The Jug Game

Annalisa had begged her father to bring her, imagining dizzying rides and pink stick-clouds of candyfloss, but it wasn�t that kind of fair. Loud-mouthed men with red faces haggled over scrawny roosters and sickly calves; a bearded woman lifted weights to grudging applause; barefooted children wrestled in the muddy arena while their parents cheered drunkenly from the sidelines.

�I need to see a man about a horse,� her father told her, motioning to the beer tent. �I won�t be long.�

Annalisa wandered aimlessly from stall to stall, clutching her coins tight inside her pocket for safe-keeping. She stopped at a low table filled with mismatched ceramic jugs, oblivious to the old man peering out at her from behind the fluted lips and handles.

�I thought you weren�t coming,� he wheezed.

Annalisa jumped. �I�m sorry,� she stammered, backing away as far as she could without seeming rude. �Do I know you?� Perhaps he was a friend of her father�s.

�Never mind. You�re here now,� continued the man, as if he hadn�t heard. �And it�s your turn. Go on, my lovely.� There was a black hollow at the front of his mouth where teeth should have been. �Pick a jug. Any jug. You get to keep the soul inside.�

�But I don�t want a soul,� whispered Annalisa.

�Yours to keep,� he promised.

She shook her head, hard coins biting into her flesh as she clenched her fist tight inside her pocket.

�What�s that you say?� The old man cupped a hand behind his shriveled left ear. �You�ll have to speak up.�

�I said I don�t want a soul. Someone else can have mine.�

�Hear that, my beauties?� the man smiled, feeling his hands across the row of gaping jug mouths like a blind man counting. �Little girl don�t want her soul no more.