An Instance at 49th & Chisolm

a Micro-Fiction

A Salt seller told me that he saw the Instance as he was coming out of his warehouse on 49th between Chisolm and Humboldt, he swore to me it was thus. He said the sky was darkening from late afternoon humidity and there was a sharp dip in the heat, like when you swim too deep in the summer ocean and you go past the thermocline and the cold hits you in the chest, and your heart and lungs collectively sink in that moment and you wonder what in the hell made you swim this deep, that, it was that kind of cold. He saw the Instance as it started when the wind was kicking up the detritus from the street and a brief cyclone of trash and debris ensconced him right there at that moment.

A Fishmonger who had just returned from the wharf told me that he had heard of the Instance from his friend the street Constable who walked between 45th & 52nd on Sundays after brunch. The Fishmonger was feeling lucky that day and had purchased a great deal of Halibut for a swindler’s bargain, and he was in great delight. He poured me a drink of the finest spirits six pennies would buy and he regaled me with the tale that he had heard from his friend. The great tumult of it all, and what a great occasion it was, and what he would do with all the money that he made from selling the Halibut at the Market between 75th and Franklin.

A Broker, sore on his luck, bumped into me after he was sobbing over a trade that had ended badly. By happenstance, he had seen the Instance during his deep melancholy as he was drinking profusely to drown his worries. He had heard the crashing and the tearing and heard the glass breaking and horses neighing, he had heard the great ponderous, thunderous footsteps of the beast but had not actually seen it. He told me between tears that there was a late frost this year and that his futures on oranges had gone tits up and he had lost all the gains he had made when he had speculated on the futures of pork bellies and tobacco after the Great War. Those were his best days when he was buying Chateauneuf-du-Pape by the case and holding court with the Archbishop and his retinue, the Governor, and the latest starlets from Hollywood, those were his salad days, he said to me.

Lastly, a newspaper boy, quick of wit and foot, darted past me and I checked my wallet as quickly and found it secure. I grabbed him by the nape, as I am quick myself from my days as a grappler at Tawny, my alma mater. The newsboy told me of the Instance, as detailed as he could, what a fine time in the world it was and would I like to buy a newspaper, it had all the latest information about the Instance if I wished to read it.

I unfolded the newspaper and gasped at the photos and the bylines, what an Instance had occurred! What a Spectacle!