The Truth Shop

A new shop had scrunched itself between two huge departmental stores in the shopping precinct, its walls breathing in, the space was so tight. It wasn’t there the last time I shopped, just a week ago and I felt intrigued, particularly by its name: ‘The Truth Shop.’
    No doubt it would be full of candles, crystals, homemade placards from recycled toilet paper proclaiming ‘Do not waste the world’s resources,’ and various motley relics resurrected from the Hippy Era of the 60's and 70's.
    I took a closer look in the window and saw a small man sitting in the window staring back at me. Was he for sale? Who would buy him and what would they buy him for? My brain ran riot, perhaps he was a guru of some sort, a hypnotist, a candle maker or some sort of gnome that could commune with nature. I thought of my poorly apple tree in the back garden, it badly needed some sort of life force, in order to bear fruit in the summer. The yield in the summer had been all of two apples, which it thrown down upon my head. I saw it as a cry for help, the apples were withered, almost dehydrated.
    I went inside, it was dark and musky, the walls were lined with old books and weird trinkets sat on dusty shelves. On the floor cockroaches ran riot. Boldly I marched, where no doubt, no sane person had gone before, straight up to the counter at the back of the shop. Instantly the gnome disappeared from the window and presented himself behind the counter.
    I blinked. “Are you for sale?”
    He laughed. Not very pleasantly I might add. Then he looked me over, with some distaste. “You fancy your luck don’t you?”
    “I thought you might be some sort of nature worker.”
    “Nature worker? That’s a bit vague. Look lady there are lots of items for sale in this shop but I’m not one of them. However, I do believe I have something under the counter that might be of interest to you.”
    I held my breath, not knowing what to expect and watched as he withdrew a large brass candlestick. He placed it squarely in the middle of the counter with some aplomb, as if he had just put the Crown jewels there, or the Koh-i-Noor diamond - or something else so rare and exquisite, that it needed multiple flourishes of his hands around it, reminiscent of a magician performing his best trick. He said nothing but I could read his little wizened face. He was waiting for me to utter some wild exclamation or faint with delight and when I did neither he finally spoke.
    “It is a restoration candlestick. It can restore something you have lost.”
    I raised my eyebrows. I though it might be prudent to humour him. “How?”
    “You put it in the oven with some potatoes, baste with goose fat and cook for at least an hour. You then remove it from the oven and eat it. Your innermost desires will then manifest that which you have lost.”
    He was jesting surely. “Would it go well with pork?”
    His face screwed into a hideous scowl. “Of course not. Have you never heard of a restoration candlestick? You have to stick a candle in it, light it, and then wish for something you have lost. You can make all kinds of stipulations around that wish but only related to the object, situation or person that you are wishing for.”
    “There’s nothing I have lost that I would wish for,” I asserted. Who was I kidding?
    “You lost your lover to another woman. He said he had fallen out of love with you.”
    “You know about James?”
    “Of course. This is a Truth Shop. When you denied not wanting to wish for anything, the truth then appeared in a bubble above your head. You get one wish. A wish is granted to each owner. I have had mine, so it is time to part with it.”
    “A bit like those bubbles that characters in comics have?”
    The man was beginning to look impatient. He said, “Do you want the candlestick. If you do, it will cost you £50.”
    I could not resist asking. “What did you wish for?”
    “Hair,” he said. “I lost mine twenty years ago.”
    He was as bald as a billiard ball. “You didn’t get that wish though did you?”
    He raised his shirt sleeve and revealed a luxuriant growth of blonde hair, that ran the length of his arm. “I got it back, but not on my head. I should have been more careful. With this candlestick you have to be explicit. This hairy arm is mine for life now and I am unable to cut it or shave it off.”
    "Why didn’t you wish to be good looking? Surely when you were younger...” I trailed off. Did I really say that. I meant to say something quite different. The essence of the Truth Shop must have been getting to me.
   “I am good looking,” he said. “How could the candlestick have improved on perfection?”
   A hairy wizened gnome of a man, large ears, huge nose and small bandy legs. He thought he was perfection? Well, they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
    “Why didn’t you wish to be rich?” I said, forgetting it could only restore something, not gain. Beauty and money seemed to be in the forefront in my mind.
    “I am rich. I have a chain of Truth Shops all over the world. I like to serve in the shop for fun. You can meet some interesting people, though I’m afraid you are not one of them. Besides, for some reason, the candlestick does not work to regain money.”
    I didn’t bother to question him further. I thought of James and how much I loved him still. I thought of Jenna, that thieving bitch, who now had him. I would wish for James to return to me, and stipulate that he would fall out of love with Jenna and back in love with me.  
    I delved into my handbag for my credit card. Fifty pounds you say?
    “It is five thousand pounds now. You dithered somewhat and dithering adds to the cost.”
    It was pointless arguing.
     
I spent all night making a list of things I would stipulate around my wish. I was meticulous. I did not intend to wish for James returning with oodles of love for me and then get killed in a car crash the next day or for him to return with a fatal illness. I also had to make sure that Jenna would not be able to lure him back. The list ended up on ten pages of A4.
    At midday the next day I lit a candle and read through the list. Amazingly just two hours after that James knocked on the front door.
    He looked as handsome as ever and swept me up in his arms proclaiming he realised that he should never have left me. “Jenna is quite mad anyway. I actually think she fell out of love with me, long before I fell out of love with her.”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “I followed her a week ago, she was helping her uncle to set up his new shop. Strange little guy. I watched them through the shop window and I’m sure they were up to something. I had the strangest feeling they wanted rid of me, not that it was necessary, I told Jenna I was leaving today anyway!”
    At those words, something swept over me. It was as though the essence of the Truth Shop had stayed with me, even though I realised by now that it was not quite as magical as I had thought. The gnome was Jenna’s uncle and the whole charade was a plot. She had told him about James and how they did not love each other any more. She and her uncle knew I could not resist the lure of a new shop and decided to take me for as much money as possible.
    James and I returned to the shop that afternoon, or where the shop had been.  We looked at the  space where ‘Truth’ had been and I thought the name quite ironic, considering the lies it had appropriated. Still all had ended well. I had bought a rubbish candlestick that had probably done absolutely nothing. James would have come back to me anyway.

I have been wondering though, was it really a rubbish candlestick? Since the wish I had asked for would have come true anyway, it begs the question: Was there a wish still left in it?