Journal: The Antique Shop

I was journaling this morning and this came up.  What it’s for?  No idea…

The Antique Dealer

It’s the kind of place you go to step out of a thundering rainstorm, the kind that makes you feel dirtier rather than cleaner.  Of course there are real metal bells over the doorway, jingle bells.  You push the door closed.  It wants to stick as you stand on the rubber-backed mat but you lean into it and the latch catches.

The air reeks of dust like a perfume…and NewHash.  You can see curls of smoke billowing and wandering overhead like a managerial dragon, watching over  customers and stock alike.

There’s something about Augmented Reality that always feels thin.  The smell.  No matter what a place looks like–the filthiest brothel–it always smells like plastic.  This place, though, is the real deal.  Your eyes itch from all the dust.

Real wood furniture packs the room.  Dusty glass chandeliers overhead…one of them made of animal antlers.  Tin signs, tchotckes, a stuffed raven over the door.  As you look at it, its beak opens and the speaker inside croaks, “Nevermore.”

You scan the room for the proprietor, who appears to be some kind of inanimate object or cross-dimensional toad behind the smeared glass counter–certainly too big (and too ugly) to move through the narrow aisles.

“Cute,” you say.

The proprietor puffs out a cloud of hookah smoke.  You’re not buying anything, and you both know it.

My new book, The Clockwork Alice, is officially released today.  You can find links and description here.

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