D U N E
- ☾ -
T
here lies a small building no more than ten paces from the bell tower in the low quarter, the old one that only chimes twice per day: sunrise and sunset. Perhaps it is overly generous to call it a building-- there are only three thin clay walls, and three quarters of a thatched roof. At night, and honestly most days, a patchwork screen is lowered to the street, to keep out the dust and riffraff. Looking at it you might think it would take just a small storm to collapse the structure, yet it has stood for years and years-- longer than anyone alive can remember. Building or hovel or whatever it is, it's there, day in and out, a tattered scrap of red and gold fabric hanging halfheartedly facing the street, above the missing wall.It is the kind of place so brimming with things that the more you look, the more you see. There is a random collection of tables (each a different height, size, and shape) that fill the single room, and beat-up wooden shelves line the wall. The contents of the store are varied and… a certain kind of quaint. Near the front is a once-broken porcelain bowl, carefully pieced back together with some kind of golden glue, and an entire table is full of little animals and trees made of scrap metal and springs. Further back in the store, the items are less elaborate and in greater states of decay. One shelf is half full of bowls, each containing a different material-- pebbles, dried flowers, feathers, scraps of leather, it goes on and on. The other half is mostly broken things-- clocks that run fast or slow or not at all, a shatranj board with three missing people.
The shopkeep is only in about one day per week. Although, as you couldn't call it a building maybe you couldn't exactly call him a shopkeep. He lives here. Every morning he sweeps the floor and feeds the stray cats that come by. Every night he sleeps in the corner, the one beneath the broken roof where he can look to the stars before sleep gently (or, in some cases, violently) takes him. It is not technically his building/shed/structure, but it might as well be for all the pride and care with which he tends to it.
It’s a winter day when she comes in, and the early morning still has the bite of last night’s chill. He’s got his face lowered close to the table where a water clock lies in pieces, and one hundred percent of his attention is on carefully applying mortar to all the cracks and pressing the pieces back together, one by one. He wears a little frown as he works- a focus frown- or so he's been told. He's never aware of it happening, but more than one stranger has mentioned it- "do you know you frown when you're working?" He takes that to mean it's a bad habit, but he doesn't much care.
When Dune finally looks up he realizes there is a pretty girl looking back. He doesn’t say anything, just stands there with his brow raised in the obvious question- can I help you? If she were to glance past him she might notice a pile of rags on the ground behind the counter-- his bed-- and in it a little black cat curled up in a bit of sunlight that infiltrates the broken roof.
And what on earth are dreams if not our only way of speaking?
