SoaringSin
Virgin
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2017
- Posts
- 20
It had been there for a very long time, waiting in the back of the storehouse as though awaiting discovery, waiting for the right person to awaken it. Lying in the very heart of the city, the antique shop was more a reliquary for curiosities than antiquities, and if any of the items stocked there was of any real value, it origin was likely so obscure that few people, except the store owner, would even know of its worth. In contrast to the front of the store, whose small space with finery of gold and silver and jade, the back of the store was a warehouse; a maze of drapes and crates that almost seemed forgotten with the cover of dust on them.
Today, the task of cleaning up had fallen to two new employees, one of whom was David; a university undergraduate, he was there to make some extra money for the holidays. With scruffy sandy hair and stubble, green eyed, and just a little shy of six feet, he had something of an imposing presence and it was easy to miss there was a friendly person underneath the large, bluff exterior. This day had seen him in close proximity to his other co-worker to deal with the backroom, given as there was little else to do in the front, and it seemed one of those rare occasions to explore, seeing as how the shop's owner seemed to be in one of his rarer good moods to allow anyone in there at all.
The ceiling lights were interspersed at regular intervals along the ceiling, perhaps a little too far apart, for a general gloom lay cloyingly everywhere, shadows just a little too heavy. The atmosphere was not helped at all by the occasional flickering of the lights, nor the fact that once the door to the front was closed, all sounds seemed to cease and footsteps swallowed by the stifling silence. Even David, who was stoic under most circumstances, was moved to crack a rather poor joke just to break the tension as he went about trying to clean up.
"There's a lot of stuff back here that he doesn't put out front," he muttered as he took a peak under the drapes. "But then again, just as well, as he seems to be keeping most of the creepy stuff back here. Why the hell pick up so many of these things anyway? It's not like he's really selling them."
To his knowledge, David had never seen the old man sell anything over the counter, which made the till look like it was there to keep up appearances. He had to assume that whatever money the man made was with those shady looking individuals from outside the town who occasionally graced the shop and went with him to his office to discuss things in privacy, and a day or two later, they returned to collected a tightly wrapped parcel the man had prepared for them. It almost had the sense of some under-the-table pornographic deal, yet this shop surely didn't deal in such things.
Today, the task of cleaning up had fallen to two new employees, one of whom was David; a university undergraduate, he was there to make some extra money for the holidays. With scruffy sandy hair and stubble, green eyed, and just a little shy of six feet, he had something of an imposing presence and it was easy to miss there was a friendly person underneath the large, bluff exterior. This day had seen him in close proximity to his other co-worker to deal with the backroom, given as there was little else to do in the front, and it seemed one of those rare occasions to explore, seeing as how the shop's owner seemed to be in one of his rarer good moods to allow anyone in there at all.
The ceiling lights were interspersed at regular intervals along the ceiling, perhaps a little too far apart, for a general gloom lay cloyingly everywhere, shadows just a little too heavy. The atmosphere was not helped at all by the occasional flickering of the lights, nor the fact that once the door to the front was closed, all sounds seemed to cease and footsteps swallowed by the stifling silence. Even David, who was stoic under most circumstances, was moved to crack a rather poor joke just to break the tension as he went about trying to clean up.
"There's a lot of stuff back here that he doesn't put out front," he muttered as he took a peak under the drapes. "But then again, just as well, as he seems to be keeping most of the creepy stuff back here. Why the hell pick up so many of these things anyway? It's not like he's really selling them."
To his knowledge, David had never seen the old man sell anything over the counter, which made the till look like it was there to keep up appearances. He had to assume that whatever money the man made was with those shady looking individuals from outside the town who occasionally graced the shop and went with him to his office to discuss things in privacy, and a day or two later, they returned to collected a tightly wrapped parcel the man had prepared for them. It almost had the sense of some under-the-table pornographic deal, yet this shop surely didn't deal in such things.