Young Writers Society

Around 5 o'clock every evening or so, an old man quietly flips the sign on the shop door to “Closed.” He gently takes our deck off the shelf and spreads us out on the mahogany counter. The Elder plays solitaire as though it were an Olympic sport, his fingers flying swiftly across our backs and his brain working like gears, turning and turning. I love the feel of his warm, callused hands moving smoothly, and hearing him sing softly to himself as he plays.

If you have stumbled upon this story, I applaud you. It is a simple story, with an old man, some playing cards, an a small antique shop. But it is not worthless, for I do not tell stories that mean nothing.

Allow me to introduce myself. Sort of.

I do not have a name, strangely enough, though I do have a house. Clubs. Three of clubs, to be precise. I suppose you could say that is my name. Is this beginning to sound like a riddle? Good.

My memory begins in a box. Flimsy, that box was, though it stood tall and strong with all of us cards packed inside it. It was small, and it was snug, but it was home.

Perhaps I had been some other place before that box, but before the box, everything is foggy.

I know I was in a store, and I know it was small. The old man owned it. He was old and rough around the edges. His forehead was creased in constant puzzlement, and he had deep laugh lines rimming his ice blue eyes. When the other cards spoke of the man, they referred to him as simply The Elder. The name fit him, I thought.

The Elder was a pleasant old man. Aside from the rare occasion of a bad day here and there, he was generally, well, happy. His jolly laugh shook our deck as it bounced off the shelves of his shop, and his smile was like the sun, radiating out so vibrantly you could nearly feel it. In the end, The Elder's heart was large and full like the moon, and I loved him very, very much.

Back many years ago, he had met and fallen madly in love with a beautiful waitress with shiny brown curls who worked at Ricky's Diner downtown. The Elder called her Betty Blue Eyes, because that was what her name tag read. He said looking into her eyes was like throwing your head back on a crisp fall day, gazing up at the cloudless sky without a care in the world. When he looked at Betty, he felt forever free and full of life.

The Elder and Betty were married for more than fifty years, years of challenging, happy, memorable moments that both would cherish always. Each morning, rain or shine, Betty came and dusted every shelf of the story, dusty or not. She handled our deck with great love and care, and I grew to enjoy seeing her as the sun rose in the sky each morning. The Elder loved Betty more than his own life, and when she experienced the first of her seizures, The Elder was beside her before she knew it.

After a long, hard road of sickness, Betty passed away peacefully while sleeping. The Elder was never, ever the same.

His eyes dulled grayer than his hair, and his lips remained fixed in a tight line. The laugh lines upon his face grew sunken, defeated. His body sagged. Even his voice became scratchy, and he snapped at himself and the customers often. This was not The Elder I knew and loved.

But, every Sunday morning, The Elder would come to the shop, and he would talk.

To whom, I am not sure exactly. But I have a secret, for even playing cards have secrets: whether he was or not, I liked to believe that The Elder was speaking to me.

The Elder told me about his life, his memories, Betty illuminating nearly every one. I think he missed talking to her, and this was his way of consoling himself.

I loved hearing his stories. He told me about his childhood and about the pale green house he grew up in with the picket fence and crab apple trees. He told about the time he and his brothers had a crab apple war, when one flew and slapped his eye so hard he nearly cried. "But I did not cry," he said, "for I was a tough boy.”

I loved hearing him speak. His raspy, thick voice echoed in the empty little store.

One autumn morning, though, he spoke not of his memories, but of the future. He spoke of what was to come. He spoke of something that gave me that sinking feeling, where you feel like you are being dropped a thousand feet with no warning.

The Elder was closing his shop.

Closing the shop.

Closing.

Leaving.

Gone.

I tasted copper. I heard ringing. It was not the jovial sound of church bells on Christmas Eve, but an unbearable piercing noise. The cardboard walls of the box were suddenly speeding towards me. They closed in, fast, and squeezed me so hard I could no longer breathe.

