I often went to see the old man Mio after school. He sold clay animals and textiles to tourists on the island. The animals reminded me of the tattoos on his arms.
I sometimes had trouble locating him because he moved around the port a lot. Today I found him in the shadow of a big cruise ship. He was talking to an old woman who wore a floppy hat and carried a large black purse.
I knew better than to interrupt Mio as he charmed a potential customer. I went to go buy a snow cone.
When I came back, I found him drawing in one of his design books. I watched him sketch as I sucked cherry syrup from my snow cone.
"What is it?" I asked. A lot of Mio's sketches only bore a passing resemblance to real things. This drawing looked like a mutated 'S'.
"A seagull, Arthur," Mio pointed helpfully at a handful of seagulls following tourists with food. One of the tourists caved and threw a piece of his bun on the ground. While some seagulls mobbed the scrap, others started to stalk the tourist with new intensity. "We only have spoiled seagulls around here.
"Are there any unspoiled seagulls?" I asked.
"A few. Some actually travel long distances and show up in surprising places." Mio didn't elaborate.
I had trouble imagining any of our seagulls going far. They could just stay around here and get fat.
Mio let me look at his design books and mold clay to pass the time. I also liked watching the tourists go by. By late afternoon, most tourists were making their way back to the cruise ship. Their arms tended to look pink like partly done meat. The least sunburned carried plastic bags emblazoned with jewelry store logos. Those tourists had probably barely ventured past the port. Jewelry shops ringed the port like hungry predators.
Most tourists ignored Mio. About a half-an-hour passed before a young woman stopped at the booth. The woman had tucked her tiny, fluffy white dog under one arm. It studied the ground longingly while the woman studied Mio's things. She carried several shopping bags on her other arm.
"How much for this?" She held up a woven dish towel. I saw a design of a tortoise lazing about in the mud.
"60.00," Mio named an aggressively high price. Rather than bartering Mio down, the woman handed Mio the dog. Mio failed to hide his shocked expression as she fished her wallet from a well-hidden pocket. The dog tried to wiggle free from Mio's grasp.
"No need to bag it," the woman told Mio. She took the dish towel from him and stuffed it into a shopping bag. Then she retrieved her dog and went on her way.
Mio sneezed several times. When he recovered, he commented vaguely, "She's cursed."
"Cursed? As in she's gonna die for robbing a tomb or something?" I thought of books about vengeful mummies and sudden plagues.
"No," Mio shook his head. He was inspecting the money that she handed him carefully. "She seems out of place. A few of these bills have issue dates in the future."
"She is a tourist," I pointed out. Mio silently passed me one of the suspicious bills. The Queen Elizabeth staring back at me looked really old.
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This bank was sucking out my soul.
When I had decided to start working here, I thought that I would enjoy the steady pay. My brief stint as an artist had ended in failure. I could only make money seasonally. As tourism to the islands declined, the little that I made failed to cover expenses the rest of the year.
I gradually climbed my way to branch manager of this bank. Ten years later, I was regretting that decision. I had little time or energy to pursue my creative passions.
I often wondered how Mio had managed to balance family, art, and finances. He had disappeared from my life before I had the chance to ask.
His art had also disappeared with him. In my opinion, a museum should have acquired at least some of it and preserved it for eternity.
Very little had happened today. My phone rang just as I was contemplating leaving early for once.
"Arthur," Marisol, one of the tellers, addressed me, "A customer wants to speak with you. She seems a little strange."
"I can handle her," I volunteered before I even fully considered the problem. I needed something to do.
Marisol had pulled the customer to the side. She carried a tiny white dog. The woman stood out both because she had brought a personal pet into the bank and because she had come to the islands off-season. Her stylish sunglasses and bright sundress would serve her poorly in today's rainy weather.
The woman probably had no interest in investing with us. Rather, she looked like that she wanted to cause trouble. I positioned myself supportively beside Marisol. "I am the manager. How can I help you?"
She studied my name tag briefly. I tensed as she addressed me familiarly. "Arthur, your ATM gave me fake currency."
The woman handed me several 20s. I held one up to the light. As I expected, a ghostly blue sea turtle appeared to the left of King Andrew the 3rd's head. "I can have an expert look at these later. Why do you call these bills fakes?"
