There's No Place Like Here
costumes from all eras, lived in a lost place that looked real and smelled real and, when I held out my hand and felt the fabric of someone rush by, felt real. I fought with myself to believe it.
    It was a scene I was familiar yet unfamiliar with all at the same time because everything I could see was composed of recognizable elements from home, but used in such very different ways. We hadn’t stepped backward or forward, we had entered a whole new time. A great big melting pot of nations, cultures, design, and sound mixed to create a new world. Children played; market stalls decorated the road and customers swarmed around them. So much color, so many new sounds, unlike any country I’d been in. A sign beside us said HERE.
    Helena linked my arm, a gesture I would normally have shrugged off had I not physically needed her to prop me up. I was stunned. I was Ali Baba who’d stumbled across the cave of treasures, Galileo after his discoveries through the telescope. More important, I was a ten-year-old girl who had found all her socks.
    “Every day is market day,” Helena explained softly. “Some people like to trade whatever bits they’ve found for things of value. Sometimes they’re of no value at all but it’s become a bit of a sport now. Money is worthless here; all we need is found readily on the streets. There is, however, a requirement to help the village. Our occupations are more in the nature of community service rather than for self-gain—age, health, and other personal reasons permitting.”
    I looked around in awe. Helena continued talking softly in my ear, holding my arm as my body shook.
    “The turbines are something you will see throughout the land. We have many wind plants, most of them among the mountain gaps that produce wind funnelling. One wind machine can produce enough electricity for up to four hundred homes a year, and the solar panels on the buildings also help generate energy.”
    I listened to her but barely heard a word. My ears were tuned in to the conversations around me, to the sounds of the monstrous wind-turbine blades breaking through the air. My nose was adjusting to the crisp freshness that seemed to fill my lungs with cool air in one small breath. My attention turned to the market stall closest to us.
    “It’s a mobile phone,” a British gentleman explained to an elderly stall owner.
    “What use have I for a mobile phone?” The Caribbean stall owner dismissed him, laughing. “I’ve heard those things don’t even work here.”
    “They don’t, but—”
    “But nothing. I have been here forty-five years, three months, and ten days.” He held his head high. “And I don’t see how this music box is a fair trade for a phone that doesn’t work.”
    The customer stopped fuming and appeared to view him with more respect. “Well, I’ve been here only four years,” he explained politely, “so let me show you what phones can do now.” He held the phone up in the air, pointed it at the stall owner and it made a clicking sound. He showed the screen to the salesman.
    “Ah!” He started laughing. “It’s a camera! Why didn’t you say?”
    “Well, it’s a camera phone but, even better, look at this. The person who owned it took a whole pile of photos of themselves and whatever country they live in.” He scrolled down the phone.
    The stall owner handled it gently.
    “Somebody here might know these people,” the customer said softly.
    “Ah, yes, mon,” the salesman replied gently, nodding. “This is very precious indeed.”
    “Come on, let’s go,” Helena whispered, leading me by the arm.
    I began to move as though on autopilot, looking around open-mouthed at all the people. We passed the customer and stall owner; they both nodded and smiled. “Welcome.”
    I just stared back.
    Two children playing hopscotch stopped their game on hearing the men’s salutation. “Welcome.” They both gave me toothless grins.
    Helena led me through the crowd, through the choruses

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