Call it what you will, the dollar shop, the thing store, they are inevitably tied to poky little book stores designed by Escher in that they contain far more than they should, and often never store the same thing twice. They are inevitably attractive to maker types as they have things you cannot find elsewhere, or ever again. They also have the phenomenon of wandering in "for a quick look-around," and emerging days later with a full shopping bag, an empty wallet, and the illusion that you were only in there for five minutes. It has been postulated that such emporiums are fae realms in the modern era.
But what if they were...
(from @internutter/challenge-02690-g133-labor-of-love) and an ode to my Bits Shop which I'm pretty sure is a pocket dimension.) -- Anon Guest
[AN: By me. It has been postulated by me. And I might be correct.]
There are places in reality that grow thin. The rubber sheet of space-time is bent, this is true. It is also warped, spindled, and mutilated[1]. In these weak spots, beings from other realms come through. Some visit, some stay, some... fall.
Science periodically comes along to at least patch a hole or two, but for the most part, there are still places where the walls between worlds grow thin. They come, and they learn, and they apply protective camouflage. Forget My mother said I never should... just be very, very careful about where you wander.
You will find them, if you know how to look, in those strange little shops with poky entrances and moebius pathways between the shelves stacked high with the oddest assortment of bits and bobs. Look for the shopkeepers with the slightly bladed smiles, or the eyes that are just a little wrong. Look for the bodily proportions that edge into the wrong side of the Uncanny Valley. The hair that's too neat. The skin that's too perfect. The unsettling almost grasp of common phrases and idioms.
If you find a place like that, never, ever wander too deep. Never go through anything that looks like a door, or an arch, or an entrance. You may never go home again. Sometimes, this is a curse. Sometimes, this is a blessing. The fair folk have always liked the creative sort, and that is also both curse and blessing.
Jane Jameson had never really fit in the world she was born in. Awkward socially and physically, permanently the weirdo, and otherwise standing out in the greater fabric of life like an unfindable burr. She always managed to find the people who thought they could fix her and their solutions inevitably made things worse for Jane.
Just spend your entire day's effort in pretending to be like us, they seemed to say, and everything will be so much better.
For the record, Jane preferred to be weird and enjoy herself. If she made a living out of it, then all the better. Which of course lead to being weird and looking for weird places to get weird stuff. Of course she wasn't looking too hard at the staff, and wasn't paying attention to how odd the things on the shelves were.
The arch was just another decorative arch, and suddenly, there were more shelves of interesting things that were more interesting than normal. Jane could have sworn she was in the back of the shop, but found herself at another counter with another slightly off-putting staff member at the till.
A staff member with a very unnerving smile. "Did you find everything you need?"
"For now, sure," said Jane, putting the things on the counter. "I might be back for some other stuff. Time will tell."
The creature behind the counter accepted the payment Jane had to offer, and she walked out into a completely different world. Tyr Na Nog or something similar, full of people who valued the strange, the bizzare, and the exceptionally creative.
Jane, like so many others who had taken the unusual path, never really wanted to find the way back to her realm of origin.
[1] Note for those unfamiliar with computer history: Data was, once upon a time, kept and transferred on pieces of cardboard with holes punched in it. To make sure the computer could read that data, the cards were stamped with orders not to "bend, warp, spindle[2] or mutilate". This author finds that phrase funny.
[2] Spindle: An antiquated means of keeping pieces of paper in one place. This takes the form of a metal spike on a heavy stand, much resembling the textile spindle of even older days of yore. Proof that we have been verbing nouns for eons and will likely continue to do so.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / PsychoShadow]
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