"Queen Elizabeth should be on those bills. Who is King Andrew? President Andrew Jackson?" The woman--Crazy lady with dog--held up a 5 emblazoned with a stately, mature female face. That bill was clearly the fake.
I smiled blandly and tried to think up a solution. While I would like security to throw out Crazy lady with dog, I could resolve this more simply.
"We will investigate the issue with our ATM. In the meantime, we can replace your withdrawal with a prepaid card. Would that suffice?" I wondered if Crazy lady with dog would find a way to argue with my proposal.
"I suppose," Crazy lady sighed dramatically. Marisol went to make the arrangements. Crazy lady found a chair and set her dog on her lap.
I went back to my office. Now I had something to contemplate until closing. Had Crazy lady with dog acquired the strange 5 from a game or printed it herself? Who was her Queen Elizabeth?
The last Queen Elizabeth had died about fifty years before England acquired the islands. However, the face on that 5 had looked nothing like any portrait of Queen Elizabeth that I had seen.
Ah, Mio, you would have loved to hear about Crazy lady. Maybe we can laugh about this incident in the afterlife.
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Many years ago, I would often meet Mio on the beach at sunrise. The habit stayed with me long after Mio disappeared from my life.
I still often went out to the beach early. Some small, childish part of me always hoped that Mio would be waiting for me.
This morning, the woman on the beach distracted me from my typical morning routine. She had dragged her suitcase out onto the sand and sat on top of it. A small white dog quietly slept in her lap.
She painted an odd picture. If she had her suitcase with her, the woman had potentially sat out here overnight. Did she have accommodations?
Had I come out later in the day, I would have missed her. The crowds would have hidden her completely.
While I would give my first boat tour later this morning, I had enough time to let my curiosity get the better of me. I detoured to get a better look at her and the dog. Although she touched her dog gently, her body shook as she sobbed.
"Excuse me. Are you alright?" I had to ask.
She turned to look at me with red eyes. "No! Nothing works!"
"Some things work," I said encouragingly. "The sun rose this morning. Time marches on."
She only glared at me, "None of my credit or debit cards have worked since yesterday. My hotel key stopped working. When I went to complain, the hotel told me that I had no reservation and threw me out."
I wondered if I should walk away now. However, Crazy lady with dog seemed more inclined to vent than to try to mug me. I decided to let her continue. Although her story sounded utterly implausible, I also found it entertaining.
"On top of all that, my cell phone lost service. When I did manage to make several international calls, strangers always picked up. I am almost out of cash too." At this point, she looked like she might burst into tears again. "You can tell me if I am carrying the correct currency."
"Why me?" If she decided to include me in her story, I had solid reason to back away. She pulled her wallet out of her jacket and thrust an ordinary 5 toward me.
"You all but threw me out of your bank the other day," she pointed out. I had no memory of ever slaving away at a bank.
"We have never met," I tried to argue calmly, "and I run boat tours most of the year." I took a second look at the money in her hand. "That 5 looks legitimate?"
She opened her wallet and slipped the 5 back into it. "Of course you don't remember me," she mocked. "Of course you have a completely different job."
Crazy lady with dog went silent. I took the opportunity to study her more closely. She wore a necklace that reminded me strongly of Mio's interpretation of a begging seagull. If Mio had ever felt inclined to make jewelry, he might have produced a necklace just like hers.
"Where did you get that?" I pointed at the necklace.
She waited a few moments to answer the question. Crazy lady with dog probably chose to answer only to distract herself from her situation. "At an art gallery in Black Bay," she named a town on the other side of this island. "called New Moon, I think."
"I have to go see that gallery," I said. A horn blared in the distance. I checked the horizon for the ship, "You have no idea--"
When I focused again on the beach, I found that woman, suitcase, and dog had completely disappeared. I still saw evidence of her presence. The woman's suitcase had left a depression in the sand.
The next weekend, I took a day trip to Black Bay. As soon as I walked into New Moon gallery, I instantly recognized Mio's stamp on much of the jewelry and the textiles. Someone had even framed pages of his design books and hung them on the walls.
As soon as I walked into New Moon, I knew that I would finally find out what had happened to Mio.