The rain had fallen in the afternoon, and the sky was damp without a cloud, the blue intense. Before six o'clock, the tail end of the sun began to burrow into the horizon.
Khalil Wright still had to go home to cook for his wife and had packed up his stall early. He called Wyatt Wright on the phone, "Has the delivery arrived?"
"Yeah, heading back now."
Khalil pushed his electric tricycle, "No need to come over here, I've already packed up. You head straight home."
Wyatt agreed and waited for Khalil to hang up first.
As darkness began to fall, pedestrians quickened their pace. Wyatt pulled over, got out of his car, and walked across to the other side of the street.
There was an old lady selling sweet potatoes by the roadside, sitting on the ground on top of a newspaper, her basket brimming with potatoes that had largely gone unsold.
It seemed people in the big city didn't have much of a taste for them.
"Grandma," the autumn wind was somewhat bleak, and Wyatt's voice was very gentle, "I'll buy some sweet potatoes."
The old lady's eyesight wasn't very good; it took her several glances to recognize him, "Oh, it's you."
This young man often came by to buy sweet potatoes.
The old lady chatted with him, "You haven't been around for a while, been busy at work recently?"
Wyatt replied, "Went out of the city last week."
The twilight deepened, the breeze unable to smooth the wrinkles at the corners of the old woman's eyes.
Supporting herself on the ground, the old lady struggled to her feet, "How much do you want?"
"I'll take all of it."
The old lady would select two baskets of sweet potatoes to sell each day, and on a good day, she could sell most of them. Her prices were very low, and two baskets only cost a few tens of yuan.
The plastic bags were all reused, one inside another.
Selecting the two largest ones, the old lady asked, "Why buy so much every time?"
Wyatt stood by the roadside, stooping to talk to her, "My family loves them."
The old lady brushed dirt off the sweet potatoes and placed them in the bag, "These are freshly dug. They'll be sweeter if you leave them for a few days."
He agreed, "Mhm."
As she packed, the old lady asked, "What do you do for a living?"
He made it simpler to understand, "I take photos of people, sometimes of mountains, sometimes of water."
"Taking photos, huh," the old lady chuckled, her teeth mostly gone, "These days everyone loves taking photos. Not like in our generation. Back in my hometown in the countryside, everyone was so poor, you'd only get to take a photo once in your lifetime."
After packing the sweet potatoes, the old lady hung the handle of the bag on a traditional scale balance, the kind you need to lift to weigh with scale weights.
There were over ten kilos of sweet potatoes in a basket, and lifting it was a struggle for her.
Wyatt crouched down, "Let me lift, and you keep an eye on the scale."
The old lady smiled and handed him the scale, and tried to teach him how to read it.
Her Mandarin was not very standard, and Wyatt didn't really understand her.
The conversation turned back to photography, and the old lady remarked, "At my age, perhaps it's time for a photo."
At her age, it was time for a death portrait.
In many places, that's how the elderly are—they take a photo once in a lifetime, at the moment when they feel they are about to say goodbye to their loved ones.
If they've had a photo taken for an ID card, that might be the only time, or they might not have another chance before they pass away; when they depart this world, their likeness is extracted from the ID card.
If you told them about a profession called 'photographer,' they wouldn't understand.
Two large bags were not enough, so the old lady packed the remaining few in a smaller bag. This small bag wasn't weighed, and she handed it to Wyatt along with the others.
He placed the bags on the ground, "How much?"
Thirty-three yuan and fifty cents.
The old lady said, "Thirty yuan will do."
Wyatt had only a hundred yuan bill.
The old lady's money was all kept in plastic bags, one wrapped in another, several layers thick. When she peeled back the bags, the money was wrapped in cloth, with not enough change to give.
There was a convenience store still open by the roadside, and a few steps away was a wet market.
"I'll go and get some change," said the old lady, not willing to leave her baskets behind as she planned to take them with her.
Wyatt said, "We'll settle it next time."
Under the twilight, for some reason, reflections always seemed a bit desolate.
