Lavie Tidhar: The Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String

[petronius]

Mrs. Pongboon, that great woman and mother, that seller of mysterious artefacts, walks down the street in her red-patterned sihn the colour of a naga’s crest, and people stare because to dress this way is to invite the wrath of the Ngeuk Laeng, the dreaded drought nagas—but it is all a nothing to Mrs. Pongboon, who had taken all her fear and her secret anxieties and put them in a talisman which hangs around her neck, a tasteful little locket of gold and quartz and state-of-the-art mass-produced Chinese technology. “Buy my lockets, my darlings!” she calls, and the women stop and stare, and the children giggle and are shushed, and the men look anxious and thoughtful. “Put away your loves and fears, and keep them for a rainy day!”

http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/fiction/the-spontaneous-knotting-of-an-agitated-string/

[petronius]

1. I liked this one as well:

The Night Train
by Lavie Tidhar

Her name wasn't Molly and she didn't wear shades, reflective or otherwise.

She was watching the length of the platform.

Hua Lamphong at dusk: a warm wind blowing through the open platforms where the giant beasts puffed smoke and steam into the humid air, the roof of the train station arching high overhead.

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2010/20100614/nighttrain-f.shtml