The shop that ..... sold stories

It’s not an original tale but today l visited the shop that sold stories.

Ah my young friend you will instantly tell me l am referring to a book shop that purveyor of the imaginations of novelists, poets and scholars with countless volumes offering a window on the world.

But not so because here in a ramshackle property down an uninviting alley purpoting to be a newsagents was indeed the shop which sold stories. 

Stories to fit the demands of any customer provided by the owner who was the custodian of a thousand and one fantasies.

For a small down payment and a sinister promise our visitors could order a story of romance, light entertainment or dark horror just by supplying a title. 

And then for an hour and more as day slid into dusk the shop keeper would weave an entrancing voyage of love, laughter or unnerving terror. 

And at the end my young friend our customer would fulfil their sinister promise and depart into the night.

And the promise you ask? That is only vouched safe by the owner of the shop that sold stories.

Picture; the shop, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson