Miracles for sale, cheap
It is in an area of town that most avoid, a tattered store with a water-stained sign, never repainted, and a brass bell more brown than bright that clangs dully when a customer walks in. The shelves stock only one product in myriad tiny variations, stacked on shelves from floor to ceiling.
It isn’t the people who need to be here who buy more than one. They know what they need, push the door open with trembling hands, search the shelves desperate and disbelieving, reach to the back of a rack beyond their means to find the yellow-stickered box near date or damaged packaging, that matches the few coins in their pocket or the scant funds they can spare.
They go to the dingy counter at the back, face the glowering old man or the disinterested Saturday girl with her magazines and bubblegum. Some stop here, others ask the question, always a variation of ‘Will this work?’ and always get the same curt answer ‘You buying or not?’ Some buy.
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The wealthy who buy seeking money only waste theirs, for a rich man to make more is no unusual thing, but the impoverished may make rent they thought they couldn’t, find a job they thought they’d never have. The slightly sad buying here get a slight pick-me-up, but for the depressed the same thing can save a life. In this dank and ruined store, behind the paint-peeling frontage and crusted glass, they only sell one product: miracles.
Browse the shelves and if you find your miracle you can buy it. If it is the miracle you need the price will never be beyond your means, but if it is the one you merely want - well, greed has a higher price. Here are Cures for Cancer, on the shelf in the corner Debts and Favours Repaid. Cheap and so rarely bought are the dusty stack of Amends and Forgiveness, despite the Buy One Get One Free offer that has been going on forever.
It is a shop where customers might not get what they want, but they can always get what they need.