The wind doesn't discriminate—it blows on everyone, reddening old faces, bending backs, and filling eyes with the weariness of years.
The old lady asked him, "Where do you take photos, do you have a studio?"
"I have a studio," he spoke very slowly, "in North Sandport, on Willow Lane."
The old lady stuffed the money into the bag full of sweet potatoes: "Then keep your money, next time I'll come to your shop to take pictures."
She was nearly eighty, it was time to take a farewell photo. On that day, she would definitely wear her newly-made clothes and tidy herself up neat and clean.
Wyatt agreed, "Okay, I'll take the photos for you."
The wind was strong; the old lady wiped the corners of her eyes and hunched over to clean up her stall—it wasn't much, just two basket cages, a single carrying pole, a few newspapers, and a bag of old plastic bags.
When Wyatt helped her, he placed the banknotes at the bottom of the basket cage.
"I forgot to ask." The old lady picked up the carrying pole, "Is it expensive to take photos?"
The young man, backed by the setting sun, smiled, his eyes brimming with warmth—a cascade of human fireworks and the galaxy amidst them.
"Not expensive, these sweet potatoes are enough."
He didn't have a standard fee for taking photos, sometimes charging a fortune, sometimes only a couple of bags of sweet potatoes.
"Thanks to you, I can pack up early today."
The old lady waved her hand and walked into the twilight, carrying an empty basket cage. On the bustling street, passersby hurried along while the elderly with mobility issues staggered in their steps.
In the distance, the neon lights suddenly lit up. It was time to go home.
Wyatt walked to his car, took out his camera, and captured a scene of the sun setting in the west and an elderly figure growing dim in the twilight.
*****
A HelloKitty wall clock was hanging on the wall, and the hour hand had just reached the number six.
Charlotte Watson, who was playing a dress-up game, heard the sound of the door opening, immediately dropped her tablet, and ran to the foyer.
Her eldest darling had come back.
"Wyatt, you're back."
Wyatt entered holding two bags of things.
"Why are you carrying so much stuff?" Miss Watson peered into the bag, "What's this?"
"Sweet potatoes."
As the eldest darling entered the house, Miss Watson followed in her floral slippers, "You bought sweet potatoes again?"
Her Wyatt had also bought them several times last week.
He said, "They're pretty sweet."
Miss Watson was surprised, "You like to eat them?"
"Yeah."
Wyatt brought the sweet potatoes to the kitchen, opened the cupboard—there were still some left from last time.
Khalil Wright was cooking; the kitchen was heavy with the scent of food.
Wyatt put the sweet potatoes into the cabinet, "If we can't finish them, we can give them to the tenants."
Miss Watson said, "Oh."
He washed his hands and came out of the kitchen, "I'm going upstairs first."
"We're about to have dinner."
"I'll just deliver something and then come down."
He went out again.
Miss Watson ran to the kitchen, the chili a bit overpowering, and she spoke pinching her nose, "Honey, why would Wyatt like sweet potatoes?"
Khalil was stir-frying chili with meat, his handling of the wok smooth, "What's wrong with sweet potatoes?"
"Are you silly, after losing his sense of smell, Wyatt can't really taste much anymore, I've never heard him say he likes something."
Wyatt had been injured when he was nineteen, and since then, he couldn't smell anymore. Even though the sense of smell and taste are separate, the taste buds can only distinguish sour, sweet, bitter, salty, and umami flavors; once the sense of smell is lost, it affects the distinction of taste, you simply can't distinguish subtle flavors.
Even spoiled food, Wyatt could not tell.
Khalil thought carefully, "On the street where I set up my stall, there's an old lady who sells sweet potatoes, she didn't sell many in an afternoon, probably Wyatt took pity and bought them all."
Charlotte clasped her hands together in a prayer pose, her expression one of a mother's love overflowing, "Wow, isn't our eldest darling like an angel on earth!"
The angel on earth went up to the nineteenth floor.
Carrying a box, his hands full, he couldn't knock on the door.
"Rae Bennett."