For Sale

We went for a walk yesterday. We started later in the morning than we should have given the heat, but typical for when trying to plan something around here, even something as simple as a group walk.

We took the road upward this time, our destination the cemetery. Today we passed a man sitting on an incline along the side of the road. He was sitting in front of two medium sized containers with a large rock on each to hold the lids down. The man was old, skin darkened from a generation of working the fields. He was rather thin with deep groves cut into his face. His cloths were sturdy but worn and faded, almost a workers uniform.

Gjulia looked at him with interest. She does this with many things new to her, but this man held special interest. As we continued our walk, I got the sense she wanted to ask or say something. I looked down and she said, “That man is very poor isn’t he?” He certainly looked very poor to me, but I wondered what in particular made her deduce this. I asked her what made her think the man was so poor. Without hesitation she replied, “Because all he had for sale were rocks.”