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Saturday, January 12, 2013

Fiction: Marie's Curio

The shop was somehow both claustrophobic and never-ending. Odd objects littered the mismatched shelving. Any bookcases, basement shelving, or crates that found themselves in the vicinity of Marie’s Curio couldn’t help but end up inside, forced to hold old books, ancient lamps, video tapes, trivets, magazines, bowls, teddy bears, crystal goblets, collections of China, singles of China, paintings set in China, bar sets, radios, ham radios and any other piece of usable junk. All sizes, shapes, colors, and textures of shelving found itself sucked into the store by some unseen shelving magnet.

An equally mysterious magnet drew the junk and treasure that littered the shelves’ surfaces. Customers were drawn in by something like gravity: a pull so strong that even though all they saw from outside were tarnished silver and junk drawers dumped out onto flat surfaces, they felt compelled to go in and search for Treasure.