“What’s your favorite color?”
“Green.”
“What’s your favorite number?”
“Twenty-four.”
“What’s your favorite food?”
“Chicken meat.”
“…uhm… what’s your favorite color?”
There was a pause, heavy and pregnant with growing frustration, before Griswold’s long, audible sigh weaved its way through like a truck trudging through snow. Exhaling through his nose, the merchant set down the brass cup he had been polishing and raised his hairy hands to rub at his pulsating temples. He was a patient man—patience was demanded when you had four, rowdy children—but Teague, and only Teague, had managed to ruffle even his heavy feathers.
Large hand enveloping his face, he leaned forward onto the stand, hard elbows digging into even harder wood, and looked up between the gaps of his thick fingers at the little, distracting devil now pacing back and forth before his stall. In his mind, he prayed for god to zap the little bugger and make him disappear, because Teague’s talkative nature frightened customers away and that was bad for business.
“Teague,” he ground out, “Don’t you, oh, I don’t know, have anything better to do? You’ve been walking around here all day asking me the same questions every other five seconds. It’s distracting me from the work that I have to do. Why don’t you go bother the other merchants, huh? They’re probably more interesting than me.”
The other merchants, whose ears naturally eavesdropped on their own, caught Griswold’s suggestion and sent the man threatening glares. Teague was a common face down at the docks, but his uncanny talent for chasing customers away made him an unwanted ally for the merchants’ cause. Only a few bothered to tolerate the smoke demon’s sporadic nature, including Griswold, who, at the moment, was now beginning to regret ever allowing the younger man within a three feet radius of his stall.
“Don’t you have a job, Teague? You know… work? Something you do to make money?” Griswold made a vague gesture in the air, presumably symbolizing cash.
Speaking between the cigarette clinging onto his dry lips, Teague shook his head and said a bit too merrily, “Nope! I don’t need money. All I need are cigarettes! They keep me alive!”
Griswold’s neck drooped with exasperation and mild defeat. How did someone this stupid manage to survive in a place like this? “…Right. Either way, today’s society demands that you get a job. You can’t live on cigarettes no matter what you think, Teague. You need money. You need a job. Teague? TEAGUE! Are you even paying attention!?” Knowing how brief Teague’s attention span was, Griswold had thoughtfully kept the lecture short and to the point, but he had lost the younger man’s attention to a shiny, polished pocket watch long ago.
Slapping his hand over the tiny trinket and grabbing Teague’s small chin with the other hand, Griswold forced the man’s attention back onto him. “You’re going to find a job, okay? If you don’t leave sooner or later, the merchants are going to chase you down and beat you up with their brooms.”
“But… I can’t get a job.” Teague pitifully whined. “Nobody wants to hire me, because I forget things easily.” And got distracted too easily, and talked too much, and lacked any enthusiasm to participate in anything that required any mental work.
“Well, you’re going to get a job anyhow. There are billions of people in the world, Teague, and one of them is going to hire you eventually. You just have to find him… or her.” Griswold offered a reassuring smile, but Teague was anything but comforted as he turned his back to the merchant and began to twiddle his fingers.
Sensing the other’s distress, Griswold, the big-hearted oaf that he was, snatched one of his fliers and scribbled in large, blocky letters, whose l’s and d’s ended in slashing lines: “NEEDS A JOB”. He then promptly taped the makeshift sign onto Teague’s back and gave the younger man an encouraging pat on the shoulder.
“There. Now every employer can see you from miles away. Go buy a newspaper. Look for job openings. I’m sure someone will hire you, Teague.” Despite the words, it was a pair of doubtful eyes that shifted onto Griswold’s face when Teague turned back.
“You really think someone will hire me?” He asked, reaching back to finger the sign flapping on the back of his coat.
“Yes, I do. Now get out of here, I have work to do.” With that said, Griswold grabbed Teague by his narrow shoulders, pointed him in the direction outside of the market, and gave him shove.