Why ever was he doing this? Was he too unhappy to go on with the shop? His shop? Were the tears he struggled to hide finally pouring down his cheeks, revealing him? Did his heart feel lost, as though Betty had taken half away with her when she passed?

Did he not care about us, about his possessions, his store? That is how I felt, at least. While the other cards muttered emotionless remarks about how he was just a stupid old man gone mad, I felt as though I had just been shot through my center.

I realized The Elder continued to speak. Had he been speaking the entire time I was absorbing the news?

I then listened and learned why he was closing.

"This shop is nothing but pain. All that pain after her death, it's all here. All of it. There is no way I can escape it – it never leaves me. Why? Why doesn't the pain leave?”

I felt as though all the wind had been knocked clear out of me.

“Because I refuse to leave it, that's why. I've refused for so long, held on to it too tightly. No, not any longer. Done. Everything is done now. I'm leaving you, pain. Goodbye.”

And with that, he blew out the candle on the counter top and slammed the shop door behind him.

* * * * *

In the following weeks, the little shop was a front page article in the local paper, and customers flooded in for a final visit. The Elder just fumbled with his glasses and spat out prices when ringing up purchases at the counter.

And in the following weeks, The Elder no longer played with us. Our deck gathered bits of dust on the shelf, and new decks were placed in front of us. Had The Elder truly forgotten us? Forgotten me?

I felt sickened, abandoned. This had been my home, after all. Ever since I could remember. All my memory, all my being, all the cards and people and voices and smells and sounds, they would vanish.

For the first time in my life, I felt as though I would cry. A playing card cannot cry, of course, but I felt a large lump within me, a stinging sensation. I could not speak. I heard nothing but that continuous ringing. I did not cry tears physically, but inside, I was sobbing.

Finally, the day came. It was a Sunday so, as always, The Elder entered the shop and spoke to me.

"Any last words, pain? For this is it. I am leaving you now, leaving for good. I am sad no longer. My anger is gone. And soon enough, you too, pain, will disappear. What a good day this is!”

The Elder paused, as though suddenly unsure of what he had just said. Was it really a good day? What he said next shocked me.

“ Oh Betty, who am I kidding? This day is not good, not good at all. Why aren't you here to help me? There is no one here, no one. I am all alone with my pain. That is why I must go, so I can leave the pain here. I must, I just--”

A loud, annoying pound on the door interrupted The Elder. This angered me.

Two burly men, by the sounds of it. I could tell by the thud of their clunky boots and the scratchy deepness of their voices. They spoke to The Elder in a Southern drawl, an accent I once found to be cheery and pleasant to listen to. Today, I could hardly bear it.

"All of it, sir?" questioned one of them. I knew he was referring to the scattered boxes around the shop. The shelves were empty now, and our deck was at the brim of a large, cardboard box that was once used for canned tomatoes. I felt unimportant, just another card in the deck, another deck in the box, another box being loaded onto a truck. The Elder had decided to not even keep the belongings of his store. He was having them shipped to a far off cousin of sorts, so that he may begin his own store. I knew it would not be the same, not ever.

"Yes, yes. Just go on,” replied The Elder angrily.

The workers paused, by the sounds of it. I could tell they were startled by his response.

"Yes, sir. Right on it then," said the other of the men.

At that, I felt large hands grasp the box tightly, readjust, then lift us up with a "humph". We were being carried away. This is it, I thought. Goodbye, Elder. Thank you for all that you have given us.

Suddenly, my favorite voice in the world beckoned.

"Wait," said The Elder.

"Sir?" said the man carrying our box.

I could hear the soft thud of The Elder's steps nearing the man, nearing our box. I heard the rummaging of cardboard above me, then sensed the light drowning the inside of the box. I could feel a warm, callused hand closing around our deck with a firm grip. The Elder had decided to keep only one possession: me.

"Go on, then. Everything else may go," said The Elder. At that, the two men carried off all the other boxes into the large truck. The Elder flipped our deck around in the palms of his hands. "Yes, this is all I need," he said to himself. I still believed he was speaking to me.