Shop of Forgotten Things
Book in Hand: Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett
Word in Mouth: Forgotten
What if walking through the mall one day, I chance upon a queer shop I've never seen before?
What if, amidst the other glitzy shimmering displays in the mall, I peer through the somewhat musty window of this particular shop with a wooden sign hanging up front that says "Shop of Forgotten Things"? And inside I see the oddest assortment of stuff for sale.
What if, in impulse, without really giving it much thought except for the way I noted the extraordinary effort it took me to open the door, I went in?
What would I find? Who will find me there?
--- *** ---
I touched a glass case with a deteriorating soft ball inside it. Who would buy that?
I fingered the lace of an extremely moldy dress which looked as if it was a wedding gown. Except for the fine lace, the whole thing looked just about ready to fall apart.
On another display shelf, there is an assortment of eyeglasses --- peculiarly unremarkable each and every one of them. On a shelf below it are three wicker baskets full of keys. For what, I wonder?
"Fancy something?"
My heart did a triple somersault without my meaning to. I turned to face the happy, lilting voice and I see a woman who's maybe around 50, with the ruddiest cheeks I've ever seen and firebrand hair. Not a common sight in any of the 7,000 islands of this country. Using my distended knowledge of the world culled from Hollywood movies pregnant with stereotypes, I decided she was Irish. Or Scottish. Or an alien from another galaxy. Haha.
"No, thank you, just browsing." I tried for that polite smile I always use on overeager sales clerks. I moved away from the shelves, away from her and nearer to the book cases. My index finger touched the spines of the dusty books while I read through the titles. The Secret of the Golden Isles, Seven Thousand Temples, The Mice of Hilgbranden.... kooky. But interesting at the same time. The woman did not follow me around as I have feared. She actually bustled out of the room, tut-tut - ing all the way.
Odd. But flattering. I must look like a nice girl to her --- someone who won't try to shove something under my clothes. Not that it would be possible for me to hide anything under my thin blouse. I could run though. Then again, remembering the pounds I packed on the last few years, maybe not. I was disappointed, all of a sudden, to be thought of as someone so boring she would not even try to nick a pair of eyeglasses just for the heck of it. I was ready to go then and there. I was. But the woman came out again with a mug and to my incredulous amazement offered it to me.
"It's the best tea our side of the Isle. My son just got back the other day, I'd be wanting to share it with you." Her eyes were brimming with warmth and good nature.
Stammering, I answered her as politely as I could. "N - no, thank you very much. I'm not a big fanatic about tea." I regretted saying it the moment I finished. Guilt overtook me, and the boring girl inside me was cringing. A nice woman offers me a drink, unheard of in this impoverished country, and I instantly doubt her intentions. Was it spiked? Would she get my wallet and all of its three hundred pesos the moment I lose consciousness? But whatever for? "I've browsed around quite a while now. You have a very -- interesting shop. Thank you." I was a bundle of nerves. What I wanted to do was to stride out purposefully, but I've never been that kind of girl. I fumble and I bumble.
"She leaving already? First customer of the day and she buys not even a key?" A hobbling old woman entered the shop before I could reach the door. A very old woman. The polite way to call it would be wizened. But otherwise, she'd just be crinkly.
" I don't need a key." I answered testily. I felt like I was being backed very slowly to a wall. The sensation of not having a way out started to permeate my brain. "I have to go, thank you very much." I tried to keep the curtness out of my voice.
"You are not trapped in here, child. You can leave if you want to." the firebrand woman said. She had an expression on her face which conveyed what I believed to be pity. I fought to keep the panic away from my eyes, fought to keep it in a place they cannot see.
"I have every intention of going out now. Grandmother, if you would be so kind to let me pass-- ?" I nodded my head at both of them and started to walk.
The old woman made a snorting sound. She shook her head and started wobbling to the book case. "One of those half-lifers now, she is, isn't she, Lillian?" She took down a book, by far the smallest of them all. "I sense Irish blood in her. Watered-down, yes, but Irish. It's a miserable thing how many of the Isle's children forget their own legacy. No matter how many lives they've lived, they shouldn't."
I stopped walking. How can they know of my ancestry? And what in the world is ... "Half-lifer?" I found myself saying.
The firebrand woman the woman called Lillian, smiled kindly. "People of the Small Death. Of Sleep. Half of the time anyway."
"Okay." I told myself this is the time I slowly turn around and make head way to the door. "Okay." I said it again, not as a means of assenting to the woman, but to put a finality to the weirdness. It's gone beyond what I can handle. "Okay."
"She's not ready, I told you." said the old woman as she settled to a rocking chair and started flipping through the book. She squinted down at the pages. "All this fancy set-up, all this..." she waved a wrinkled hand to the clutter of oddities "...memories... they mean nothing to her. She's too far gone." Then she sighed. Quite visibly so. A wisp of smoke floated through her thin lips and curled about her chin before dissipating.
