Right Into Place

One

The lighting was rather poor, the place was not the most wonderful sight, and the day was the worst, storm and all.

Outside was a mess of a world, busy streets and honking cars packed through the roads. People scurry through the sidewalks in their thick coats and umbrellas as the skies were rather grumpy that day. Wet shoes kick through the raindrops and the few people unfortunate enough to forget their umbrellas are struggling under their jackets or at least some shade.

Another normal day in Queens, a Thursday morning, actually and so everything is busy as ever. Not that I would know of their lives as I tend to stay inside and watch the little scenes from the windows, or at least a part visible even with the curtains covering them.

You see, unlike other people whose had their lives running around in papers and worrying about the stock market, I live mine behind these four, rather grubby walls. I always stay behind the counter, patiently waiting for the door to open up yet it rarely does.

Through the rhythm of the raindrops and the blasted honking of impatient horns, which, quite frankly, I'm already used to, I could easily hear ticking of the clocks behind me. They never fail to remind me how much time I've been here and how much time I'll be spending here.

Red-turned brown brick walls surround me with a dusty carpet everywhere I set foot into. Two adjoined rooms at the first floor. The first room had my counter and a load of shelves. While the second has the stairs up to my personal space, bedroom, bathroom and all as my home. It's the part filled with most fragile antiques and a load of mirrors my father collected even though the place had always been and will always be meant to be a toy shop.

On my wooden counter are toys you'd never let your children play with, one made of antique porcelain and bronze winding key, the kind that would play a symphony by Mozart and have a little ballerina spin around, not that I was too interested in a toy for girls, I just let it sit around. Beside it is a dusty, handmade bear house, just the size of my arm with a tiny ferris wheel beside it and all the rest of the space had music boxes arranged on them.

At the very least, these were the toys that had caught my fancy out of all the hundreds displayed and placed in every corner of the shop.

The toys in this shop are not the kind you see in malls wherein everything seems to be made by modernised factories and machines. Unlike those, everything inside this emporium are mostly handmade, either made up of wood, porcelain, cloth, rubber or pure metal and only a few are made of plastic. These are the finest works of the best hands for ages and the honour of collecting and guarding them falls to me.

The shelves are stacked properly although they can get pretty dusty at times. On the ceiling hung plane models and ships, a few planets and stars here and there too. Most of the time, children are not allowed to touch a number of these toys as they're a bit fragile now though some are still open for playtime.

My father left me this place in his will. Out of all my brothers and sisters, I was the one privileged to take his property far from home. He left me a fortune, enough until the day I die on one condition. . . to take care of his shop.

I've been doing so since then.

My days have consisted of walking around the tiny, tightly closed shop. The dust and the densed items barely makes one person have all the fresh air he needs yet I chose this life. The one last reason why I haven't left is that it fits me. The isolation from the world outside is what makes it a place for me. There was rarely a time when people would enter the door in such a busy time, in fact, if I were a normal person walking around, I probably would not let curiosity get the best of me with this place.

So again, I sat behind the counter, trying to concentrate and not to be bored by Northanger Abbey, a novel by Jane Austen. I kept my reading glasses on as the lighting is absolutely torrid. I should have it fixed, perhaps.