There’s a shop in the nearby village which I swear might be magic.
It’s not a large shop, not much bigger than my living room, yet it is packed floor to ceiling with stock. The window display boasts everything from slippers to antique jewellery to thermal underwear to shovels, and the table and racks outside have a similar array of goods.
Yet what is magical about the shop is that, no matter what you go in and ask for, they seem to have one. Or several, in different colours or sizes. You can look around the whole shop and not find what you want but then the shopkeeper, her dark eyes shining, will say, ‘Can I help you find something?’
‘Yes, I’m looking for a…’
And she will smile, then turn and reach into a shelf or box or tiny cupboard, and produce just the item you’re looking for. Or, she will send her husband, bespectacled and cardigan-ed, to the ‘back room,’ where he will emerge a short while later, the item you want in hand. And this item can be anything from a specific type of button to drain unblocker, an umbrella or a length or ribbon. Incense or a frying pan or garden tools or a tiny silver charm, shaped like a dragon. I’ve not yet asked for car parts or an elephant, but I’ve no doubt that if I did, something would be produced.
I have visions of their back room being of warehouse proportions, yet I know there is nothing out of the ordinary at the back of this row of shops. And yet, each time I go in there, they have just what I need. Sometimes my daughter and I try to challenge them by asking for an unusual item, something we may have had trouble finding somewhere else.
And yet another cupboard or drawer is opened, and the item appears.
I don’t know about you, but it seems like magic to me š
Helen Glynn Jones 
How lovely. I’d love to find a store like that. Magic indeed!
Thanks Sherry Lynn, it really is a fun little shop – and they haven’t let me down yet š
I read that first as ‘ car parts for an elephant’. I think that might be a challenge.
š It would indeed! I reckon they might try to meet it, though.
Might make a fun story.
Yes, I thought there might be a story in it. Still waiting to see if something comes along š
There’s a wormhole in the back room that accesses a long corridor of time from which every conceivable item can be plucked. Doesn’t every village have one?
I think you’re right, Geoffle! It’s the only reasonable explanation š And yes, I’ve seen similar stores before, but this one is particularly magical…
Please let it be magic š
š That made me smile. It’s how I feel too…
Omg! We have one here in Virginia just like that! It’s not so pretty as yours, it’s a hardware shop and it looks dirty and grimy, but he has anything you ask for, even though you can’t see it when you go in. And he knows exactly where every nut and bolt and screw is without even looking, yet to me the shop looks like chaos! š²š²š² How amazing!
That is amazing! Yes, this shop seems to have no rhyme or reason either to where stock is placed – perhaps that’s why it seems so magical when she produces whatever I ask for š
Yes definitely! š
What a great find. I hope you don’t ask for an elephant though, I’d hate for the magic spell about the place to be broken.
Yes, I dread the day when I go in there looking for something and she says ‘I’m sorry, we don’t have one of those…’
Reminds me a little of the shop in ‘Mr. Benn’. That shop could be a timelord TARDIS, given that it sounds bigger in the inside than the outside.
Yes, it is quite Tardis-like, Hugh – and that would explain how they’re able to carry such a wide range of items. š
lol I love stores like this š
š Me too!