Coolie

Bodily thinness of this order was almost entirely historic. Impossible not to be taken aback (as one would be in the other direction currently in the States by all reports). A challenge beholding the man, observing his preparations; it seemed remarkable that one was permitted to come into his presence, stop before him and share his burden.

Down on his haunches drawing from his bag one item after another. 

The sky-blue square of fabric was not large; either side two of his neighbours much larger, one almost overlapping. 

Three Corona Club baseball caps grey and new the best of his wares. Old navy beret in rear and white push-top pen placed perpendicular in front.

Could the man have weighted fully 40kg? Ten or a dozen durians perhaps. 

Loose shorts and open shirt unbuttoned to the navel had him almost completely exposed. 

Sun was not a bother for a man such as this. Chinese, in one or two generations falling short of the roasted coffee of many of his compatriots here. Perhaps he had gone about as far as yellow can into brown. Feet, arms, face and scalp concentrated the black moles.

Undifferentiated straw-hat toiler from the old scrolls, standing in the fields and by the paths.

The panama suggested the beret: a short wave of hand included the caps on the crowded square.

Beside him the extraordinary inky blue-green bubbled birth-mark that covered almost one entire half of this neighbour's face, forehead down to chin. 

This chap had appeared in the middle of the month; absent the few months prior. 

Early-mid forties, usually leaning against the back cyclone-wire straddling the drain. 

Did the man possibly get his neighbour to handle sales? 

His square of fabric was hardly more enticing than the Coolie. 

The painted older ladies in the back parlour-kitchens in the lane behind Desker Road would receive this man along with all other comers, possibly a warm smooch on the kisser into the bargain. One could tell the women in those chairs showing themselves through the doorway had it in them.

A more sprightly Chinaman shortly before came well-equipped with two large brollies rigged and free-standing on the handle of his steel suitcase. A man taking fright at the tropical sun—between the two membranes of his shields there were laid three or four layers of added fabric.