While I may be primary the real genius behind this story is curiouslydreaming, my partner in crime! We hope you enjoy this story and I encourage you all to visit curiouslydreaming's page and enjoy her wonderful stories as well! AND...we do not own repo (kinda thought that was obvious).
The floors of the second hand shop were speckled with dirt and debris. Every available inch of shelf space was coated in a layer of dust.
Here we find our heroine, where the tiny knickknacks and larger bobbles that someone else had long ago discarded sat waiting to be rediscovered. Shade could spend forever wandering through the barren isles of the multifarious thrift stores, picking through the trash and treasures.
With her delicately painted hands she fingered a Christmas ornament; a small white cat with a frilly red bow around his neck. That blasted holiday always seemed to be right around the corner. Shade might have snatched it up to hang on her tree, which was always sadly bare, but there was a date on the back that caused a shiver to run down her spine. How strange that her own birthday should be written there, in that glittery script.
Age is always a delicate subject, nothing that any woman wants to be reminded of. So Shade placed it back on the shelf besides someone's old journal. She wondered vaguely to herself how something so personal had ended up on display, available for purchase by a stranger. How would she feel to have her inner most thought bared for someone's entertainment? She placed the little book in her basket, an attempt to save the previous owner some embarrassment, lest it fall into the wrong hands.
She loved looking at browned and damaged pictures displayed in legions, frames stacked umpteen deep in inestimable piles around the shop. They were like little windows into the lives of their previous owners. Most depicted happy scenes like smiling children, or a dog rolling in flowers, those were the ones she left there. Occasionally Shade would discover one or two she had to take home; a photograph that spoke to her through the grimy glass that contained it.
The walls and shelves in her home were covered in the trinkets and photos she had collected from these "boutiques", as she called them. Shade lived the way she felt, alone. There was no one to criticize her decor or throw out her tiny prizes. The photos in mismatched frames told stories in themselves, of moments that could never again be recaptured. A picture is worth a thousand words, and Shade had millions of pictures.
She piled her purchases on the counter near the register, and the cashier picked up each one and typed in its price. His eyebrows rose a little further with each item until they nearly disappeared into his hair line. It was clear that he shopped for less obscure and unique things. He stopped at the last thing and stared at it for a moment. It was a frame holding the picture of a young girl dressed in her best, her eyes sparkled with delight and her hand was blurred from waving to the camera. She sat cross legged beside a small garnet stone that served as a grave marker.
"Nice frame." he shrugged before wrapping it in old newspaper and putting it in the bag. Shade just smiled as she swiped her card over the sensor. There were so many scenarios Shade could come up with in her head about that one picture. She would take it home and sit for hours looking and imagining the story behind that little girl and the grave. She came to this store to shop, not get the employee's opinions.
Whenever she felt down, Shade would spend a few hours shopping, because it never cost more than five credits and it lifted her spirits. It isn't anything a normal person does, but Shade had no longing to be normal. Her curiosity for the strange and melancholy had begun at a young age and no one could ever understand her. But friendship is over rated and Shade knew the true value of pure silence.
After a long day at her dead end job there was nothing Shade enjoyed more than a night alone in her blissfully quiet apartment. She would relax in a tub of scalding water, make up stories about the people in the thrift store photos that cluttered the walls, and then spend the night lying on the couch listening to the sound of the world outside.
That was bliss... for a while.
