Fun Time

We wandered the flea market like two curious sparrows, dipping in and out of rows, pausing wherever something caught the light. Tables stretched on forever. Tents fluttered softly in the breeze. Everywhere we turned, there was another small surprise waiting to be noticed.

It felt like a treasure hunt without a map.

Terry had a way of leaning in close to things, as if he could hear their stories better that way. I followed, amused and interested, watching him inspect a stack of plates that looked, at first glance, as though they might fold in half if you breathed on them.

“Paper?” I asked.

“Not a chance,” he said, tapping one lightly with a fingernail.

They weren’t paper at all. Just delicate. Painted with bright flowers and cheerful patterns that felt almost too lively to belong to something so fragile. We both stood there a moment longer than necessary, quietly impressed.

That was when the day took its turn.

Two men appeared as if they had been part of the market all along, smiling, welcoming, entirely certain we should follow them. And somehow, without much discussion, we did. Terry led the way in that open-top Jeep of his, the one that always looked like it had stories of its own.

The road stretched longer than expected. Then narrower. Then impossibly narrow.

Still, we kept going.

The village appeared like a pocket of green tucked into the earth, small and bright and almost too perfect to be real. The houses looked like they had been placed there gently, one by one, as if someone had arranged them with care.

I remember thinking, "Surely not."

But Terry kept driving.

Right through the doorway of a house that looked more like a doll’s than a person’s.

And somehow, we fit.

Down a steep slope we went, the Jeep easing into a living room as though this were the most ordinary thing in the world. That sudden drop lifted something in my stomach, that familiar swoop, like a fast hill or a pocket of rough sky.

And then we laughed.

Not politely. Not quietly. The kind of laughter that arrives all at once and takes over.

For a moment, everything felt wide open. Possible. Light.

And then, just as gently as we had arrived, I woke.

The room was still. The air settled around me. Morning, or something close to it.

I lay there for a moment, smiling into the quiet.

We had been somewhere together again.

Strange,
beautiful,
and a little possible.