It's Still Life

Part 10: Brigid’s Diary, Valence’s Saturday Market

Spring 1836: Sun broke over Valence like pardon too easily granted; the Rhône ran molten and bright, the air rinsed so clean of coal smoke that it felt like a trick.

Beyond it, the cathedral held its spine against the sky while the market spilled colour into the lanes: greens, asparagus, cherries bruised to red, lilac clenched tight, and beauty arranged with the desperation of something trying to outshine want.

Yet beneath the blossom-scent, the quay moved with winter still lodged in men’s shoulders, crates lifted without speech, and by the bread cart the price rose again — trois sous de plus — as though hunger were a toll collected daily from the same thin hands.

Lyon travelled south in whispers, the weavers’ unrest carried like a low fever, and I felt the city’s patience strain, thread drawn thinner and thinner until even neighbours measured one another in silence, each face a puzzle no kindness could entirely solve.

Felreil took my arm and said nothing …a gendarme lingered at the edge of the square like exclamation, and a rain-bleached poster reminded us that foreign mouths are marked here before they are heard.

Only once, close enough that his breath warmed my ear, he spoke the sum without ornament: “Hunger feeds suspicion; suspicion feeds chains,” and I folded the words into myself like contraband — because if this diary is found, these pages will not be the only evidence against us.

Previous Instalments – To access all of the instalments on one page, please use this link. For the Liturgy/mindmapping posts click the link. Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story, including the word “puzzle”.  Some images created with Midjourney; all writing is authentically my own original work.©Misky 2006-2026.