The Wudu Senjiao flea market was hidden inside a repurposed industrial site. Old railroad tracks cut through the entrance, and knee-high wild grass grew between the ties.I changed into an army-green maxi skirt. She changed into a light army-green maxi skirt. Tsukago walked beside me.
The stalls stretched along both sides of the tracks, old furniture, old books, old toys spread across waterproof tarps. The air smelled of rust and old paper. A middle-aged man crouched behind a stall repairing an old radio, the tuning knob removed and resting on his knee.
[chat] Flea market
[chat] Daughter carrying her bag is so cute
[chat] The old radio still crackles ✨
I crouched in front of a book stall. Hundreds of books were stacked on the tarp, spines facing up. The covers on the top layer had already been faded by the sun. I dug out a copy of Mechanical Drafting.
The cover was deep blue cloth, the corners worn into arcs. I opened it. The title page bore a printed line: Spring, 1987. The paper was yellowed, the edges dotted with small holes eaten by insects, but every line on every page was still clear. Gear cross-sections, bearing three-views, magnified bolt details—all hand-drawn.
Tsukago came back from the toy stall next door, holding a tin frog. The frog's back was painted green, most of the paint already chipped off, exposing the silver tin underneath. She wound the spring tight and set it on the concrete floor.
Behind the stall sat an old man. He leaned forward from his small folding stool and watched the frog jump across the ground. The first hop hit the concrete with a crisp snap, the second landed on an old newspaper, and the third hit the leg of the stall and stopped.
His mouth slowly pulled upward, the smile spreading as if someone had pressed slow-motion, taking a very long time to travel from the corners of his lips to the corners of his eyes.
He stared at the frog on the empty ground for a long time. A cigarette hung between his fingers, the ash growing long without being tapped off. He slowly pulled a new cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and took a deep drag.
The smoke drifted into the air above the railroad tracks. His presence was like that cloud of smoke, faint and scattered in the air, drifting off to no one knew where the moment the wind blew.
"Three hops." Tsukago crouched down and picked the frog up. She wound the spring again, but this time she didn't set it on the ground. She just held it in her palm. The frog vibrated in her hand, and the spring wound down its last few turns and stopped.
She wiped the frog clean and put it in her pocket.
[chat] Tin frog
[chat] Three hops I'm dying 😂
[chat] Daughter counting so seriously 😆
An old man slowly pushed a bicycle toward us from the far end of the tracks. Tied to the back seat of the bicycle was a straw bundle, skewered full of candied hawthorn sticks. The sugar coating on the hawthorns gleamed in the light. A few of the sticks had cracks running through the sugar shell.
He was pushing slowly, the wheels crunching over the gravel between the ties with a fine grinding sound.
"Two sticks." I walked over. He pulled two sticks from the straw bundle, handed one to me and one to Tsukago. I bit into mine. The sugar shell cracked between my teeth, and the sourness of the hawthorn immediately filled my mouth.
"The hawthorn is too sour." The old man propped his bicycle against a railroad tie. "Hawthorn isn't what it used to be. The trees are old. The fruit they bear now is small and sour. A single tree used to produce dozens of pounds. Now you're lucky to get ten. The trees still bear fruit. It's just not sweet anymore."
He wiped his hands on his pants. A small patch of dried sugar syrup was stuck to the seam of his trousers. The straw bundle on the back of the bicycle swayed gently in the wind, a dozen or so candied hawthorn sticks still plugged into it.
He pushed his bike and continued on. The sound of the wheels grinding over the gravel grew fainter and fainter, until it disappeared around the bend in the tracks.
——The trees still bear fruit, but it's no longer sweet.And the ones who end up paying are still the people eating the hawthorn.
Tsukago held her candied hawthorn stick up to her eyes and spun the bamboo skewer. "Sour is still edible. Not sweet doesn't mean you can't eat it. But old is old. The tree won't change back. Sour hawthorn can still be made into candied hawthorn—you just need enough sugar."
She took a bite. The sugar shell cracked, even louder than mine had.
I flipped Mechanical Drafting open to the middle and held it up with one hand. The open pages covered exactly half my face, leaving only the gray-gold gradient of my hairline and one eye exposed. On the yellowed paper was a gear cross-section diagram, dense with annotation lines, the ink faded to a pale brown.
Tsukago leaned out from behind me and held the tin frog above the open page. The frog's shadow fell onto the title page, exactly covering the words Spring, 1987. I pressed the shutter.
[chat] The selfie has such a vibe ✨
[chat] Face half hidden by the book page is amazing 👏
[chat] The frog's shadow falling on 1987 😢
[chat] This could be a wallpaper 👏
I put my phone away. The stall owner screwed the tuning knob back onto the radio. Static hissed for a moment, then fell quiet.
💬 Daughter is so street-style cool today
💬 Army-green maxi skirt with the old book stall is such a mood
💬 The tin frog hopping three times I'm dying
💬 Wifey is so cool today
I closed Mechanical Drafting and placed it in front of the stall owner. He looked up from the radio knob, wiped his hands on his knee, and only then picked up the book and flipped through it. He paused at the title page, turned a few more pages, and then closed it and handed it back.
"This one came from a retired machinist's house. The old man passed away. His kids sold the house. The books were piled outside the door, waiting for the recycling truck. I got there too late. Only managed to grab this one. The rest had already been pulped.More books than all the blueprints he drew in his lifetime. All turned into pulp."
He set the book down, picked up the tuning knob from his knee, and screwed it back onto the radio. Static crackled from the speaker, and then a weather report announced that rain showers were expected later in the evening.
I put the book away. Tsukago wandered back from the toy stall. She hadn't bought anything this time, just crouched in front of the stall looking at an old typewriter. She pressed a few keys, and the type bars struck the ribbon with a thud-thud-thud.
We walked along the tracks toward the market exit. The rails stretched out across the gravel, ending at a red brick wall covered in ivy. The surface of the rails had rusted to a dark red. The wild grass between the ties had been trampled down by the coming and going of people, then slowly sprung back up.
The dozen or so candied hawthorn sticks were still plugged into the straw bundle on the old man's bicycle, swaying gently in the wind. The cracks in the sugar shells gleamed with tiny shards of light.
Tsukago pulled the tin frog out of her pocket, set it on a railroad tie, and wound the spring.The frog jumped three times and landed in the gap between the rail and the gravel. She didn't pick it up again.