21/06/2025
THE SHOP OF DREAMS
Along a back street, behind the market square, pigeons roost high in the greenery of the plane trees that cast a dappled shade upon the traders and shoppers who never notice them for their earnest bartering. They plummet and swoop amongst the gathered people for crumbs and seeds that fall to the dusty ground.
Most never see the alleyway, through which you have to duck under the ancient pink granite entrance arch before scaring Jacobin, the black cat, who guards the alleys entrance.
Ferns grow to droop lazily upon the side garden walls and tumbledown house fronts. In places, you have to duck under the eves that extend over the gravel path.
You can never approach unannounced, for Jacobin meows a welcome and the yellow gravel crunches deep into itself underfoot. Halfway along the alley is a small stream that trickles over emerald, velvety, moss-covered, time-rounded stones.
The moss gives its name to this enchanted place because it is as soft as the downy velvet that covers a yearling deers antlers. A slight diffusing mist rises in the warm air, sheltered between the walled banks of Antler Alley.
Not many venture further along, as there are no shops to entice speculation and investigation. Some see something beyond the mist or follow Jacobin’s meows and for them they approach the alley that has mysteriously become a busy street of some three hundred years earlier. At its end is a hand-carved oak sign that reads, “The Shop of Dreams”.
Most who enter the heavy wooden door that is glazed with thick green speckled glass that obscures a view in from outside, never leave as they entered.
Should you be lucky enough to enter, your mouth will drop in pleasant surprise, then quickly rise in its longest smile, as a purple parrot welcomes you with a nursery rhyme, and elves take your coat and gloves past snails who smooth the sawdust upon wooden floorboards, as single notes rise through the joints with each step that you take.
Tomato plants grow in pots, basking in the light of glow worms that charge their batteries upon honey delivered by a platoon of bees who work with military precision, whilst humming tunes of flight.
Upon the ceiling that is not there, stars glint, supported on the wings of skylarks who hover between moonbeams that spotlight jam jars full of daisies upon the counter shelves. These are kept plucked and perky by ladybirds, all named Ethel, who drink drips of pink gin left in saucers by the shopkeeper who nobody knows.
There are boxes full of toys that cherubs come to play with, and toys for children appear as each child enters the shop door to keep them happy, whilst parents marvel at the array of goods, of which not one is for sale. This is a shop that trades in the currency of fun where the only money is eaten because it is chocolate.
Watched by a family of hedgehogs seated upon mushrooms, pixies play fight upon hobbyhorses, jousting with barley sugar-spikes. Bats fly between the stars, weaving silk from spiders’ webs to make white clouds that store water for quenching the plants.
At the rear of the store, just before the garden door, sits an old fluffy bear with a wooden pipe full of smoking lavender seed and h**p. His glasses are round and perched upon his very long nose that twitches at a passing bee. He has no job except to occasionally ask a shopper to scratch behind his ears.
Upon the floor is a pond full of fairy tears where baby dragons wash their flames so that they can read their schoolbooks without burning the words. How else can a dragon learn to be nice? Their teacher is a dragonfly so buzzing and pretty she cannot sit still, fuelled upon Coca Cola, served in a brewer’s still.
Squirrels scamper their bushy tails, dusting and brushing magic dust, produced by the pollen of a magicians tree. Occasionally, some escapes into the nostrils of a baby child who then floats up with a great big sneeze to be rescued by nurse swallows who fly upon the sneezed breeze.
Passing through in tunnelling boots, dragging picks and shovels, a troop of moles wear helmets and lamps on their way to the garden to harvest potatoes for the late night soup that all shall drink through dancing straws before the shop opens, having never been closed.
Wiggling and waggling, a piglet looks for his toes, having forgotten to put on his clothes. Mother pig explains that he has hooves, but he still wants his toes, so an owl ties five porky sausages with a ribboned bow and, with some magic, makes them into small fat toes. Squealing with delight, he pulls on his pants and runs out of sight.
Snoring can be heard from under the shop counter where old man badger was checking his sleep. He groaned, “Is it nighttime yet, for it is my job to sweep the floors?” He looks at his pocket watch, twitching his nose only to fall back to sleep and dream of earthy holes.
Bottles of cordial made for fun and packets of sweets for red-cheeked boys, lollipops for girls with dolls and a trolley ride ready for everyone.
This is the shop of dreams and, should you want to buy, it will not let you come. So, next time you sleep, ask the fairy at the gate to your dreams for directions to Antler Alley
where there is a shop that I have known because I first came here as a child three hundred years ago.
See you soon.
©️CHSpeare
