The Antique Shop - Part 4

Okay, so I don’t hate this city. It’s more of a mild dislike. It’s beautiful, sure, but in my opinion there are too many people walking around wearing scarves and drinking box wine obfuscating (my favourite word) about crappy artists. Everyone here looks like they play in a drug-addled indie band. We can’t all be ordinary I guess.
My flat is a mess. I moved in three weeks ago, and with each day that goes by my “I’m still sorting through my stuff” excuse holds less water. Or it would if anyone ever came to visit. The loneliness of a new city is oppressive, but I can’t really complain about that seeing as I came here to be anonymous. I wonder if I’m that guy – there’s always one – everyone sees and takes a little pity on sitting alone in a coffee shop reading his book, or watching a movie by himself. Solitude, the social sin.
I clear my coffee table of the tottering piles of cds and books for the five stolen pieces and look at them properly for the first time. Piece of Contriband #1 is a photo of an old ship. I flip it over and “Ovington Court, 27 November 1940, 4 died that night, he was one of them” is written in a beautiful flowing hand. A woman’s handwriting I should think. The way the letters loop into each other look like an intricate dance. There’s something very sad about the detachment of what’s written, the selection of facts and the impersonal mention of someone the writer knew. I put the photo put face down on the table.
Contraband #2 is an old art deco clock. It’s small, about the size of both my fists and surprisingly heavy. It’s peach and turquoise, with a stylised swallow painted onto the clockface. There’s a small chip on one of the corners. I notice the mechanism is working. I compare it to the time on my microwave which is plugged in on the floor next to the couch. Surprisingly, it’s correct. Not bad. I put it next to my bed.
Contraband #3 is one of those fancy teaspoons old ladies collect. It has a family crest it with some kind of latin motto. Man, these things are dime-a-dozen at all the antique places I visited today.
Contraband #4 is a locket without a chain. It looks like it’s made of silver and gleams prettily, even in the yellow light of my flat. I try to open it, but the latch is stiff and my bitten nails can’t get a grip on it properly. I’ll come back to it later.
Contraband #5 is dainty little teacup. It doesn’t have a saucer. I turn it over and there’s something written underneath, but it’s pretty faded. I’m feeling a bit too rattled to try decipher it, so I put the teacup down and sink back into the couch.
I don’t know what to do. I was hoping one of these things would have an owner’s name on it, or at least some kind of vague clue as to how I could find them. I feel like such an idiot. I could have offered to buy them from the old lady instead and then just given them back to her in the street or something, and I would have saved myself a whole lot of trouble and a whole lot of elaborate fantasies of birdshot turning my chest into a pulpy sieve.
I close my eyes and realise how tired I am. I think I’ll just have a quick snooze---
---a scratching at the door wakes me. My stomach sinks into the springs of the couch. So my number’s up is it? I can’t imagine how the police have found me. Surely stealing a handful of antiques isn’t that big a deal that they’d send out a squad to hunt for me in the midle of the night? I adjust my weight and the couch groans loudly. The scratching stops and I hear footsteps hurry away. I hold my breath and strain to hear if there’s any more movement. I get up slowly and in my stealth manage to kick the table and then a stained coffee mug, which rattles over the parquet floor. I walk slowly to the door and can’t help but have visions of Anton Chigurh waiting there with his cattlegun and looking at me in his bored but somehow fascinated way before asking me to hold still… I shiver. I put my ear to the door but can’t hear anything. I unlock it painfully slowly and then turn the latch. I inch the door open and stare into a sliver of the passage but can’t see anything. I take a deep breath, open the door completely and step outside.
Of course, there’s no one there. No Anton Chigurh, nobody. I decide to try bluff anyone who might be hiding there.
– I can see you you idiot. Come out.
The plan is to make my voice deep and intimidating, but I balldrag on idiot and just sound stupid. The only way anyone who might be hiding would give themselves away now is through laughter.
I feel like a dweeb. I obviously watch too many movies. I go inside, turn off the lights and flop into my unmade bed. The art deco clock says it’s 2am. Crap, I have to be up in four hours. I know this is going to be a bad day already. I can feel it.

© William Edgcumbe