Andres Manosalva

OLD MONEY SMELL

“Mirlande, look at this, it’s locked!” Julián calls out. Julián and Mirlande are scavengers. They rummage through houses in abandoned towns and neighborhoods. Emmanuel, Mirlande’s father, taught Julián the job but he is retiring. Not that there is much to teach, just go into houses that now belong to no one and find something that can be sold back in the cities. Julián is teaching Mirlande, though Emmanuel had hoped his daughter would pick up something else. ‘Nothing left to scavenge,’ is old man Emmanuel’s saying, ‘everything has been picked.’