"Please Matilde, a while more." Lillian was wiping her hands on the apron. She turned her gaze back to me. "All these means nothing to you? To you who was once guardian of it all?"
"Guardian of what?" I shook my head and I found that I couldn't stop. I was thinking that maybe if I shake it hard enough, or long enough, they will disappear and I would not be here...
"Of Forgotten Things. The memories of humanity that have accumulated more grime than value over the centuries. You knew everything that is to be found in here. That is until you decided to forget about them as well."
The old woman, the one called Matilde, was clucking like a hen. "Do you want her to run straight from out of here screaming like a madwoman? Take it easy on her memories, Lillian, she's been human for too long. Tell her who we are first, before you tell her who she was."
Lillian looked unsure. She seemed to consider it a moment and then she nodded. "I am Mother. I am Dusk." She said it with a finality that echoed inside the shop. From somewhere inside my subconscious, a thought floated to focus. Words of power. She was saying words of infinite weight.
Matilde stood up from the chair and wobbled back to the book case. She placed the book back carefully. Then she slanted an eye to me and said. "I am Crone. And I am Midnight."
"And you are Ava. You are Maiden." Lillian said. "You are Dawn."
I closed my eyes to come into grips with myself. "I'm sorry. I'm Olivia, and you -- both are crazy." I functioned on automatic pilot. My feet took me to the door, my hands twisted the knob and my body pushed itself out -- back to the noise of the mall I was familiar with.
"Come back when you're ready, then." Lillian said. She was shaking her head, as if in deep regret. " A couple more years...?"
"Give or take a century." Matilde grunted. "We'll be seeing you, Ava. May you awaken to yourself, sooner than later."
I let go of the door and the mechanism slammed it shut. Before my very eyes, the shop began to dissipate in front of me. The musty window became dimmer, the lights from inside went out. The wooden sign, the door whirled into a blank wall. Nothingness.
I began walking, just for the sake of moving. A numbness was taking over me, I could feel it gripping at mychest. An image came to mind with such sudden alacrity that I had to take a deep breath to settle myself. I was walking away -- again. I was forgetting -- again. Back then, it was in the midst of the comfort of trees when I disavowed myself. It sharply contrasted with the white sanitary atmosphere of the mall I was walking through now. But not all different. Some things were the same. I wasn't exactly changed.
That was when it hit me. The pang of having lost something. Missing something.
And I knew it wa somethinng I left in that shop --- that odd commissary of humanity's refuse of baubles and sentiment. I belonged there, somehow. And someday, I might just come back.
To that place I had ----full of forgotten things.
Word in Mouth: Forgotten
What if walking through the mall one day, I chance upon a queer shop I've never seen before?
What if, amidst the other glitzy shimmering displays in the mall, I peer through the somewhat musty window of this particular shop with a wooden sign hanging up front that says "Shop of Forgotten Things"? And inside I see the oddest assortment of stuff for sale.
What if, in impulse, without really giving it much thought except for the way I noted the extraordinary effort it took me to open the door, I went in?
What would I find? Who will find me there?
--- *** ---
I touched a glass case with a deteriorating soft ball inside it. Who would buy that?
I fingered the lace of an extremely moldy dress which looked as if it was a wedding gown. Except for the fine lace, the whole thing looked just about ready to fall apart.
On another display shelf, there is an assortment of eyeglasses --- peculiarly unremarkable each and every one of them. On a shelf below it are three wicker baskets full of keys. For what, I wonder?
"Fancy something?"
My heart did a triple somersault without my meaning to. I turned to face the happy, lilting voice and I see a woman who's maybe around 50, with the ruddiest cheeks I've ever seen and firebrand hair. Not a common sight in any of the 7,000 islands of this country. Using my distended knowledge of the world culled from Hollywood movies pregnant with stereotypes, I decided she was Irish. Or Scottish. Or an alien from another galaxy. Haha.
"No, thank you, just browsing." I tried for that polite smile I always use on overeager sales clerks. I moved away from the shelves, away from her and nearer to the book cases. My index finger touched the spines of the dusty books while I read through the titles. The Secret of the Golden Isles, Seven Thousand Temples, The Mice of Hilgbranden.... kooky. But interesting at the same time. The woman did not follow me around as I have feared. She actually bustled out of the room, tut-tut - ing all the way.
Odd. But flattering. I must look like a nice girl to her --- someone who won't try to shove something under my clothes. Not that it would be possible for me to hide anything under my thin blouse. I could run though. Then again, remembering the pounds I packed on the last few years, maybe not. I was disappointed, all of a sudden, to be thought of as someone so boring she would not even try to nick a pair of eyeglasses just for the heck of it. I was ready to go then and there. I was. But the woman came out again with a mug and to my incredulous amazement offered it to me.
"It's the best tea our side of the Isle. My son just got back the other day, I'd be wanting to share it with you." Her eyes were brimming with warmth and good nature.
