The Enthusiasts

13

The two weary travelers looked up and acknowledged a sign that drew both their gazes simultaneously, a sign which stood out amongst the scuzz-bucket jigsaw puzzle surrounding them otherwise. The sign hung perpendicular off the brick siding of a three-story like a flashing beacon, calling out from an extinct era, untouched for centuries and somehow frozen in time beyond any rational explanation. Several large windows faced the street, nearly touching end to end on the building's astonishing main floor with a few small blacked-out windows set in stone above it, possibly an apartment. The sign had lightbulbs surrounding its perimeter; inside the border of perpendicular-facing glass bulbs was a printed message framed at its center which read: "Crave-n-Stop: Everything worthwhile under one roof."

Emerson reacted the same way he would have to seeing a paddle-boarding sumo wrestler playing dice next to a talking cricket... He said nothing, as an increasingly powerful crescendo of awe reverberated its way through his body. His fingers tingled, and his heart raced comfortably with a new sense of excitement. While this sign may have seemed tiny and insignificant to someone else, to Emerson it shouted loud and clear that the impossible is possible.

"Isn't that sign crazy? I've never seen anything like it. What are those things sticking out all around it?" Sasha asked him.

He observed the object carefully rather than responding automatically. He kept the signage in his sights the entire time as they approached for a closer look. "I think they might be incandescent lightbulbs... I didn't think they've been made in over a hundred years, or maybe longer. Like before the plague, and even before AI." Emerson gasped as they got closer, the mysterious artifact expanding larger in their view as they approached. He wanted to look at the inside of the thread-in pieces of blown open, bulbed glass. They'd be red hot, with an actual, held electric arc firing across its wire-strung gap if they were, in fact, the real thing. With the afternoon sun still casting the area's dim shadows over them, it was hard for Emerson to tell if they may be on or off. He had no idea what they would look like in real life. "Look how many are still intact! Every spot is filled... There are probably twenty lightbulbs here on this one sign... It looks way too new to be so old, doesn't it?" Emerson wanted to find a light switch to see if any of them worked.

"Yeah... This place creeps me out. It looks like it was transported here from the past or something. All of the windows are in great shape too. You can see through them without any smudges even. This place looks like it was built yesterday!" Sasha reached out, placing her hand on the tall sheet of crystal clear glass. Her fingertips dragged across it, creating a horrendous, jaw-clenching, high pitched squeak as she did so. Normally the sound would have repulsed the both of them. But in that moment, upon realizing what lay beyond the see-through panes that were separating them from what was displayed inside, they each simply looked through the windows, mesmerized, neither able to blink.

"This place is not possible," Emerson stated in firm disbelief.

Signage be damned; he knew beyond his senses that what he was seeing now was not possible. The store looked in perfect condition, like no one had stepped inside. The floors were clean, and there was a black "All Weather" mat perfectly laid out behind the glass doors with what he could now see were brushed stainless steel curved handles on the outside with not a scuff on them. Inside the store, light shone down from the ceiling in bright, immaculate rectangles, spaced in a near perfect grid formation with each rectangle recessed into a spackled white ceiling full of light bursting out and drenching the showroom floor in its glorious radiation. Emerson counted seven rows of white metal shelving. He closed his eyes as hard as he could and then shook his head from side to side quickly, trying to erase the mirage from his sight. Slowly he opened them again. The apparition was still there. What could not exist was still standing right in front of him. There was too much inside for him to lay his eyes on all at once. He saw bags of potato chips, chocolate bars, candies — most of them he'd never seen before in person, but he recalled the bright wrappings from old commercials and documents he had catalogued on The Tablet. The shelves were all packed tightly and they appeared completely undisturbed. Emerson's vision was blurred as condensation suddenly appeared on the looking glass in front of him. Realizing his face was touching it, he pulled his head back and gave it another reality-check-shake for good measure... Then a sense of panic struck him.