The Empty Shop
The Empty Shop
Two white curtains had been put up in the front window of number 2 Weapon Street and two curtains along the side windows along Manheim’s Street. A single wooden chair stood up to the wall. The walls were covered in white glazed tile cut in smallish squares (10cm x 10cm), the floor was made from a gray stone, also cut into square tiles, only slightly larger than the ones on the wall, they all fitted perfectly into their square patterns. This new setting gave a rather different impression than the one yesterday. The three balloons, left in the front window, from what looked liked it had been a kid’s party. Now this empty wooden chair stood up against the back wall.
It just so happened that they had taken Weapon Street, round the back of the high street twice in a row, while on their daily walk, and noticed the difference. There was always a sense of optimism when shops are empty round here, one can never help the feeling that someone might actually have a good idea and start a shop with things in it that you would want to buy. But this was seldom the case in these parts of “closer to town” than suburbia.
We actually have a hair styllist that specializes in African Afro hair, with a “special offer” for kinked hair braids for Afro hair. Which is all well and good, apart form the fact that almost no Africans, North or South Afro-American, West Indian or any other people that have the slightest of Afro like hair live here. If I were to say at maximum 20 to 30 people with something that might be considered Afro hair, in a large surrounding area I think I would be exaggerating. But there is a shop for them here.
We even have a tailor made kitchen shop. They tailor make a kitchen for you, from the finest and most boring looking pieces of kitchen furniture and cupboards known to man. They have generally anything you would ever want in a kitchen. We have a shop for those people who would like to spend a lot of money on a nasty kitchen. We have a shop specialized in special video equipment, a very strange dusty opticians, a coffee and teashop with a small selection, two famous tattoo artists and a foam plastic shop that makes seats and all sorts of other useful things in foam plastic.
So empty shops are always the cause of much amusement as to what foolishness can next come to “closer to town” than the suburbs. What foolishness in deed was in store for the good people of our nearer to town than “suburbers”, the foolishness in the originally twisted mind of Dr Finklestein could not have been reckoned on.
But then again there were a lot of things that you couldn’t count on. You can’t count on water; you can count on it falling but you can’t count on it ending up down the hole along the center back wall of the shop, the empty shop. I suppose you can always count on one victim, there are normally more, well they seem to be more of them. But one is the normal rate, one at a time.
Dr. Finklestein did voodoo. This was his thing. It freaked a lot of people out, it worried communities of the faithful but that didn’t change the simple fact that the Doc, as his clients called him, knew him to be the supplier of Voodoo services and rites according to the ancient Fon traditions. I know it creeps people out to think that the Doc does his thing right here in our little sleepy “nearer to town that suburbia” but this is where people bother you the least in shops. People do not go into shops here unless it happens to be ICA (or now Willy’s), or the video tobacco sweet store. So the Doc can happily have his empty little shop in peace. No worries from all those young budding business people on the look out for a prime piece of commercial real estate to start a new million-bucks a day idea. Even Sally and Igor were more or less invisible as they strolled through the empty daytime streets; everyone who lives here works in town. So the Doc could perform all his creations, his experiments and develop his very special talent into the “Art form” he always knew possible.
The all-new mothers “brigade” with their expensive prams and newly hatched eggs walked in disciplined rows to and from the children’s park, where they have fresh live rabbits, goats and sheep. Or they march of to a have a coffee together at one of the three “newish” coffee places that have opened up around here; the flower shop one, the music one down the road, and the new one, next to the empty foot care place. So all activity is on the low burner during the day. A few speedo pensioners out for a quick dash with their walking stick or on their wheeled walkers. Postmen on bikes do get spotted round midday. But Sally and Igor slip silently through the streets right up to number 2 Weapon Street, and into the shop without causing even the leaves to stir.
“Are you to leave me like this Sally”?
