Retail

The shopkeepers guard their den with a ferocity more often seen in the land sharks than men. The shop is their shop and the street is the street next to their shop and the houses are the houses next to the street next to their shop. And this continues. They send out their bag boys with their twisted necks and single arms to wail through the streets looking for invaders. In their own homes if need be. I was told that was how they hired new baggers, by taking the swaddled children from the upturned cots after a successful preemptive defence, running home their squealing bundle to the keepers, to be prepared for a life in the isles. They have to be young or else the twisting and bending won’t hold, the skin won’t heal over their hidden arm and their heads will twist right off. The keepers don’t like the lower orders looking them in the eye, you see.