I tried to swallow my pride from having led an existence up until now that didn't require money, but I was quickly growing spiteful as I browsed the market of Errandia. Being the inward person that I was, I managed to hold my tongue in the face of overwhelming negativity.

Various vendors had their goods on display and were coaxing in potential customers with flagrant solicitations. I felt a churning hunger that gnawed at my insides and so I decided to scrounge any overly ripe fruit that the vendors would have seen fit to discard. In my naivete, I had stopped at quite a few fruit stands with my petition and was mightily discouraged by the demeanor of those around me. One could arguably deduct from the odds of several such encounters that the great majority of these villagers were inexorably bound to avarice with not the faintest glimmer of charity in their summation.

They regarded me as an exotic, virulent strain threatening to undermine their very life force; that to even touch their products without the ability to pay was in and of itself some degree of pillage; that my hand could magically taint their goods with some subliminally perceptible form of rot.

It came to my attention via an empty threat ejected from a lingering, nosy consumer that Queen Lilliput had already established a classification for people like me. Soon thereafter I was called an obscenity and was directed to leave.

In the hot sun I proceeded to rummage through an overflowing trash can. I held my breath to avoid inhaling the airborne particles of festering rubbish. Finally, I happened upon a few black, sodden bananas. They looked safe enough to eat, however, so I took my meager findings to a shady doorstep. I hesitantly consumed the rotting fuit and nearly choked as the entrance to the characterless adobe hut swung open forcefully and knocked me aback.

A scowling, deep-creased face popped at me like a wind-up children's toy. I was in awe at the vehement way in which the bobbing head spouted profanities at me. My head bobbed along with his until he finally paused in his onslaught. It was then that I couldn't help a bit of annoyed inflection in my own voice as I agreed to leave his well-defended property.

To my chagrin I could not exit Errandia without re-entering the money-grubbing marketplace. My original plan of cutting across the man's unkempt yard would have been appealing had it not been for his two shady eyes leering at me predaciously through his jagged window.

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