Umar took the cloth out of the jar and unfolded it to reveal a mound of leaves and flowers. They were still green, but some sections had begun to dry becoming slightly brown by the withering.
“Looks good so far.” He commented not a second before literally eating one of the flowers.
“Umm...” Aloe didn’t know how to react to that.
“And that’s a solid taste. Yup, that’s quality stuff right here. Far better than some of the trash I get.”
“Is it valuable?” She did her best to keep her façade up, but the situation was too uncomfortable for her to be stone-faced. Who eats flower buds?
“I mean, it is more valuable as hashish, but yes. This is worth its weight in gold, girl.” Aloe was alleviated to hear that. “This is why I bought your grandfather’s stuff. Yes, it’s not much, but sultanah-blessed lands only give for so much. His greenhouse’s soil is far better than the sands touched by the blood of that woman.”
“I see.” Aloe didn’t know Karaim’s lands were that fertile. Though there were a lot of basic things about botany and horticulture she straight up didn’t know. “And how valuable are we talking about?”
“Hmm...” Umar didn’t give her a straight answer, instead, he picked up the cloth and weighed the cannabis with his own hands as he inspected it closely. “A lot.”
The non-committal response made her nervous. “How much is ‘a lot’?”
“Tareek, come here you dimwit!” The apothecary shouted at the back store before giving her an answer.
A groan responded and soon a figure appeared from the bead curtains. It was a young man, older than Aloe but not by much, five years at most. His skin, however, was far more highlightable. It was just too fair for these lands.
“Wha’cha won?” Tareek spoke roughly even if his looks and physiognomy were sophisticated. The timing and the pronunciation were so off that Aloe was led to believe that maybe he was, as a matter of fact, a dimwit.
“Taste this.” Umar pointed at the cannabis on the counter and hid his arms in his sleeves.
The young man didn’t doubt it and also took a flower, chewing on it as if it were a piece of lamb. The noises coming out of his mouth were unnervingly wet, and so was the time he dedicated to savoring it.
“Gud stuff,” Tareek said.
“How much would you buy all of this cannabis for?” The old man asked him with his eyes closed.
“This quality? Lots.” He answered, his tone becoming ever-so-sharper.
“Well, the taste test was certainly successful.” Umar opened his eyes. “You can go back to whatever you were doing, Tareek.”
“Sure.” The young man sighed and made his way to the back store not before turning to face Aloe. “I hadn’t had such good material for a while now, keep at it, woman.” He added with a smile before disappearing into the shadows.
His reaction agitated Aloe. Not only she didn’t want to get the attention of people of his type, but there was also wrong with him. His voice. She realized. It wasn’t only his tone, but his voice became far crisper and intelligible after eating the cannabis flower. There was something in that sudden change that unsettled her, even if she couldn’t put the why into words.
“So, price?” Aloe added before Umar noticed something was wrong with her reaction.
“Well, we have verified it is a quality product,” Aloe frowned at him, “What? The meaning is literally proper, gal. It is fucking grammatically correct. There are no euphemisms at play.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“I didn’t say anything,” Aloe responded without showing any reaction whatsoever.
“You surely did, just without needing words.” The old man grunted and tapped the counter with his pipe. “As I was saying, this is good stuff. People will pay hefty coin even for such meager quantity.”
“Hefty being?” The girl continued pressuring for a price.
“Two drupnarun.” Umar said.
Now, Aloe’s reaction was worthy of a theatrical play. First, she blinked – just once, there wasn’t enough time for more actions in such a short span – then her body slightly recoiled backward, and finally she ended up with a coughing fit.
“Wha-?” Her voice was cut by coughs and dropped to the ground as air didn’t reach her brain.
“Are you sure you aren’t the one with the plague?” Umar smugly puffed his pipe.
After a few more coughs, Aloe grabbed the ledge of the counter and weakly stood up. “I think I heard it wrongly.”
“No, you definitely heard right.” He continued puffing the pipe.
“Two drupnarun.” She repeated with a tone so stale that she could have been a masterclass storyteller with the sheer clarity her tone conveyed.
“Two drupnarun,” Umar repeated nonchalantly.
“Do you even have that money?” Aloe frowned, still thinking this was a joke.
“I assure you I possess the finances to support such a transaction.” He set the pipe on the counter again. “Are you going to take the money or not, lass?”
“Em-yes?” She was too stunned to respond coherently.
“Here then.” And he did it. He dropped two drupnaruns on the counter as if nothing. Nince-damned drupnaruns.
Aloe looked at the two small electrum coins with delusion and paranoia. Where’s the trap? Am I going to get assaulted and kidnapped? She looked around through the corner of her eyes for any movement. Are those the payment of the kidnappers? It couldn’t be said that Aloe wasn’t an imaginative person. A few breaths in, Aloe calmed herself, mostly by telling herself that no one would want to buy her. This was one of the few occasions where a lack of self-confidence and logic were equivalent.
Two drupnarun, two hundred drupnars. Even then, she couldn’t believe it. That’s way more than the monthly workers’ pay. Though that was exactly the time it had taken her to grow the plants. Aloe hyperventilated as she grabbed the coins. They were small, electrum was way more expensive than silver and copper after all, yet they seemed way heavier than any drupnari or drupnar.
“Relax a bit, lady. Otherwise, you might pass out.” Aloe unceremoniously stored the coins in her coin purse. “No one’s gonna still you. Well, no one here. That’s a lot of money, some may be tempted. At least people can’t smell coins. Well, they can but not easily. Electrum’s rather unreactive as a metal. Not a smith, though.”
“Could... could you stop saying those things?” Aloe added nervously.
“Whatever you want, girl.” Umar raised his hands defensively, the pipe already between his fingers. “You can go now, I ain’t gonna stop you. And you should rest, you look like a mess.”
“I know that,” Aloe said sourly. She walked backward, not fully trusting him right now with all the money she carried in her person.
“The jar.” The apothecary pointed at the piece of ceramic with his pipe.
“Right, right.” The girl returned to the counter and picked up the jar, all whilst maintaining eye contact.
“I fully understand your lack of trust, but worry not, you have a friend in me.” Umar always seemed to be joking, every word as light as air, but now there was a seriousness in his tone that Aloe couldn’t ignore. “Your grandfather and I met half a century ago, I won’t allow anything to happen to you. You can trust this promise.”
The words were devoid of meaning to her, she had only known the man a bit more than a month and had only seen him frice, yet – for some reason – Aloe believed those words. As a liar, especially to herself, Aloe knew that man was being sincere.
“I’ll be waiting for more cannabis,” Umar said as her back met the curtains leading to the streets. “There have been a few problems with the farmlands and the price of any hallucinogen has skyrocketed, notably those of high quality. You have a lot to win with these transactions.” His last words felt like a barbed offered.
“I’ll.. think about it.” Aloe held her breath for a moment as the twilight-colored sun rays caressed her back. “I’ll be occupied for an indefinite amount of time, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to take care of more cannabis.”
“That’s a bit of a shame, you can’t bring these few leaves and leave me hanging.”
“Sorry.” She added instinctively, though she didn’t mean it.
“Bah, no problem, no problem.” Umar waved his pipe around. “I’ll take whatever you can give me. Just take a good rest. I’m led to believe such commodities are few in order at the moment.”
“You’d be right,” Aloe whispered. Her voice was so weak, so tired that she didn’t think Umar would hear it, yet he smiled, nonetheless. “See... see you later.”
“But of course, until our threads cross again.” As she walked outside the apothecary, the last Aloe saw of Umar was his wrinkled smile, but the last she heard was his loud coughs, a violent and raging fit that lingered in the street.