Invisible force or Spirit, that’s what “vodun”, the root of the word voodoo means in the Fon language. Out of mother Africa came thousands of people, many from the Gulf of Benin region, with their ancestral tradition ripped from their bosom. The Mothers and Fathers of the people became just broken terracotta jars. These people were thrown into the dungeons at Whydah (known as Juda in travel text of the time, 1727) by the Dahomey. The Dahomey, the local African gangster kingdom had smashed and turned the kingdom Whydah into a huge slave emporium, they sold 10,000 slaves a year from there. From Whydah harbor ships sailed across the Atlantic and after what must have been a living nightmare (four to six weeks on the Ocean for the first time in a dungeon ship). If they lived, they were then sold as slaves to white people to work for them and obey them. If they didn’t obey them they were punished with unbelievable cruelty and more than likely publicly tortured and killed to help set better examples. From this Fon language and culture base came a word and practice of rituals that sends shivers down the spine of most hardened of the faithful, Voodoo. There is always one Victim involved.
“You need to decide whom you wish to punish. One question remains in my head Sally: to what degree should one punish this person who is decidedly deserving of punishment? Do you here me Sally, do you hear me thinking these thoughts aloud, for you Sally, thinking aloud Sally. Aloud”. Sally looked at Igor with that “I’m tired and sick of this look” and then gave him a brave little smile, he smiled back with his wide fat cheeks, he truly loved Sally.
“Voodoo charms work best when your doll is directly connected to an organic part of your intended victim. The fresher the goods, the stronger the spell. Your method of attachment is terribly important, make sure that the object is securely fastened to your doll. Securely fastened Sally!”
There is always one victim to be accounted for when it comes to incurable cancer. You happen to have this particular version; it is by its nature an aggressive and fast growing tumor. It cannot be cured, maybe poisoned to such a degree that it slows down, but we wouldn’t know that before three months of treatment. The first new scan is done after three months. The outcome of any treatment is hard to predict, in your case, it can only be a question of time, as there is no cure. But then again time maybe something you feel is important to lengthen if at all possible.
The reaction to the treatment is so different from patient to patient so we have no way of saying what might happen. Some react more than others, but there are good and affective medications on the market that seriously help reduce the symptoms of the poisoning. As a victim of Cancer you will find yourself subject to the conditions of the unknown and the unknowable. It is your DNA that is mutating not ours. We have seen this before but each victim is new in their own way. Without medication the tumor will grow at it’s own rate giving us no possibility to comment on a timeframe. Your medical care unit are experts in this field and they will be able to help give you information along the way. You will of course be made physical aware of the changes that occur in your body as the Cancer develops.
“Conaissance my dear Hunsis, that is what you lack, how shall you be a good spouse to the Hu if you have no knowledge. And you my Hungenikon, my sweet reine-chanterelle, how can you leave me here alone when there is work to be done in the Humfo? We have company tonight, are all things prepared? Are the Hunto drums blessed and sacrificed to? I don’t ask much from you. I merely ask a little consideration that I am less than able to perform all theses tasks myself from my wheelchair. Come Igor show me what thing you found in the park today for the Loa”.
The street outside was still covered with the yellow, red, brown, orange leaves from the maple tress. They blew around and piled up by the road side making the road look like it was the yellow-bricked road and the wizard was at the other end of it, in number 2 Weapon Street. Just across the road there was a tiny little park with a statue of a naked young boy sliding off a smooth rock into the fountain. The scene was not powerful or even highly emotive, but endless and serene in its simplicity. The naked boy, with quite unclearly cut features and a chipped nose, had managed to get himself to the point where he was just about to slip down into the cooler fountain waters. The stone the boy was sitting and hugging onto was a reddish brown stone; the boy himself gave the impression of being a lighter gray color. The fountain was made in redder stone, squarish, with cut corners at the top. The outer wall of the fountain was gray granite, which is filled with water during the summer months. Gravel surrounded the fountain and then a rectangular area of grass with a few smaller trees around the “ tiny park” was used to park their cars around by the locals.
“Is the chair in place?”
“The victim Doctor Dearest, oh master Hungon dear, where is the victim?” She smiled as she lent slightly forward to peer into the dark glassed eyes of the Dr Finklestein. “Where do we have our victim?” She stood up and walked to Igor, softly touching his jacket lapels to make them straight, and brushing the small white flecks that ran down off his scalp onto his shoulders. “Do you have our victim Igor, tucked away in your big old belly?” she playfully wobbled his large protruding stomach. He looked down at the floor with even a larger grin on his round face, he truly loved Sally.
