Out on Church Street, named for the instance of a church standing at the streets head, there is a little thrift shop which does trade on second hand items mostly. The owner of the shop calls them collectables and antiques, though most are the unwanted refuge of attics and basements found through yard sales and online swaps. The shop can't be seen from the church, it's some distance down the road in what used to be a funeral home, slightly renovated; some locals who remember this claim they can still smell the ghosts of floral arrangements inside.

Manny Collin's, who owns the shop of 'collectables and antiques' had grown tired of the sound of the little bell above the door which rang out whenever it was opened . He replaced it with one of those new modern sensors which makes an electronic chime, sort of a bing-bong,; a close impersonation of a bell which would clang only twice every time it rattled, if such a device ever existed. The real bell was now on one of the shelves with a price sticker. The market was very stable for second hand items in the economy of this small town, and the electronic bing-bong happened quite often during the afternoons, not so much in the middle of the work day, and Manny carried different expressions in answer to the chime depending on the time of the day. In the afternoons, he would attack the doorway with a broad smile exposing the gap in his front teeth; during midday, he would look up curiously with a pursed lip and lines of surprise in his forehead.

It was a Wednesday, midday, when Edward Mitton entered the small thrift shop, notably his first time; he had passed the shop many times and felt it not worth his effort, but today he was in search of a relief to boredom. Manny gave Edward his curious gaze, then smiled a bit, "Hello there."

Edward, a young unmarried man with dark hair and pale skin, flashed a polite wave to Manny.

"Anything you looking for in particular?"

"No. Just thought I would come in and check you out. Browse around."

Manny nodded, "Sure, take your time. I have most anything you could imagine in here."

"Yeah, I will do that."

There were many shelves of what Edward would call pure junk, and he scanned over most of it with a bit of contempt that anyone would even place these items on a shelf and have the nerve to put a price on them. Second hand waffle irons, board games with torn or tattered boxes, dusty plastic fruit and flowers were some of the many unorganized items tossed onto the shelves. The four foot section of dishes, flatware, and shot glasses did strike him, as it did have sense of cohesiveness about it. He even found an old fashioned door bell, the kind which would hang over a door to notify when someone had opened it, with a 2.99 sticker on it. Edward picked it up and gave it a little jingle, and unseen to him, Manny looked up at the door with his curious stare out of old habit. Edward chuckled a bit at the nostalgia of the sound and placed it back on the shelf.

Even if most of the items were junk, Edward found himself amused at the variety, sometimes profiling who may have owned many of the items. He pictured a small girl with curly blond hair and pig tails riding the red tricycle in the corner, and a man in work clothes blowing his lawn with the leaf blower, and a woman much favoring his grandmother wearing the simple dress. The items commanded the images of previous owners, whose hands they may have been held by and how they might have been used. That was until he came to one item, one very odd item.

The camera was very old, the casing a simple wooden box, and there was a message on the front of it written in French. Edward had no association with the French language, and could not imagine who would have owned the camera, his life time had no reference for an item so old. For a moment, he inspected it, and saw there was no place to insert film. "Hm," he said quietly, "I wonder how this worked."

He placed the camera back and spied something beside it which brought an instant smile to his face, an item from his youth, a black ball filled with fluid which had a small window in it. If one were to shake the ball and look through the window, a die would float to the top and reveal a message in answer to any general yes or no question asked. Edward snatched the ball from the shelf and turned it in his hand, looking for the slightly engraved stamp of an 8, resembling the stamp on an 8 ball from a billiard table. The stamp was missing, it was covered by a novelty sticker of a devil's face, winking, and the exposed left eye was a plastic diamond where the iris should have been. With a brief snort Edward said, "Cool."

He asked the ball, "Will I be important one day?"

The shaken ball answered, "Outlook good."

He asked the ball, "Should I buy you?"

The ball answered, "Without a doubt."

"Okay, then, You're the boss." He rolled the ball in his hand and found no price sticker on it, "No price. Well, based on the rest of this stuff, you should be pretty reasonable. Will I get a good deal?" and he shook the ball.

The ball answered, "Better not tell you now."

No one would have considered there were two more people in the thrift shop, there had been no electric bing-bong. Observing Edward, they were standing at the end of the aisle towards the rear of the shop. Thick broken spectacles were on the face of an elderly, short man, who smiled slightly towards his comrade, who was dressed in a business suit, neatly with a tie. A look of doubt was on the face of the second man, and he gave only a shrug in return to the spectacled man.

The older mustached man said, "It's happening. After all of these years it is happening again. He's the one."

The suited man said, "He's so young. Hard to fathom it would be someone so young."

The two approached Edward, standing behind him, and the words they spoke were unheard to Edward. "Nice looking young man," said the fellow in the thick broken glasses.

The other man answered, "Henry, I have always wondered how you see anything with those glasses."

Henry smiled, "Your eyes get adjusted, given enough time."

"So, you really think he is the one? You really think it's all happening again?"

Henry embraced the other character's upper arms and said, "We're here, aren't we McNulty? What more proof do you need?"

McNulty said, "If you're right, then the world has certainly gotten itself into a pickle. Now you think about that."

Wafting about in noiseless narrative above Edward and the two unseen men spoke the words of Rod Serling, "A special interest in an insignificant location for a somewhat modest man has taken place: one Edward Mitton. He holds a toy from his youth, a reminder of simpler time, when things weren't so complex and anything seemed possible. Perhaps the charm of the toy is the feelings of lost youth, rekindled for one satisfying moment, or maybe a reminder of a forgotten ideology inside his heart. Either way, Edward is about to shake things up in a more profound sense as he travels on a path of self discovery, a path laid out before him, courtesy of the Twilight Zone."