Bahro

Few feet had walked that alley. Even fewer that section of the city, especially at twilight.

Yet out of the misty fog, one emerged. The sign above creaked silently in the dark, moving on paralyzed rusty hinges in the salty breath of death that blew from the harbor nearby.

A door opened. The boy entered.

"Few feet walk this alley," the hoarse voice inside spoke. "Even fewer this section of the city, especially at twilight," the boy replied.

For a few moments, neither spoke. Then the man: "You come here seeking something. An item that you lost, and now fear you never had."

To which the boy: "I wish simply to cry."

The man's face smiled, but the man himself did not. The man spoke, but his mouth did not move. "You come here, where few tread, for remorse. For sorrow. You seek Melancholy."

The boy replied: "Melancholy will not have me. She came through the window one night, while I was reading. She left because I lacked that which I seek. That which I came here to buy."

The man grew impatient, and gestured behind himself, into the dark corridor leading deeper into the building. "Many items stack I here on the shelves. Which do you need to court Melancholy?"

The boy lowered his head, and spoke in tones of gray: "I come to you, here where few feet walk, for tears."

The man sighed. "I do not sell tears. I sell remorse. I sell sorrow. But tears I can not offer you -- they are too precious, too pure to contain, to lock in a bottle and preserve. They burn through the glass, like acid, and they burn through the ground, like fire, and they burn through the earth, like the weight of a heart petrified by the kiss of Melancholy. Always burning. Always flowing. Down, down, forever down."

The boy raised his head, and looked the man in the eye. Their stares locked, and the touch of four gray eyes sucked the life out of every color around them -- the mauve hiding in the corner; the azure obscured by the faded receipts resting lifeless on the ground; the titian inside a bottle on the top shelf in the back of the room. They all shed their color; it simply melted away into the air and was absorbed by the unconcerned mist outside in the alley.

Motionless, they stared. The four unblinking eyes, frozen, chained, one, continued the conversation.

So the boy: "I come, then, for rain."
So the man: "You know not what you ask for."
So the boy: "Few feet walk this alley. You cast rare business back into the streets with such ease?"
So the man: "There is no ease in the services and goods I offer."
So the boy: "I will not ask again. I come for rain. Can you make me flow?"

The man closed his eyes. The link broke, and some color crept back to the room, still shaking, still afraid, still stunned.

He spoke, after a pause: "I will sell you rain. Do you know the symbol?"

The boy smiled, and his face seemed to scrape, grate and creak, as if he had not done so in a long time, as if his face had almost forgotten how to accomplish the task.

"The symbol and I," he said, "are one."