“Don’t play her games Igor, you know what happens when you play Sally’s games”, the grin left Igor’s face instantly. “Now as you were so rightly saying sweet Sally, our victim has not turned up, as of yet, to our appointment, but that is not to say that they won’t turn up, does it my dear. It is an indication they have not seen the inevitability of our meeting, but Sally darling you know what wonders a little pressure can do here and there? Don’t you? Just like our darling little Igor knows what the pins can do, don’t we Igor”, Igor stood with his head hanging down enough to show there would be no more fun and games.
“I have a little something for you Sally something special, a present, I have been saving it for the right occasion, come wheel me into the backroom. Igor you stay and keep an eye on the street for the Victim”. Sally smiled at Igor but he kept his eyes counting squares on the floor. “Sally”. She took the back of the wheelchair and turned it toward the back room. The old metal wheels of the wheelchair resounded on the stone floor, causing an unpleasantly loud noise to fill the entire shop as they moved into the back of the shop. From the window on Manheim’s Street you could see the long industrial type sink that ran all the way across the back wall. It was very dark in the backroom so the only detail to be seen from the window was the long stainless steel sink with a red plastic bucket under the sink, or part of the sinks construction.
Igor stood now leaning against the sidewall just by the door. He had a good view out from both of the large windows. He could see down the all the streets and had a good clear view of the back of the fountain and the boy sliding into the fountain. There went that many cars parked around during the day.
Igor stood and wondered if the victim would show up today. It was seldom the case that they didn’t show up at all. Sometimes Victims waited until they could hardly move, and then it was much more difficult for them to sit on the chair. It was when they were sitting in the chair that Dr. Finklestein had his treatments. He performed his specialty, his Art as he called it. Bringing dead things back to life. The Victim always wanted a last shot, a final hope and the good Doctor was the last shot you got, unless that is, you didn’t want to be a Victim. Well that didn’t happen so often, they almost always came crawling to the chair in the end or quite near the end. For a brief moment it seemed to Igor that the boy statue had slipped away into his fountain. Igor stared at the empty streets of nearer to town than the suburbs and waited for the victim to show up.
The End
Two white curtains had been put up in the front window of number 2 Weapon Street and two curtains along the side windows along Manheim’s Street. A single wooden chair stood up to the wall. The walls were covered in white glazed tile cut in smallish squares (10cm x 10cm), the floor was made from a gray stone, also cut into square tiles, only slightly larger than the ones on the wall, they all fitted perfectly into their square patterns. This new setting gave a rather different impression than the one yesterday. The three balloons, left in the front window, from what looked liked it had been a kid’s party. Now this empty wooden chair stood up against the back wall.
It just so happened that they had taken Weapon Street, round the back of the high street twice in a row, while on their daily walk, and noticed the difference. There was always a sense of optimism when shops are empty round here, one can never help the feeling that someone might actually have a good idea and start a shop with things in it that you would want to buy. But this was seldom the case in these parts of “closer to town” than suburbia.
We actually have a hair styllist that specializes in African Afro hair, with a “special offer” for kinked hair braids for Afro hair. Which is all well and good, apart form the fact that almost no Africans, North or South Afro-American, West Indian or any other people that have the slightest of Afro like hair live here. If I were to say at maximum 20 to 30 people with something that might be considered Afro hair, in a large surrounding area I think I would be exaggerating. But there is a shop for them here.
We even have a tailor made kitchen shop. They tailor make a kitchen for you, from the finest and most boring looking pieces of kitchen furniture and cupboards known to man. They have generally anything you would ever want in a kitchen. We have a shop for those people who would like to spend a lot of money on a nasty kitchen. We have a shop specialized in special video equipment, a very strange dusty opticians, a coffee and teashop with a small selection, two famous tattoo artists and a foam plastic shop that makes seats and all sorts of other useful things in foam plastic.
So empty shops are always the cause of much amusement as to what foolishness can next come to “closer to town” than the suburbs. What foolishness in deed was in store for the good people of our nearer to town than “suburbers”, the foolishness in the originally twisted mind of Dr Finklestein could not have been reckoned on.
