The Salesman

The first thing you should know is that bridges don’t always lead where you think they’re going to lead. If you splash out a bit, buy one of our top drawer packets, you’ve got a better chance, but bridges, well they’ve got a mind of their own and where they’ll go is up to them, you’re just along for the ride as far as they’re concerned, if they notice you at all, which if you ask me – I’d say they don’t. Me old mother, she met me father via a bridge back in the old days, so I owe a lot to them. Saved up all her pennies, all those dawns til dusks in the department store – ladies separates, she worked – and when she could afford it, she brought herself a bridge seed. Waited years to use it, she did. Through the early years of the war, huddled under the shaking stairs, her bridge seed stored in a thimble. She was still waiting when it accidentally planted itself in her vanity chest. It grew, she followed it, and here I am.
If you just hang on while I get this blasted suitcase open – keeps jamming. There we go: bridge seeds for sale. Now these ones will take you cross worlds. Lots of worlds out there to visit, course you can’t be sure you’ll ever get back, bridges are funny like that. Me mam never got back to her home, used to tell me tales about it though. You know, all the cities and towns there were stuck on the ground, there weren’t a single one carried by kites like ours are! This purple one? Here you go then. You’re using it now. Let me just step aside. Well there, I never get used to this. Look at the shoots coming up! You’re all packed and ready to go, I see. Running away? Ha. Goodbye then. Maybe I’ll give one of these a try myself? Bout time I saw something other than kites carrying cities. The green one, for me. Feels quite springy still under my feet. And I can see it stretching out into a shine like brass buttons under candles and there are other things there, too – long bending necks and eyes bleak.

Rebecca Harrison sneezes like Donald Duck and her best friend is a dog who can count.

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