A corner shop of a once bustling town now sits dusty and deserted with only its owner for company. Maybe the occasional old townie will stop by for some nails when the mall is closed on Sundays, but that is all the visitors the shop gets anymore.
The owner of this shop has been here for many years. Forty-two years to be exact. He took over the shop at the young age of twenty-three when he was bright-eyed and full of hope. He used to be the prettiest picture of faith and love. Big green-grey eyes, and the army-cut, light brown hair that stuck up on all ends no matter how short or gelled. With a jaw as sharp as the saw and shoulders as broad at the wood, he would attract many of the ladies in town. His polite manner back then has comforted every person he greeted whether it be on the street, or in the shop, he seemed safe to all. Something good. Something that has long faded.
Everything about hope and faith has now gone. These forty-two years have not been kind. He wore a hat all day, that's why he went bald, is what everyone said. Only he knew the truth about his illness. His eyes sank into his skull, deep into sadness and despair, losing the soft touch that made everyone feel at home. He was cursed, the green fading leaving only the dullest grey that brings no rain, just darkness. He tried to keep up his polite mannerisms, saying hello, waving, smiling, ordinary things. He gave up soon enough. Everyone started to stop greeting him back on the street one day, it was subtle but felt sudden enough to bring the shop's owner down a dark hole that nobody could pull him out of.
Now a lonely man, that guarded the corner shop like a bank vault. He scared people away from him with the cursed look and the gruff, doomed voice. His shoulders are never unhunched, and his jaw is as lumpy as the couch in the back of the shop where he slept most nights. The wrinkles under his eyes and around his mouth turned his face into a permanent frown. Time had been worse on his hands. When he started the shop, they were soft and supple from tender care. So much time bent over wood and saws and hammers and screwdrivers, trying to distract himself by fixing and mending his problems out of his mind. They cracked around the palms, peeling around his fingernails and his knuckles were heavily calloused. Rust and sawdust have permanently resided under his fingernails, giving the impression of blood. The man who owned the corner shop seemed to have given up on himself entirely, letting the flakes of his hands fall off as he worked, falling off and never growing back.
He may not look the part, but he would never give up on his little corner shop. When he first moved in and bought the place, he got up early every morning at the crack of dawn to clean his tools, sweep the sawdust up of the floor, and make sure everything was perfect for the customers. The tools were perfectly aligned every day, never crooked, and always polished to perfection. Every tool on the back wall was like a work of art to him. He would sit and stare at them for hours on end. They were the few things that reminded him of his old joy.
After the owner of the little corner shop shut out society, he would spend hours taking care of his possessions as if they were his friends. He would go mad if he saw even one of them had a scuff. Every single tool on the wall had a story. One wrench gave him merry memories of tinkering on his first car with his father. The metal hammer with the red rubber handle reminded him of the first nail he ever struck. The old, yellow screwdriver gave him heart wrenching memories of being twisted around in high school for not being smart enough. The wood shop teacher had given him this yellow screwdriver right before he passed away in the last year of high school the corner shop's owner would attend. Every tool had a story, so did the tables and chairs and shelves around the shop. The table the old corner shop owner eats breakfast every morning looks not a day old. This table was built by his father and him in his father's own workshop right before the death of his mother, the year he moved to this town. The chairs wobbled from decades of wear, with faded yellow and red paint patches left on the wooden seats. They were littered with splinters, pointing out at all ends. The owner of this little corner shop never bothered to sand them anymore. Nobody sat on them, so what was the point. The chairs were a constant reminder of how time had not favored him, just like the wood of the chairs. The metal shelves that sat around the shops, with immense amounts of unsold product on them, were bought from a church. The bottoms were rusting, spotted green and red. The owner of this little corner shop tried his best to get the metal shelves to stop rusting, but with no victory. The rust was now a constant reminder of how far the shop had come in the direction of despair.
A hopeful young man, with promising skill and talent with woodworks, and a cheerful demeanor. He took in his new community at twenty-three and shared his expertise to the best of his abilities. He gave hope to every person that touched his life, only to be defeated by time.
