Fair Trade As the sun pulled the horizon over itself for a night’s rest, the life of the darkness shook sand from its eyes. Fireflies began popping up in twos and threes, dogs howled in the distance; the low murmur of the 9:30 B Train could be heard. Crickets stirred and mosquitoes set out to bother. Two little girls, Beth and Barb, sat against a blue ’53 Buick Skylark rusting away in the scrapyard. The pink and purple sky cast down a crepuscular light any artist could bathe in.

A ruffle, a clickclickclick, a ruffle, a clickclickclick. Two young cats wrestled away on top of the car. Pouncing and leaping, gnawing at each other. Beth, the younger of the two twirled a dandelion. Barb drew letters in the dirt with a twig, humming a tune to a song she did not know the name of. As the color continued to dwindle, while the gray scales overthrew the world, as the girls sat there, something extraordinary be