Stammering, I answered her as politely as I could. "N - no, thank you very much. I'm not a big fanatic about tea." I regretted saying it the moment I finished. Guilt overtook me, and the boring girl inside me was cringing. A nice woman offers me a drink, unheard of in this impoverished country, and I instantly doubt her intentions. Was it spiked? Would she get my wallet and all of its three hundred pesos the moment I lose consciousness? But whatever for? "I've browsed around quite a while now. You have a very -- interesting shop. Thank you." I was a bundle of nerves. What I wanted to do was to stride out purposefully, but I've never been that kind of girl. I fumble and I bumble.
"She leaving already? First customer of the day and she buys not even a key?" A hobbling old woman entered the shop before I could reach the door. A very old woman. The polite way to call it would be wizened. But otherwise, she'd just be crinkly.
" I don't need a key." I answered testily. I felt like I was being backed very slowly to a wall. The sensation of not having a way out started to permeate my brain. "I have to go, thank you very much." I tried to keep the curtness out of my voice.
"You are not trapped in here, child. You can leave if you want to." the firebrand woman said. She had an expression on her face which conveyed what I believed to be pity. I fought to keep the panic away from my eyes, fought to keep it in a place they cannot see.
"I have every intention of going out now. Grandmother, if you would be so kind to let me pass-- ?" I nodded my head at both of them and started to walk.
The old woman made a snorting sound. She shook her head and started wobbling to the book case. "One of those half-lifers now, she is, isn't she, Lillian?" She took down a book, by far the smallest of them all. "I sense Irish blood in her. Watered-down, yes, but Irish. It's a miserable thing how many of the Isle's children forget their own legacy. No matter how many lives they've lived, they shouldn't."
I stopped walking. How can they know of my ancestry? And what in the world is ... "Half-lifer?" I found myself saying.
The firebrand woman the woman called Lillian, smiled kindly. "People of the Small Death. Of Sleep. Half of the time anyway."
"Okay." I told myself this is the time I slowly turn around and make head way to the door. "Okay." I said it again, not as a means of assenting to the woman, but to put a finality to the weirdness. It's gone beyond what I can handle. "Okay."
"She's not ready, I told you." said the old woman as she settled to a rocking chair and started flipping through the book. She squinted down at the pages. "All this fancy set-up, all this..." she waved a wrinkled hand to the clutter of oddities "...memories... they mean nothing to her. She's too far gone." Then she sighed. Quite visibly so. A wisp of smoke floated through her thin lips and curled about her chin before dissipating.
"Please Matilde, a while more." Lillian was wiping her hands on the apron. She turned her gaze back to me. "All these means nothing to you? To you who was once guardian of it all?"
"Guardian of what?" I shook my head and I found that I couldn't stop. I was thinking that maybe if I shake it hard enough, or long enough, they will disappear and I would not be here...
"Of Forgotten Things. The memories of humanity that have accumulated more grime than value over the centuries. You knew everything that is to be found in here. That is until you decided to forget about them as well."
The old woman, the one called Matilde, was clucking like a hen. "Do you want her to run straight from out of here screaming like a madwoman? Take it easy on her memories, Lillian, she's been human for too long. Tell her who we are first, before you tell her who she was."
Lillian looked unsure. She seemed to consider it a moment and then she nodded. "I am Mother. I am Dusk." She said it with a finality that echoed inside the shop. From somewhere inside my subconscious, a thought floated to focus. Words of power. She was saying words of infinite weight.
Matilde stood up from the chair and wobbled back to the book case. She placed the book back carefully. Then she slanted an eye to me and said. "I am Crone. And I am Midnight."
"And you are Ava. You are Maiden." Lillian said. "You are Dawn."
I closed my eyes to come into grips with myself. "I'm sorry. I'm Olivia, and you -- both are crazy." I functioned on automatic pilot. My feet took me to the door, my hands twisted the knob and my body pushed itself out -- back to the noise of the mall I was familiar with.
"Come back when you're ready, then." Lillian said. She was shaking her head, as if in deep regret. " A couple more years...?"
"Give or take a century." Matilde grunted. "We'll be seeing you, Ava. May you awaken to yourself, sooner than later."
I let go of the door and the mechanism slammed it shut. Before my very eyes, the shop began to dissipate in front of me. The musty window became dimmer, the lights from inside went out. The wooden sign, the door whirled into a blank wall. Nothingness.
I began walking, just for the sake of moving. A numbness was taking over me, I could feel it gripping at mychest. An image came to mind with such sudden alacrity that I had to take a deep breath to settle myself. I was walking away -- again. I was forgetting -- again. Back then, it was in the midst of the comfort of trees when I disavowed myself. It sharply contrasted with the white sanitary atmosphere of the mall I was walking through now. But not all different. Some things were the same. I wasn't exactly changed.
That was when it hit me. The pang of having lost something. Missing something.
And I knew it wa somethinng I left in that shop --- that odd commissary of humanity's refuse of baubles and sentiment. I belonged there, somehow. And someday, I might just come back.
To that place I had ----full of forgotten things.
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