{"id":1407,"date":"2009-03-11T19:28:19","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T03:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/?p=1407"},"modified":"2026-02-19T09:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:48:10","slug":"a389-amethyst-crystal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/?p=1407","title":{"rendered":"#a389 :: Amethyst “crystal”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"031109\"<\/a>She regards it with suspicion.<\/p>\n

“Amethyst?”<\/p>\n

The Chinese shopkeeper nods firmly. “Finest, from Xian province. Xian province. Terra cotta warrior. Xian<\/i>.”<\/p>\n

He keeps nodding.<\/p>\n

She drums her French-tipped nails against its too-glossy sides. She pricks at her fingertips with its perfectly asymmetrical point. She hefts it. Rolls it over in her perfumed hand.<\/p>\n

Then she waves it at him: “Bullshit. It is not …”<\/p>\n

“It is<\/i>, lady. Finest amethyst, from Xian. Terra cotta warrior. Xian, lady. Finest quality crystal. Amethyst. Xian.<\/i>”<\/p>\n

She cocks a skeptical brow at him. Rolls her eyes a bit for effect.<\/p>\n

He keeps pointing at it, insisting, “Xian, Xian.” When she doesn’t bite, he hops down from his stool and pulls a few more from the case.<\/p>\n

“You no like that one, look this one, very fine. Very fine. Hunan province. Powerful, this one. Hunan. Powerful. Look. No, look this one, also Xian province – big. This big one, very powerful.<\/i>”<\/p>\n

He snatches away the first, hands her the second and third – which look even glossier – than the first.<\/p>\n

“I need this to be real. I need this to be the real thing,” she snaps. “I need it for a healing ritual.<\/i> Do you understand? It’s important<\/i>. You’re bullshitting me, and this is important<\/i>. Don’t bullshit me. ”<\/p>\n

Exasperated, he pulls out a huge crystal the size of his fist.<\/p>\n

A car horn honks outside. It sounds expensive.<\/p>\n

She cringes. Sighs. “Come on<\/i> man, don’t you have anything real? This looks like a fucking peasant polished it for 9,000 hours on a fucking wheel, it’s too fucking perfect!<\/i>”<\/p>\n

She is crumbling. The horn blats again, this time longer. Insistent. Impatient.<\/p>\n

“This is fucking bullshit!<\/i>”<\/p>\n

“No bullshit, lady, no bullshit, finest amethyst! ”<\/p>\n

He’s shaking the big crystal vigorously. Bouncing on the balls of his feet.<\/p>\n

He frowns now, and shakes his head.<\/p>\n

“You look, look here! This natural!” He points at the flaws running through it, tracing the veins of quartz with his fingernail, a man trying to convince his fellow castaways he knows the route out of the jungle to civilization.<\/p>\n

“Natural! Finest amethyst<\/i>!”<\/p>\n

“It’s not<\/i>, it’s fucking<\/i> glass!” Her hands are flapping like injured pelicans now. She is crying. She is tugging at the elaborately scissored T-shirt she spent $300 on, wishing he’d fucking listen. The honking stops. A thick car door thunks shut. Outside, someone curses. Twice.<\/p>\n

“I needed amethyst! How much!?” she shrieks, dabbing her eyes, sniffling.<\/p>\n

He taps out a quick sum on the calculator, flips it to show her. “Thirty-four ninety-seven. It real! Good <\/i> amethyst!”<\/p>\n

She starts plucking bills from her wallet with a stiff pincer grip. “For the cleansing<\/i> … All I needed … FUCK! … All! I needed! Was some real! Fucking! <\/i>Amethyst!<\/i>”<\/p>\n

Footsteps now. Stalking louder. “Keep the change!”<\/p>\n

She bolts, and outside two sharp voices burst into a scuffle. Doors slam, tires chirp and a 12-cylinder engine howls up to a scream a block and a half away before shifting .<\/p>\n

He exhales after a second.<\/p>\n

He looks down at the seven 50-dollar bills in his hand and mutters.<\/p>\n

Then he drops the first three crystals into the trash and sets about rearranging the rest of his stock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She regards it with suspicion. “Amethyst?” The Chinese shopkeeper nods firmly. “Finest, from Xian province. Xian province. Terra cotta warrior. Xian.” He keeps nodding. She drums her French-tipped nails against its too-glossy sides. She pricks at her fingertips with its perfectly asymmetrical point. She hefts it. Rolls it over in her perfumed hand. Then she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,19,23,39,13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artifact","category-fetish","category-microfiction","category-mineral","category-objet","category-symbol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1407"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1802,"href":"https:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407\/revisions\/1802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heavylittleobjects.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}