man.

And diligently he approached the rafts and started unloading the boxes full of clams, neatly stacking them at the front of the stall. While zenly doing this, he noticed a blonde girl cleaning the aisles and without giving it a second thought he kept working. 

The golden line of lanterns still stretched infinitely, he was getting tired. People started to line outside the stall shouting for what sounded like a bargain. 

The sun started shining in the horizon, the reddish light was warming his face. He closed his eyes. 

"What the fuck is wrong with me?!" he thought to himself.

"What wrong with you?" said the old man. "Third day, no? Today you work squid."

An old lady was waiting for him in one of the stalls, behind her, endless lines of boxes filled with squid, barely alive, still moving their tentacles helplessly while she grabbed them by the head. 

"You do," said the old lady pointing at the chopping board in front of her.

With swift moves of the knife, she gutted the squid and separated head and tentacles, proceeded then to slice it and put it in a bag which would later be taken by a customer. 

"You do," said the lady.

He approached the chopping board and grabbed the knife, he noticed it had his name engraved in the steel. 

"That for you," said the old lady.

Feeling empowered by such beautiful piece of sharp steel, he grabbed a squid, inserted the knife to gut it. A black explosion came from the mid part of the squid; he had broken its ink pouch. 

"Ha ha ha!" laughed the old lady. "Careful and slow."

While wiping the ink off his face he noticed the blonde girl struggling with some boxes in the next stall. 

"She has to do it by herself," said the old lady.

His attention came back to the chopping board, he entered some kind of trance and mechanically started to gut, separate, slice and bag the squid. After a few hours and coincidentally at the very moment the sun was starting to shine, he punctured another ink pouch and got soiled again. 

"What the fuck is wrong with me?!" thought to himself while wiping the ink off his face. 

"What wrong with you?" said the old man. "Fourth day, no? Today you work lobster."

The lobsters were all crowded up in a couple of boxes. Moving on their own filth, it was a very depressing sight for him. An old woman looked at him and pointed at a couple of water pools in the next stall. He knew what needed to be done, he took the first lobster, cleaned it a bit and relocated it in the big pool and continued this process with the rest of them.

He had a strange sensation, he knew the lobsters would soon be killed and consumed, which made him sad, but at least the would spend the remaining of their lives in a clean and nice place, that was not bad, besides, the meat was nicer tasting when the lobster was relaxed before dying. 

By the moment the sun was shining in the horizon all but one lobster were already gone, he took the last one, closed his eyes and said good bye. 

"What is wrong with me?!" he thought to himself.

"What wrong with you?" said the old man. "Fifth day, no? Today, you work fish."

Why not? He liked fish. He walked behind the old man and found himself in the largest area of the market, there was a huge variety of fish, and it was that where the real difficulty of the job relied, knowing what to do with each type of fish. Most people would take the whole fish (they probably enjoyed the gutting and cutting just as much as he did) but some of them wanted them clean, gutted, head on, head off, sliced, to fry, to bake... you get the idea. His only tool was the knife he had got as a gift the other night and now hanged on the side of his belt on a leather pouch. 

The knife was beautiful, yet simple. An extremely sharp long piece o Japanese steel, some characters engraved in it next to his name. It was mounted in a piece of polished bamboo also engraved with his name. The blade shone with the moonlight (or the fluorescent lights, he was not sure).

Working alongside him were a few other guys wearing a white apron, they worked fast and with precision, he had to observe them to learn. They didn't speak much and seemed annoyed by his very presence. He was already pretty good with the blade, so in no time he was cutting fast like a samurai. 

He glanced to the lobster stall looking for the blonde girl, logic would dictate that she would have move to that place if she was doing the same thing as he was. But she was still struggling with the clam boxes.

"Well, I guess everyone works at their own pace," said to himself noting a tiny bit of condescendence in his voice. 

He looked forward to find his last customer, he struggled to cut and clean this fish, something was wrong. He cut the tail and packed the fish, his customer was on his way when the red sunshine in the horizon started warming up his face, he took the knife and examined it closely against the red light. 

"The blade is dull," he thought to himself. 

He stabbed the chopping board leaving the knife deeply encrusted in the wood. Closed his eyes and sat on the floor. 

"What is wrong with me?" thought to himself.

"What wrong with you?" said the old man. "I see dull knife, come, important job for you."

The night had come again and the place was busier than ever, but the old man seemed to be guiding him outside. 

"Where are we going?" said he in a weird voice that almost sounded like someone else.

"You will see" said the old man. 

Outside of the market, near the back entrance, was a little stall, illuminated only by a dim incandescent bulb. A man, older than his guide sat in front of a table. On the table, a bucket of water and ten stones carefully aligned. The bulb illuminated only half of the man's face, he had his eyes closed and was smiling, judging by his tools he was a knife-smith. The knife-smith said hello and approached him and his guide walking gracefully with slow and decisive steps. 