But then again there were a lot of things that you couldn’t count on. You can’t count on water; you can count on it falling but you can’t count on it ending up down the hole along the center back wall of the shop, the empty shop. I suppose you can always count on one victim, there are normally more, well they seem to be more of them. But one is the normal rate, one at a time.
Dr. Finklestein did voodoo. This was his thing. It freaked a lot of people out, it worried communities of the faithful but that didn’t change the simple fact that the Doc, as his clients called him, knew him to be the supplier of Voodoo services and rites according to the ancient Fon traditions. I know it creeps people out to think that the Doc does his thing right here in our little sleepy “nearer to town that suburbia” but this is where people bother you the least in shops. People do not go into shops here unless it happens to be ICA (or now Willy’s), or the video tobacco sweet store. So the Doc can happily have his empty little shop in peace. No worries from all those young budding business people on the look out for a prime piece of commercial real estate to start a new million-bucks a day idea. Even Sally and Igor were more or less invisible as they strolled through the empty daytime streets; everyone who lives here works in town. So the Doc could perform all his creations, his experiments and develop his very special talent into the “Art form” he always knew possible.
The all-new mothers “brigade” with their expensive prams and newly hatched eggs walked in disciplined rows to and from the children’s park, where they have fresh live rabbits, goats and sheep. Or they march of to a have a coffee together at one of the three “newish” coffee places that have opened up around here; the flower shop one, the music one down the road, and the new one, next to the empty foot care place. So all activity is on the low burner during the day. A few speedo pensioners out for a quick dash with their walking stick or on their wheeled walkers. Postmen on bikes do get spotted round midday. But Sally and Igor slip silently through the streets right up to number 2 Weapon Street, and into the shop without causing even the leaves to stir.
“Are you to leave me like this Sally”?
Invisible force or Spirit, that’s what “vodun”, the root of the word voodoo means in the Fon language. Out of mother Africa came thousands of people, many from the Gulf of Benin region, with their ancestral tradition ripped from their bosom. The Mothers and Fathers of the people became just broken terracotta jars. These people were thrown into the dungeons at Whydah (known as Juda in travel text of the time, 1727) by the Dahomey. The Dahomey, the local African gangster kingdom had smashed and turned the kingdom Whydah into a huge slave emporium, they sold 10,000 slaves a year from there. From Whydah harbor ships sailed across the Atlantic and after what must have been a living nightmare (four to six weeks on the Ocean for the first time in a dungeon ship). If they lived, they were then sold as slaves to white people to work for them and obey them. If they didn’t obey them they were punished with unbelievable cruelty and more than likely publicly tortured and killed to help set better examples. From this Fon language and culture base came a word and practice of rituals that sends shivers down the spine of most hardened of the faithful, Voodoo. There is always one Victim involved.
“You need to decide whom you wish to punish. One question remains in my head Sally: to what degree should one punish this person who is decidedly deserving of punishment? Do you here me Sally, do you hear me thinking these thoughts aloud, for you Sally, thinking aloud Sally. Aloud”. Sally looked at Igor with that “I’m tired and sick of this look” and then gave him a brave little smile, he smiled back with his wide fat cheeks, he truly loved Sally.
“Voodoo charms work best when your doll is directly connected to an organic part of your intended victim. The fresher the goods, the stronger the spell. Your method of attachment is terribly important, make sure that the object is securely fastened to your doll. Securely fastened Sally!”
There is always one victim to be accounted for when it comes to incurable cancer. You happen to have this particular version; it is by its nature an aggressive and fast growing tumor. It cannot be cured, maybe poisoned to such a degree that it slows down, but we wouldn’t know that before three months of treatment. The first new scan is done after three months. The outcome of any treatment is hard to predict, in your case, it can only be a question of time, as there is no cure. But then again time maybe something you feel is important to lengthen if at all possible.
The reaction to the treatment is so different from patient to patient so we have no way of saying what might happen. Some react more than others, but there are good and affective medications on the market that seriously help reduce the symptoms of the poisoning. As a victim of Cancer you will find yourself subject to the conditions of the unknown and the unknowable. It is your DNA that is mutating not ours. We have seen this before but each victim is new in their own way. Without medication the tumor will grow at it’s own rate giving us no possibility to comment on a timeframe. Your medical care unit are experts in this field and they will be able to help give you information along the way. You will of course be made physical aware of the changes that occur in your body as the Cancer develops.
