Only.

This isn't very long or extensive anything. And perhaps a scene rather than something that is all-encompassing. But it is something that I conceived while at the flea market with my dad.


Only sixty dollars on a sunny Saturday. On the hill, throngs of people weave through the vendors' tables, but here, among the sheds and all our brilliant junk, we are unmolested.

My father clicks two rocks together as he watches and waits; he licks his lips. He rolls the rock around in his hand, then drops it back to the gravel lot. "Should stick some rocks in a basket and sell 'em for a dollar," he says.

I laugh and rub the sun from my eyes. I stand and pace between our tables. I straighten the ceramics, an angel perched atop a divine, white elephant, and a porcelain cat.

"Yeah," he says. "Did it up at Saturday's Market."

He stands, and he reaches out for a small, wicker basket. He waves it at me, then he sits, and he dumps a load of rocks into it with a cackle of pure glee.

"No one's gonna buy it!" I say, and I pick up a lone rock--copper in color, encrusted with fine grains that glitter like mica. I hand it to him, and he grins.

"Yeah," he says. "That's a good rock. That's a quarter rock!"

I roll my eyes. He delicately places the basket on the table and applies a bright yellow sticker to it. Only a dollar.

He reclaims his metal chair. He watches the people on the hill. "Walk around all day," he says. And he watches. "Look at this pretty basket of rocks I got."