The old man and the knife-smith had a quick conversation and seemed to have agreed on something. 

The graceful old knife-smith sat on an upside down bucket and offered him one next to him. He sat awkwardly next to the knife-smith, what did this man wanted from him was clear, sharpen the knife, but how that would be accomplished represented a big question.

The knife-smith grabbed a rusty old knife and started grinding it against one of the stones adding drops of water every now and then, a very slow and graceful motion, just like the way he walked. It was obvious that the knife-smith had done this for a long time, not because he was old but by the way he did things; slowly, decisively, he had an aura that inspired respect. 

The knife-smith gestured him to take his knife and work. He grabbed his knife and awkwardly started grinding it on the first stone he found following no particular pattern and judging by the screeching sound, using too much force. The knife-smith grinned and whispered something to himself, it was like he understood how impatient the young man was. The knife-smith rolled a newspaper and hit him on the hands, stared deeply into his eyes (much in the same way you would train a dog). The knife-smith then directed him to his own hands and showed him how to do it, slowly, decisively, making a half moon pattern along the stone and tilting the blade to what appeared to be 15º against the horizontal plane. 

He then tried again, and every time he was doing something wrong a smack with the newspaper would come his way. He wondered what the blonde girl was up to tonight, but the moment he got distracted with his thoughts, sure enough, he got smacked again. 

He was distracted, he didn't feel well and his heart was not in his chore, every smack was killing his desire to do anything, little by little. 

The night was almost over, the familiar reddish tint was already painting the sky and his blade was a mess, so was he, a frustrated mess. The last smack was too much, his frustration exploded, he grabbed the knife and stabbed the table, leaving the blade almost half into the wood. 

The knife-smith didn't even move, he grinned and whispered something to himself. 

"What the fuck is wrong with me?" he thought to himself while covering his eyes.

He sat back with his eyes covered and remained like this until the sun was warming him up. When he opened his eyes he was sitting on his terrace with a half burnt cigarette between his index and middle finger, what a weird dream he had, he must have fallen asleep on his chair. 

He needed to go, work was waiting, he crawled inside the house and into the kitchen. He opened the fridge only to find himself standing in front of an empty box. Fuck it. He grabbed his sunglasses and started the tortuous path to work.

The rest of the day passed in a haze, still troubled by the night before and the visions he had. It all seemed so real. On his way back home he stopped at the 7 eleven to buy beer, cigarettes and a hefty dose of cheap, reheated, frozen junk food (he was hungry and not in the mood for cooking or interacting with humans beyond the bare minimum). He sat down on his terrace and pretty much inhaled his food, the music in the background was soft and relaxing, he leaned back on his chair, took a sip from the cold bottle and lit up a cigarette. He kept glancing towards the abandoned building across the river, secretly hoping the red light would appear. Nothing happened. But for the first time in a long time he felt sleepy, he finished his drink and went to bed. It was a deep dreamless sleep. 

The days passed and he started to forget his visions, sleep was a rough mistress and a tease to him, some times she would show up, some times she wouldn't. He was used to it. 

He had walked through the wet market many times before, by now people knew him and he knew them back, he had a fruit lady, a vegetable lady, a butcher and a fish guy, they tried to pick conversations with him but his lack of knowledge of the language made those attempts fall back to the basic human interaction (grunts and pointing, and smiling), he felt a little bad, he had been there for a while and he couldn't properly speak the language. But on the other hand he also felt that he had a special kind of relationship with those people. He imagined if they talked about him as he talked about them to his family and friends. 

He had never seen that lady before in the market, but she had a certain air of familiarity in her face, friendly, yet commanding. She sold knives and she knew what he needed, before realising what was happening he had a beautiful knife all packed up and ready to go. He paid and took it home. That night he cooked a delicious plate of sushi, and noticed while he was cutting the fish, that the knife had his name engraved both on the blade and on the wooden handle. He was unsure how that had happened. 

After a few days of using his new knife he noticed the blade was getting dull, he decided he would come back to the market the next morning and complain to the old lady; aren't these knives supposed to be very good?

That night was spent on his terrace with the knife in his hands, thinking what and how to say it. He did not sleep, and in the morning, when he reached the market he realised that his sleepless night had been in vain, the old lady was nowhere to be found and he had a lot to say and no one to hear him.

This was indeed infuriating, but after a few minutes he was back to his normally calmed state of mind. What to do now? 

In the back of the market, in a scrawny little stall sat an old man, he had never seen him but he bore the same familiarity as the old lady. While approaching, he noticed the assortment of rectangular stones the old guy had lined up in front of him.

"Ha! Screw you old lady, I will take care of my knife," said to himself.