“Conaissance my dear Hunsis, that is what you lack, how shall you be a good spouse to the Hu if you have no knowledge. And you my Hungenikon, my sweet reine-chanterelle, how can you leave me here alone when there is work to be done in the Humfo? We have company tonight, are all things prepared? Are the Hunto drums blessed and sacrificed to? I don’t ask much from you. I merely ask a little consideration that I am less than able to perform all theses tasks myself from my wheelchair. Come Igor show me what thing you found in the park today for the Loa”.
The street outside was still covered with the yellow, red, brown, orange leaves from the maple tress. They blew around and piled up by the road side making the road look like it was the yellow-bricked road and the wizard was at the other end of it, in number 2 Weapon Street. Just across the road there was a tiny little park with a statue of a naked young boy sliding off a smooth rock into the fountain. The scene was not powerful or even highly emotive, but endless and serene in its simplicity. The naked boy, with quite unclearly cut features and a chipped nose, had managed to get himself to the point where he was just about to slip down into the cooler fountain waters. The stone the boy was sitting and hugging onto was a reddish brown stone; the boy himself gave the impression of being a lighter gray color. The fountain was made in redder stone, squarish, with cut corners at the top. The outer wall of the fountain was gray granite, which is filled with water during the summer months. Gravel surrounded the fountain and then a rectangular area of grass with a few smaller trees around the “ tiny park” was used to park their cars around by the locals.
“Is the chair in place?”
“The victim Doctor Dearest, oh master Hungon dear, where is the victim?” She smiled as she lent slightly forward to peer into the dark glassed eyes of the Dr Finklestein. “Where do we have our victim?” She stood up and walked to Igor, softly touching his jacket lapels to make them straight, and brushing the small white flecks that ran down off his scalp onto his shoulders. “Do you have our victim Igor, tucked away in your big old belly?” she playfully wobbled his large protruding stomach. He looked down at the floor with even a larger grin on his round face, he truly loved Sally.
“Don’t play her games Igor, you know what happens when you play Sally’s games”, the grin left Igor’s face instantly. “Now as you were so rightly saying sweet Sally, our victim has not turned up, as of yet, to our appointment, but that is not to say that they won’t turn up, does it my dear. It is an indication they have not seen the inevitability of our meeting, but Sally darling you know what wonders a little pressure can do here and there? Don’t you? Just like our darling little Igor knows what the pins can do, don’t we Igor”, Igor stood with his head hanging down enough to show there would be no more fun and games.
“I have a little something for you Sally something special, a present, I have been saving it for the right occasion, come wheel me into the backroom. Igor you stay and keep an eye on the street for the Victim”. Sally smiled at Igor but he kept his eyes counting squares on the floor. “Sally”. She took the back of the wheelchair and turned it toward the back room. The old metal wheels of the wheelchair resounded on the stone floor, causing an unpleasantly loud noise to fill the entire shop as they moved into the back of the shop. From the window on Manheim’s Street you could see the long industrial type sink that ran all the way across the back wall. It was very dark in the backroom so the only detail to be seen from the window was the long stainless steel sink with a red plastic bucket under the sink, or part of the sinks construction.
Igor stood now leaning against the sidewall just by the door. He had a good view out from both of the large windows. He could see down the all the streets and had a good clear view of the back of the fountain and the boy sliding into the fountain. There went that many cars parked around during the day.
Igor stood and wondered if the victim would show up today. It was seldom the case that they didn’t show up at all. Sometimes Victims waited until they could hardly move, and then it was much more difficult for them to sit on the chair. It was when they were sitting in the chair that Dr. Finklestein had his treatments. He performed his specialty, his Art as he called it. Bringing dead things back to life. The Victim always wanted a last shot, a final hope and the good Doctor was the last shot you got, unless that is, you didn’t want to be a Victim. Well that didn’t happen so often, they almost always came crawling to the chair in the end or quite near the end. For a brief moment it seemed to Igor that the boy statue had slipped away into his fountain. Igor stared at the empty streets of nearer to town than the suburbs and waited for the victim to show up.
The End
posted by rob at 7:35 AM
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