The Belleville Market

This place was an arrest on all senses. There were piles of polka dotted canvas shoes, lacy bras, toy guns. Heaps of scarves and polyester dresses in florals and stripes. Fish rested on chipped ice, their faces shocked with round eyes and gaping mouths. They smelled fresh from the sea, their scales and fins beautifully intact. From every direction it was, 'Bonjour, mademoiselle!' and whistles and kisses and pleads to take a look, take a taste of my fruit, mademoiselle. Neat pyramids of spice, red and yellow powders, brown seeds and black pods scooped up by silver trowels. Velvet scrunchies, plastic jewelry, discount batteries, shiny candy. Beautiful, brilliant rubbish. The tang scent of olives, a rabbit carcass stretched lean across a wooden board, jumping at each blow of the heavy cleaver. A kilometer of shouts in the shade, euros dropped into rough palms, cameras and confusion, hands slapping their goods to demonstrate the quality, fruit sweetening in the sun. An hour slipped past and I emerged bearing cheaply won treasures, sweet almond paste and a flowery scarf smelling of ink and Indian cotton. Oh yes, the rest of the world exists. But I could lose myself beneath the swathes of canvas, between the narrow counters, looking, smelling, tasting, touching, listening, breathing.