The Dead Don’t Haggle
Rain would have killed the whole thing, so I was genuinely grateful for the dry day even if it meant standing in a field for hours watching strangers prod through my old possessions. We set up at the flea market between Bad Wörishofen and Irsingen and sold pretty much everything we’d brought. Boring after a point, but I walked away with close to €300, which made the boredom feel productive. Then in the evening I was at Becca’s mom’s birthday, which rounded the day out into something almost festive.
It only struck me later that it was O-Bon—the Japanese Buddhist festival where the dead return to visit the living, and families light fires and float lanterns on rivers to guide their ancestors home. Something about spending the day selling off the accumulated past, on the same day another culture ceremonially welcomes the past back in, sits with me in a way I can’t quite place. Not a metaphor I’d claim to have intended. Just a coincidence shaped like one.