The Sewing Project -- a story excerpt

A story I was working on a few months ago, forgot about, and have now decided to finish. This is how it begins:

"On the morning after she turned 21 years old, Eudela borrowed her uncle’s horse-drawn carriage and for half a day journeyed through the inner city’s confusing warren of streets. Despite that it was already a feat that she made only one wrong turn, ending up on a sad concrete strip populated by shriveled old women selling prayers for the dead, braided hair belonging to lost loves, and bottles of fetus floating in formaldehyde, she still screeched, 'Punyeta!' -- a noise loud enough to send the fetuses into hiccups. Eudela was not a girl to make light of mistakes, especially not if the mistakes were hers.

It was at a little past one o’clock when she finally arrived at the Chinaman’s shop. Followed by a shopgirl who squeezed her girth through the stacked aisles by walking sideway, Eudela did her shopping. Consulting a list meticulously made the night before, she chose four meters of sturdy cotton 160 inches in width; a pair of Solingen scissors that she was assured was so sturdy she could pass it on to her children if she felt so inclined, a packet of golden-tipped needles, and a roll of ordinary white thread, this last marked down to 75 percent its original price because street dust had turned the first layer a dull brown. (Eudela was a perfectionist, but this did not prevent her from being frugal when she could.)

As soon as the doors had flung open on his shop of notions and all sorts of mishmash, Inkong had put the greasy tabloid he was reading down on the wooden counter to watch the girl enter with the brisk strides and purposeful gestures of someone at least a full head taller. He thought back on his daily horoscope just read: 'Today you will make a fortuitous acquaintance.'"