Flea market

Something rattled in the vase when I picked it up, but the light wasn't good enough to see it down the neck. I had to buy it. Seven pounds! The man on the stall – the boy – was twitching at the cheeks trying not to laugh. When the deal was done I turned the vase over and shook it, right there over his trestle table, but nothing came. I laid it in the bottom of my shopping bag and swung it against the wall of the church, and then I went home. It's in the hallway now, waiting for me to look through the shards, to slice my thumb open searching, and decide whether what I find was worth the breaking.