"The Gift Shop" Jonas Ridge

The musky scent of old books colored by yellowed pages, it's sweet taste on the tip of the tongue, tickles the nose with pleasant memories of yesteryear tales. The sound of passersby, horses, and bustling busy folk deadened as the shop door closed, triggering the tinckle tinckle of a coiled bell atop the door frame.   Sunshine beamed through the window with thick, flickering sparks of dust dancing about, gracing the heavy and somehow chilled room with seasoned light. Though the outside looked to be built within the past year or so, the inside had a spirit of antiquity like a freshly made grave about to receive the dearly departed.   Scattered books, stacked high and low, twisted about one another like winding staircases ... trinkets for the neck, wrist, and finger hung from hooks with enigmatic meaning ... It was a shop of oddities. A brand new electric lamp, which somehow looked too old, sat without a shade by a stuffed goat, which was positioned by a small table full of different sized, wined up alarm clocks. There were shelves full of all manner of things from wooden toys, hourglasses, to small bottles of colored liquids. An old globe sat collecting dust next to a bright and shining wedding dress.   There was a painting of a lightening storm in winter, bright blues, purples, and red from the thunderbolt, framed in gilded silver. It was hung, with a lean, over the counter top where a weeping young woman awaited patronage.   Though her face was wet from the sorrow of her eyes, she did not look as though she were sad. Rather, she had the look of someone who had seen the deepest, darkest, most hideous version of reality humankind could know. It was the brow of someone who knew they were to be sentenced to death without option or chance or salvation, and the faraway sight of a wounded solider on the battlefield, their blood mixing with the mud of the earth.   She was the very image of despair.   A living snow owl sat on top of it's high perch just behind her shoulder.