The map seller

Source: an original fiction extract.

“The map seller set up his stall outside the old city gate at seven each morning. His maps were beautifully drawn and entirely unreliable. Streets ended in ornamental fish; bridges crossed rivers that had been filled in before his grandfather was born. When tourists complained, he explained that the city changed too quickly for ordinary accuracy. His niece, Anika, helped at weekends. She had begun drawing a second set of maps on the plain backs of his unsold copies.

The stall was a small island of order in the market's cheerful confusion. Rolled maps stood in wooden buckets like a forest of pale trunks. Above them, the city's towers rose in blue ink, elegant and impossible, their windows no larger than pinpricks. The real gate behind the stall had a missing stone and a pigeon problem. On the maps, it shone with the spotless dignity of a place nobody had ever used.

One morning a woman asked for the quickest route to the hospital. The seller reached for his finest map, the one with a golden border. Anika put a hand on it. 'That one won't help,' she said. Her uncle looked at her as though she had announced rain inside the shop. She turned the paper over and drew three streets, a bus stop and a square with a cross. The woman thanked her and hurried away without asking the price.

For the rest of the morning, her uncle said very little. At noon, a tourist returned carrying a map in both hands. Anika prepared to apologise. But he wanted another copy: he had framed the first one. He said it reminded him of a city he had imagined as a child. Her uncle smiled cautiously. Anika looked from the painted towers to the real gate. Then she asked whether they could put two signs on the stall.

The next Saturday, the signs read MAPS FOR FINDING YOUR WAY and MAPS FOR LOSING YOURSELF. Her uncle thought the second should be larger. Anika agreed, provided that the prices were clear and nobody looking for the hospital was offered a fish. By afternoon, both wooden buckets were nearly empty. Her uncle began drawing a new tower, and Anika checked the name of the street beneath it.”

Refer only to the second paragraph. Analyse how the writer uses language to present the difference between the drawn city and the real one. Support your ideas with quotations from that paragraph. You could consider words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.