Vendors look over the scene at Jubilee Market.

As if the disappointment of slow shopping over the Christmas season were not enough, some vendors in the Jubilee Market in downtown Kingston have been forced to start from the ash as a result of a fire that gutted their stalls and disrupted their lives early Sunday morning.

The vendors have vowed to start over again but, as they plot their comeback, they cannot help but cry out in anguish as they reflect on the loss of their livelihood, the deferral of their hopes and dreams.

A dejected Delroy Shedden, a vendor at the Jubilee Market, downtown Kingston, shows off several sneakers in his burnt-out stall that was destroyed by fire early yesterday. Shedden said he lost everything in the blaze.

A vendor searches through the burnt-out remains of her shop at Jubilee Market.