Free Captured by Tina Johansen

bare legs. It was a world away from the staid churches her mother had dragged her to as a child. Golden pagodas gleamed in the sunlight, as more brightly-attired monks walked single-file in orderly lines, seemingly oblivious to the hoard of tourists snapping their pictures.
    She wandered around in the searing heat for a while, admiring the intricately painted tiles. Soon she was overwhelmed by the humidity and the cacophony, and sought solace inside a cool, dimly-lit temple.  It was crowded inside too, but a respectful hush prevailed. She slipped off her flip flops and padded quietly to the altar, on which sat a small Buddha idol, carved from jade. The altar sat in an alcove decorated with gold tiles, which caught the dim reflections of candlelight on their tarnished surface. She knelt on one of the worn cushions, feeling self conscious as she gathered the sarong around her knees to avoid touching the fabric. All around her, people were kneeling forward on cushions, holding smoking incense sticks and loose bunches of lotus flowers. For the first time in several days, she felt peace wash over her, as she closed her eyes and tried to stop moping about her friend’s betrayal.
    After half an hour, she left the cool sanctuary in a daze. She felt the same calm that often enveloped her after yoga classes, on the occasion that she found time to participate.
     
    Chatuchak Market was on the other side of the city, so Grace was prepared for a long journey. It didn’t take long for her stresses and worries to fight their way back inside her mind. The car crawled along a street lined with tiny shops peddling golden Buddha statues of every variation imaginable: from large, fat and salubrious to small and reverent. She soon found herself thinking about Kirsty again. Her rational brain was fighting a war against the niggling doubts that human nature threw its way. Insecurity wasn’t one of Grace’s weaknesses, yet she struggled to contain it now.
    The market was bigger than she had expected: she had read that it was the largest market in south East Asia, but that title hadn’t prepared her for the sprawling reality. The whole thing was organised by product, with sections for practically everything one could imagine. She rounded the corner from a fabric stall and passed a tough looking woman blowing bubbles to attract customers to her frozen drinks stand. A moment later, she was standing before a cage filled with tiny bunnies, dressed up for the market with red ribbons tied around their tiny necks. There were dog stores and wig shops interspersed with the more standard market fare of sunglasses stalls and pirated DVDs. Her favourite was a cowboy and western stall, complete with a huge Native American feather headdress. The denim-clad proprietress barely saw her; she was apparently too engrossed by the guitar performance of a man in a Stetson.
    After wandering around for two hours, she still wasn’t convinced she had seen everything, but the stalls were already beginning to pack up. She stood in the middle of a walkway trying to decide what to do: she was exhausted, but didn’t want to miss any of the intriguing places.
    “You wan’ try?”
    Grace hadn’t noticed the little stall until she heard the voice. When she turned around, a short, tidy man was looking at her, smiling and gesturing to the table in front of him.
    She walked forward a couple of steps to take a closer look. She had been so engrossed that she had grown ravenously hungry without even realising. She did a double take when she saw what was on offer. It was a smorgasbord of bugs. The table was split into three sections: worms, cockroaches and some other multi-legged creature she couldn’t – and didn’t want to – recognise.
    The stall-owner was smiling at her with a wicked, gap-toothed grin. It didn’t take much to translate his look as a challenge to the fainthearted tourist. She rankled.
    “I’ll try one of those,” she said, rising to the challenge,