Your shop is always full. Your hours are only sunrise to sunset but it is packed with so many things that it always feels bustling. The one-room shop is crammed to the brim with your wares. Hanging from the ceiling and stuffed into drawers and boxes and baskets. Books and knick-knacks line shelves and all manner of clothing is collected on racks. Art is hung on the walls haphazardly, and other wares are simply shoved into corners. No other place for them.
Your shop is named for the town of Road Narrows, which is named for the sign at the crossroads. It is just a stop for travelers. There are so many you have a bell outside the door for them, labeled “for shopping emergencies.” Regular customers might disagree on the price of your wares, but the bell-ringers are always desperate. In need of a disguise or a weapon or any odd item for their quest. Always seeking something with a touch of magic. They ask the fewest questions. Everyone else wants to know where you get your treasures. They want to hear their stories. They think you have a wondrous tale to tell about each of them, a history to spin. You want to name a price. Make just a smidgen of space for something to add tomorrow.
Oh, your shop is full of somethings. The windows, lamps, and jars of sunlight illuminate the bowl of keys, the wall of knives, and the tarnished bronze statue of a hairdresser. A clock with only its tick sound towers above the collection of ancient DVDs. A typewriter is balanced precariously on a bike, which leans against a wall full of shelves with sunglasses, an eyeshadow palette, a silver ring with three stones, a salt shaker, and a parcel of wilted and crumbling tea leaves. A wicker basket holds umbrellas, leaning on the ornate table with your cash register and the tiny drone you tinker with endlessly. It still flies.
You get up every day before sunrise. You have to sort through the boxes next to your register. They arrive every morning. Sometimes you wake up even earlier just to watch them appear. A puff of blue and silver smoke and then you are graced with new wares. You sort through them as the first customers of the day trickle in.
Today there are only two boxes. One is quite large, the other a simple clothing box. You tug the clothing box toward you. Inside is a leather motorcycle jacket with white and red racing stripes. Instead of tissue paper, it is wrapped in a light pink, yellow, and teal striped scarf. You whisk it away to the box of all the other filmy scarves. You wrestle the jacket onto a clothing rack near the mirror in the corner. No one has ever asked to buy the mirror. You are glad. The constantly changing reflections are dear friends of yours. They beckon to you sometimes. It makes the mirror’s surface ripple. Life in the shop would be lonely without them and you wave a quick good morning.
Inside the large box are half a dozen jars. One has polluted water giving off toxic fumes. Another is full of a powdered spice. The others contain bubbling red water, star-shaped sand, swimming rainbow fish, and water that seems to glitter like stars. You have an entire table full of jars. You manage to squeeze these onto the table, between one full of black sand and another with a blue and purple butterfly fluttering on a breeze.
The bell shrieks. The sun is just starting to peek out from behind the mountains, washing the desert in red. You might as well really open your shop. That bell has made sure you’re awake. You let in the ragged group of travelers, breathing in the new day.
Your shop is named for the town of Road Narrows, which is named for the sign at the crossroads. It is just a stop for travelers. There are so many you have a bell outside the door for them, labeled “for shopping emergencies.” Regular customers might disagree on the price of your wares, but the bell-ringers are always desperate. In need of a disguise or a weapon or any odd item for their quest. Always seeking something with a touch of magic. They ask the fewest questions. Everyone else wants to know where you get your treasures. They want to hear their stories. They think you have a wondrous tale to tell about each of them, a history to spin. You want to name a price. Make just a smidgen of space for something to add tomorrow.
Oh, your shop is full of somethings. The windows, lamps, and jars of sunlight illuminate the bowl of keys, the wall of knives, and the tarnished bronze statue of a hairdresser. A clock with only its tick sound towers above the collection of ancient DVDs. A typewriter is balanced precariously on a bike, which leans against a wall full of shelves with sunglasses, an eyeshadow palette, a silver ring with three stones, a salt shaker, and a parcel of wilted and crumbling tea leaves. A wicker basket holds umbrellas, leaning on the ornate table with your cash register and the tiny drone you tinker with endlessly. It still flies.
You get up every day before sunrise. You have to sort through the boxes next to your register. They arrive every morning. Sometimes you wake up even earlier just to watch them appear. A puff of blue and silver smoke and then you are graced with new wares. You sort through them as the first customers of the day trickle in.
Today there are only two boxes. One is quite large, the other a simple clothing box. You tug the clothing box toward you. Inside is a leather motorcycle jacket with white and red racing stripes. Instead of tissue paper, it is wrapped in a light pink, yellow, and teal striped scarf. You whisk it away to the box of all the other filmy scarves. You wrestle the jacket onto a clothing rack near the mirror in the corner. No one has ever asked to buy the mirror. You are glad. The constantly changing reflections are dear friends of yours. They beckon to you sometimes. It makes the mirror’s surface ripple. Life in the shop would be lonely without them and you wave a quick good morning.
Inside the large box are half a dozen jars. One has polluted water giving off toxic fumes. Another is full of a powdered spice. The others contain bubbling red water, star-shaped sand, swimming rainbow fish, and water that seems to glitter like stars. You have an entire table full of jars. You manage to squeeze these onto the table, between one full of black sand and another with a blue and purple butterfly fluttering on a breeze.
The bell shrieks. The sun is just starting to peek out from behind the mountains, washing the desert in red. You might as well really open your shop. That bell has made sure you’re awake. You let in the ragged group of travelers, breathing in the new day.