The Emporium was dull and subdued, reluctant to get itself together ready for the adventures of the night. As Thrumps took his accustomed place behind the ornate wooden writing desk, the shop idly spluttered with a bored magic energy. He placed his mug on the coaster and was surprised that it wasn’t instantly replenished. He picked it up and tried again, giving it a gentle nudge. After a few seconds a rather tepid murky dishwater-kind of liquid gradually started to fill the mug but stopped three quarters of the way up as if it just couldn’t be bothered to continue. Thrumps stared at it. Something was wrong, no that was an understatement. He could feel that something was very wrong indeed.
He opened The Book of Un-Reality to a fresh page. His pen eagerly jumped into his hand, quivering with eagerness as he wrote … What’s wrong?
Nothing happened. The book just lay there like something from the real world.
Thrumps tried again. Please tell me what’s wrong.
The leather-bound journal slammed itself shut, threw the clasp across the front cover, and locked it. Thrumps opened the top drawer and rummaged for the key. He knew it was in there somewhere, but today was not the kind of a day to make things easy and so, needless to say he couldn’t find it. What he did find though was a black and white photograph, one of him and his father taken when he was very little.
A bold surge of magic rushed around him and The Book of Un-Reality fanned itself open, the key no longer required. There on the page was that photo, now not only in full colour but animated.
The memory flooded back.
They were in a boat. He watched as the excitement took hold of him at the first jerk of the line, and as he carefully reeled it in, he stood there proudly holding a tiny fish on the end of a line for the photo to be taken. He watched the beaming smile on his face drop when the fish wriggled, desperate to get away and he actually felt the relief when he held it gently in the water to watch it swim free. That was the first and last time he went fishing.
Thrumps still kept the last photo ever taken of his dad in his wallet. The memory of his death still hurt. There were so many things he wish he’d had the chance to tell him, but as life has a habit of doing, the future was taken away in what seemed like the blink of an eye. The truth was that his father had been ill for a very long time, but because he was a child, and that was how it was done back then, he was kept in the dark. Saved from the pain of knowing is what the adults had told him, but all that did was to condemn the rest of his existence to carry the guilt of wrongly thinking that they had all the time in the world.
Thrumps got himself lost in memories until the grandfather clock, which only showed itself when it was needed, loudly struck twelve slow chimes and he realised it time to open the doors. The shop looked no different, which was odd. Usually it was transformed to match whatever was to come, but tonight it remained an almost blank canvas, apart from the telescope mounted in the front bay window, its lens trained up to the heavens. There was no assistant in attendance and as Thrumps waited to greet whoever came through the door, he was insure what he was supposed to do.
It wasn’t long before there was a queue of people outside, each carefully clutching a photograph. They entered in turn and without a word positioned themselves to peer through the eyepiece. Once in position they turned to grey stone. Where the living person went was a mystery but once they had accomplished whatever it was that they had set out to do, their colour returned and with a huge sigh they simply walked out.
One-by-one they came and the same thing happened. Thrumps had expected everything to blot itself out once the queue was gone, but nothing changed when the doors quietly clicked themselves shut. He was left alone with the telescope. Naturally he couldn’t resist a quick peek, and there before him, back-dropped against the night sky was the photo of his dad. As the sharpness homed in on the details, he was amazed to see his father wave. After taking a deep breath, Thrumps turned to stone.
He awoke the next morning, tucked-up in his bed sporting his favourite PJs. He had no idea how he’d got there, but that was no surprise as he often didn’t once the events of the night had concluded. One thing he did know was that he felt lighter, happier even. His wallet was lying on the bedside table instead of being tucked safely in his inside coat pocket. He gently slid the photo of his dad out. It was as he remembered it, but now his dad was smiling. Maybe, he did get to say all the things he’d longed to say to his dad after all.