Before even reaching the stall, he had decided he needed three stones, each one with a smaller size of grain than the last. 

"A 500, 1500 and 3000 should do the trick," said to himself while wondering how he knew this.

By the time he reached the stall, the old man had three stones wrapped up and ready for him. 

"500, 1500, 3000," said the old man with a grin on his face. 

He took the package, paid and turned away; it was weird indeed that he got what he wanted without even speaking, but he didn't give it much of a thought. 

"Remember, 15º angle and BE PATIENT," the old man said with a calmed and firm voice.

That night he sat outside, he had a pack of cigarettes, a six-pack of green tea, a towel, a bucket of water, his stones and his knife. He sat down, dunked the stones in the bucket and got lost in the tiny bubbles that emerged from the sinking stones. He cracked open a can of green tea and lit up a menthol cigarette, he had decided that ten minutes soaking in the water would be enough for the stones, which gave him just enought time to smoke a couple of cigarettes. While waiting he occasionally glanced across the river in the hopes of seeing it come back to life, which would mean he was not crazy. That did not happen. 

He took the stones and set up shop, he started with the thickest grain and moved forward. He took a coin from his pocket and used it to mark the 15º angle the old man had suggested. He started his grinding with hard decisive strokes, smoothly, twenty on one side and twenty on the other. He inspected the knife and decided it was time to move to the next stone, a finer grain. He repeated the process twenty more times on each side before moving to the last stone. 

The 3000 grain stone was bright yellow and the same size as the others, not really that much different, but he knew this will give the knife the finishing touches. Without thinking it too much he started with slow steady strokes and noticed how relaxed he was. After twenty strokes on each side, he took the knife and inspected the blade against the light, he was happy with the results. He took a piece of paper and sliced it with the knife, it felt like cutting through a ripe mango. 

Satisfied with the results, he cracked open another can of green tea and drank with gusto. 

He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them, a red light was shining upon him. He turned his head towards the market, and sure enough the lights were on, he hesitated for a bit but decided to find out what the deal was with this place. And thus he followed the red light yet again, across the bridge and to the left. When he finally arrived, the place looked completely different as the first time he visited it (was it two months ago?) the place was thriving with people and noisy as fuck. 

"We have been expecting you," said a rather familiar voice.

He turned around to find his old friend the fisherman, with the same red tainted grin, a lit cigarette between his teeth and the face wrinkles only a happy person could have. 

"Quick, you late. Last day, you work Tuna," said the old man.

He wanted to ask about the girl, where or who was she. 

"Girl gone, long ago. No worries, Tuna more important," said the old man. 

The old man grabbed him by the wrist and navigated him through the crowd arriving to the biggest stall of the market. People were lining outside, shouting impatiently. He was left in the middle; his knife was there alongside an apron and some plastic boots, but no old lady to direct him. No old man to tell him what to do. He was, for all intents and purposes, alone. He could leave, but he had nothing more interesting to do, lately his life had become a blur of numbness, this was, in fact, becoming the highlight of his current life. 

The crowd outside the stall grew impatient, shouting things he could certainly not understand (but the tone was clear enough: he had to get his ass to work), among the crowd he found familiar faces that had served him food before, he wondered if they recognised him. Probably not. 

And so he put on the apron, grabbed that knife that felt so good in his hands, the same blade he had carefully sharpened the night before. For a brief moment he wondered how it had ended up there, he certainly did not bring it, but he quickly killed that thought in favor of some good, old fashion, zen like manual labour; besides, how the knives got to the market was the least strange thing happening to him lately.

"So! Who is first," said he, full of determination while pointing the knife to the crowd. 

The blade worked beautifully on his hands, he needed just to slightly direct it down the side of what seemed to be a 100 kg Tuna, a magnificent beast that was now at his mercy. He swiftly went through and butchered the fish, being left with a bunch of beautiful bright red pieces of meat. He was surprised he didn't really have to think what to do, it was, for lack of a better word, instinct. 

The meat went by incredibly fast, small pieces, large pieces, he cut them like a master, wrapped the meat in paper and carefully placing it in a plastic bag. In no time he was preparing the last piece of tuna for the last customer in line. The customer only wanted a small piece, but he prepared the big piece tuna loin that was left and gave it to his customer as a gift. 

Happy with the night, he stabbed the cutting board with the knife, leaving it vertically standing and motionless. The red sun had just started to come up the horizon; he closed his eyes, sat back and briskly rubbed his eyes. The sun was warming him up; he opened his eyes and found himself sitting on his terrace, a can of green tea open next to him, still cold. 

He felt good, and decided to find something to eat, thinking about what had happened to him seemed unnecessary so he stood up and walked to the kitchen. 

He opened the fridge and found a plate of beautifully prepared thick cut tuna sashimi; a gift with a note. 

"Thank you, enjoy and sleep tight"