Esmeralda is a wonderful place for a person such as myself. Being unable to afford my own food, clothes, and lodgings, I simply borrow from others, not necessarily with their permission. This morning, I walked by an archway with a couple meeting in secret standing underneath. I quickly pocketed the man's purse as I passed. He would be quite surprised when he took his paramour out to lunch that afternoon.
Going down one flight of steps, I gracefully step onto a boat that is about to embark. I look up and immediately recognize my mistake. This boat is
full of the wealthy class. I apologize, pretending to be embarrassed while I grab a few coins from a woman's pocket. She had plenty more where that came from. These few coins were enough to buy me food for the whole day, and perhaps a warm cloak. The boat had floated down the river a ways before I disembarked, and found myself under the archway leading to the marketplace. All the people were crowded around the stalls rather than the street. I joined them and reached into another man's pocket, pretending to try and progress through the crowd when he turned around and gave me a look. To avoid a confrontation, I charmed him with my blue eyes and my smile. He smiled, and I sensed ulterior motives in his bared teeth and quickly pushed my way through the mass of people. After buying a loaf of bread and some fruit, I make my way up another staircase, just barely dodging the glance of two policeman walking into the marketplace. Actually, I find it quite laughable. A police force in
this city? Most policemen need a map of the city to even
hope to navigate it. And everyday it's a different map, for they need to carry pens of many different colors to mark the ways they've already been. One wonders how they ever find their way home at night...
The sun floated above me and shown brightly in the blue sky. The shade of the city chilled me, and my shawl couldn't warm me forever. It barely managed to do that much to begin with. I walked up more stairs, several levels above canal level and used my shawl to ascend a column onto a restaurant balcony. I briefly looked around. Yet another possession of the wealthy class. I waved and smiled seductively at the man I recognized from this morning, sitting at a table a few feet in front of me. Before he could open his mouth to say something, I pointed towards the back of the room and screamed.
"RAT!!"
Women jumped from their seats, tripping over their skirts. Men rose to their feet, eyes darting every which way in search of the vermin. I made my escape swiftly onto the roof in an orchestra of shattering plates and clattering silver. It quite amused me. Those fools. There were so many cats in the city that one hardly ever saw a rat.
And speak of the devil, what did I find on the roof but a cat hissing at me. As he hissed, he stepped cautiously backwards, tripping over a foot. It cried as it fell, and I squinted my eyes to see that his foot was injured.
"Kitty..." I sat down carefully in a non-threatening way. He meowed at me and stared. "Come here, kitty." I clicked my tongue and outstretched my arm, rubbing my fingers together.
"
Mow mow mow..." Cats were hard to coax, but I usually achieved good results when I mimicked them. Slowly he began to get up and limp towards me.
"You poor thing," I said sympathetically as I observed the wound on his foot. He sniffed my hand and rubbed his face against it. Slowly I began to wonder how he got up here. Then I saw the top of an archway going across the upper level canal on the ground below. He had crossed this and somehow climbed onto the roof, I imagined. He laid down against my leg and began to paw at my bag of food. I offered him a scrap of the bread and he happily ate it up, licking any crumbs off my fingers. I smiled. I wasn't quite fond of other people for the most part, but I loved the cats. After bandaging his foot with a scrap torn off the bottom of my dress, I heard a ruckus in the restaurant, talking about all the trouble a peasant girl had caused just minutes before with the false cry of "Rat!"
"Damn!" I certainly didn't want to be caught lunching on the roof if they hadn't appreciated my little prank. I crawled across the roof quickly and crept carefully over to the top of the archway. I was about to attempt to cross it when I felt the cat rub up against my leg. I stroked his cheek in return and he purred. Slowly I began to stand and cross the archway, like a tightrope walker. The cat followed, and I just let him.
After crossing several rooftops in this fashion, I had come to one of my favorite points in the city. It was a place where one could sit on the rooftop and stare down at all the many different levels of the city. I sat and ate, enjoying the warmth of the sun, and the company my new friend brought me.
At some point in time, I must have dozed off. I awoke to a beautiful sunset, a mixture of orange and pink painted across the sky. This was another wonderful thing about this spot. One could stare for hours and watch the sun set, the shadows dance along the many levels of the city, the light glitter along the water of the canals, and at some point watch the moon rise where the sun had once been. Having nothing better to do, that's exactly what I did.
Once the moon had risen, so had I. I began to descend and find my way back down to the street below and navigated my way back "home" by way of the stars. I had turned several corners and was now making my way under the archway that led to my usual spot, where I slept at night. Just as I passed under the archway, I felt someone grab my wrist. I stopped, surprised, and slightly alarmed.
"I've been looking for you all afternoon," whispered a familiar voice.
I looked over my shoulder. It was none other than my friend from the restaurant. He slid his hand into mine and pushed his fingers in between mine. I couldn't hold back a smile as he did so.
"Well, after seeing you with that other woman, I figured I didn't have to wait around for you anymore."
"
Well," he mimicked. "That woman tried very hard, but I got bored with her after awhile. And plus..." He swung me around to face him and pulled me back under the archway, so that my back was against one of its sides. "I believe you have something of mine."
I ran a hand through my long, black curls and threw my head back, laughing. "Of course," I whispered devilishly as I pulled a purse out of my belt. I held it up between us, teasing him with my gaze. "Here's your wallet."
EDIT: This is totally WAY more than 300-500 words. For that I'm sorry. I hope that's okay.
