A Sunday Market Scene

Her dress flowed with muted colors around her ankles. Middle aged with crow's feet framing almost black eyes which seemed to see beyond the people teeming around the public square. Her mouth was turned down in a permanent frown. She looked all as much to him like a mangy calico cat which had spent the last few years scavenging the city's refuse pile, but her back was straight and shoulders square. She'd come looking for someone, it was clear to Marco. Her eyes scanned the crowds and stopped occasionally to study a face, or the gait of a passerby. She didn't hide her quest.

Marco moved with the crowd. The flow was like a river of people. It was easy to dodge in and out into small covered markets. Some market stands held hanging chickens, others were piled high with an abundance of fruit. Hawkers stood in the paths offering cheap wares and brochures. Young pick pockets flitted in and out of the crowd followed by cries of indignation upon realizing that they had been robbed by one of the many parasites making a killing on the Sunday crowd.

The woman moved at last with a steady purpose toward the center square. A fountain bubbled clear, blur water and a flower vendor cried out his price to couples walking by. He would hand a single flower to a young woman, tempting her beau to purchase the rest of the bouquet.

The old woman stopped by the fountain and raised her arms. Marco followed her gaze to see who she waited for. A small man, maybe in his 70s stood hunched over a mongrel. He was blind and holding an old silver cup out begging for coins. He rested a hand on a carved cane and stood as a statue as life circulated around him like a stone in a brook.

The old woman stopped and cried out to him. His head slowly raised up. Unseeing eyes searching for the voice from a distant past.

"Father! Father! It is enough!"

She pulled the man into her and rested her head on his shabby cloak, weeping he knew not for what.

The crowd parted as she moved with him toward a row of small, indiscriminate cottages and pulled the old man into the cottage.

SRC

Today's prompt is mangy calico cat
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