(Photo by Burst)

“I don’t care how rare or unique it is. I’m not having that thing in my house.”

It was a common refrain heard several times each week, sometimes multiple times in the same day, at Ewan’s Fine Collectibles. The shop was both cramped and spacious at the same time, with the far wall always seeming to be just out of sight, hidden behind the next row of shelves or rack of clothes. Like any such shop, there were the regulars who came in almost every week to see what new treasures had turned up. They were the ones who’d poke around for hours at a time, sorting through everything as though they were archaeologists. Some kept notes about certain objects they’d found previously that were missing pieces or whatnot and they were hoping to find the rest of whatever they were collecting. Others would constantly be taking pictures of things and comparing them to images they found online, hoping to identify whatever it was they were looking at in the shop.

Those people were usually solitary shoppers. It was the ones who came in as a couple that were the most interesting to watch if only because only one of them was usually excited by what the shop had to offer. In those cases it was a constant tug-of-war between the two about whether or not they’d be buying the object in question. It all came down to taste, and the fact that people in the past had some pretty wide and varied opinions on what looked good.

These days, it seemed, modern sensibilities were focused around a few colors, most of them being variations of beige, and a select handful of woods and fabrics. Gone were the days when gold felt was an acceptable fabric for a couch. People didn’t appreciate the mossy green leather upholstery or dark wood paneling any more.

It was, to Ewan, a sad reflection of most people these days as well. People lived in beige homes with beige walls and beige furniture wearing beige clothes and driving beige cars. What a sad existence for them. Life without color, bold and glaring, was not a life Ewan ever wanted for himself. Hence his shop. People brought him all the cherished belongings of their parents or grandparents that no one else in the family wanted and Ewan would give them a few dollars in exchange. Then he’d arrange the new treasures in his shop for people with real taste and appreciation to come and rediscover them.

It was his calling. It was also quite boring most of the time, he had to admit while he leaned on the counter. Today was slow, and days like today were becoming more common with each passing year. His war on beige was not going well.

“How much for this, Ewan?” Cynthia, one the regulars, asked as she approached the counter with an armful of clothes.

Ewan laid them out on the counter, checking for any tears or stains before writing out a list of prices and handing it back to Cynthia. She looked down the list, nodding along as her eyes went back and forth between the list and the clothes on the counter. It was always like this. Ewan never priced anything until someone was interested in buying it. There was a method to his pricing, but he kept it all in his head. It also made it easier to adjust prices as needed since sometimes objects would spend decades in his shop before being sold and thus their price would need to be recalculated anyway to match the current economy. He also just hated putting price tags or stickers on everything.

“Okay, I’ll get these ones,” Cynthia said after going through the list and pulling out the ones she was most interested in.

She payed him and Ewan tapped a sign on the counter that read ‘Thank you’ followed by tapping another that read ‘Have a nice day’.

“You too,” Cynthia replied and left with her new old clothes in her arms.

As the door chimed behind Cynthia, Ewan picked up the clothes left on the counter and added them to a bin behind him for everything that would need to be put back on the shelves or on hangers after he closed up for the day.

The door chimed and Ewan looked up to see a group of what looked to be high schoolers. He waved at them and smiled and they returned the wave. He didn’t know them but it wasn’t uncommon for kids to come in and look around. Sometimes they bought stuff, sometimes they tried to steal something, but most of the time they just enjoyed wandering through the aisles and looking at everything. Before he lost this groups attention he pointed to a bigger sign overhead that proclaimed ‘10% off for all students’. He liked to encourage them since they were the next generation that might become regulars in the future. That, and he liked to hear what they thought about the things they found. Teenagers were brutally honest and tended to speak loudly enough in the store that he could hear what they were saying regardless of where they were in the store. Laughter was the best reaction. No one ever laughed at beige clothes or beige furniture.

As the teens began to filter into the store, one of them looked at Ewan a bit longer than the rest. His eyes moved down from Ewan’s face and towards his neck, where a large scar ran from one side of Ewan’s neck to the other. It was not a pretty scar either. Ewan often wore collared shirts that helped to obscure the scar but today he’d been in a hurry and only put on a standard T-shirt. He knew what the teen was looking at and saw the confusion, then the mild surprise and embarrassment in the kids face.

Ewan smiled despite himself and waved the kid over. He had to be no older than fifteen, Ewan guessed. The kid approached cautiously, looking guilty but Ewan waved his hand back and forth, trying to show it was okay, then he grabbed a small sign from behind the counter and held it up.

‘Did you see my scar?’

The teen nodded.

Ewan flipped the sign around.

‘Want to know how I got it?’

The kid looked puzzled for a moment, then looked at the counter and all of the signs placed about it. One sign in particular caught his attention.

‘I can hear but I can’t talk’

He mouthed an ‘oh’ and then looked back at Ewan.

“Sure,” he said, pointing to the sign Ewan was still holding.

Ewan smiled more broadly and then pointed up towards a shelf that ran near the ceiling. On it were a number of taxidermized animals, one of which was the head of a wolf and it was to that head that Ewan pointed.

The kid’s eyes widened as he looked at the stuffed head. Ewan got his step stool so he could retrieve the head and then brought it over to the counter. The wolf was in a perpetual snarl with its jaws open wide. Ewan held it up to his neck, showing how the teeth lined up with certain points of his scar.

By now some of the other teens had noticed what was going on at the counter and they were drifting back over.

“Look at that scar,” one of them said.

“How’d you survive?” another asked.

Ewan mimed grabbing the wolf and snapping its neck, then held one hand to his throat as though staunching the bleeding. He pulled up one more sign from behind the counter and held it out for them to see.

‘I walked three miles before I found someone to drive me to the hospital’

He flipped the sign around and showed them a picture of him in the hospital, his neck heavily bandaged along with his arms and chest. Only then did they notice the scars on his forearms as well. The teens all looked suitably impressed and Ewan shrugged as if it was nothing. Then he tapped a pair of signs on his counter.

‘Look around and see what treasures you can find’

‘Have fun’

The kids went back to looking through the shop and one of them even bought a hat. It was a very wide brimmed hat with fake flowers and a dove on it. They could hardly make it through the door while wearing it and Ewan smiled broadly at the looks they got from the other kids. Everyone’s life should be like that hat, with ridiculous proportions and bringing a bit of wonder to the others around you. He shuffled the signs behind his counter, putting away the wolf attack story and bringing out the ‘I tripped on a rake’ sign. The picture of him in the hospital was real but he told a variety of different stories to people whenever they asked. Some of the regulars made it a point to ask him about it in the hopes of getting a new version. There were theories, he knew, among the most dedicated regulars about which story was the true one or whether or not any of the stories were true.

He’d never tell them who was right. It was the unknown and the anticipation that was the most fun. He had a new story about his scar in the works that he’d begin sharing in another week or two. It was a harrowing tale of survival after an accident while white water rafting. He needed a few props from the shop before the story would be ready. Just like the wolf head he always had something to tie the story to the shop, something that looked like it could have been the cause of the scars.

Maybe some barbed wire, unseen beneath the rapids? Perhaps a knotted branch, now carved into his favorite walking stick, had caught him as he tried to pass beneath it? He’d figure it out and he had time to wait for just the right thing to be brought into the shop. The stories were just a side interest anyway. Just another way to make the shop a bit more interesting. Not everyone liked the stories, though, and for those people he would put on a scarf. There were a number of his regulars that he did that for. Different people appreciated different things and that was, after all, what his shop was all about.

That, and fighting the beige hoard.