The Shop Who Flew (WIP)

When the little brick building was young, they painted a red panel on his face and named him 'Post Office'. His purpose in life was to collect people's words and deliver them to those they were intended for. He was content with his job; it was simple and it seemed to make people happy.

But one day a new Post Office moved into town. It was bigger and shinier and had brothers and sisters all over the country, and the little brick building was left redundant. They repainted his sign and replaced it with the words 'Bed & Breakfast'. An old woman made her home in his belly and kindly invited others to stay. The building made them comfortable and kept them warm. It was a good job.

But over time the old lady became weak and withered. Her skin cracked like the building's own bricks. Eventually her mortal structure crumbled and fell and her soul drifted into his rafters.

After some time spent in mourning, reluctantly clutching his 'For Sale' sign, a new woman came along. Karen had frizzy orange hair, faded with age, and a constantly flustered nature. She painted over the old building's sign once more and named him, quite simply, 'Shop'.

Shop got along well enough with the woman, but she was a little busy for his liking. He was getting old, and having her constantly bustling to and fro with a million and one of her 'errands' to run was, quite frankly, tiring.

Shop liked Max, the quiet nineteen-year-old who manned the till on Saturday evenings whilst Karen was at her 'Zumba' class. Max was like Shop in many ways. He got on with things. He didn't fuss or flit or faff around. He smiled at the customers, if a little nervously, but didn't waste time with unnecessary conversation.

It was the end of Max's shift when the sky turned red. He'd turned off the lights and was about to lock up when a deep crimson light flooded the shop, and he rushed to the window. A small ball of fire was speeding across the sky towards the shop and Max flinched as a crash rattled the building. He ran outside and stared up at the sky, but it was now calm, dark blue and star-speckled, as if nothing had happened. He turned his gaze to the shop. Despite the violent-sounding crash, very little damage had been done. In fact, the only difference Max could see in the shop face was that the 'O' had been knocked from the sign, leaving behind a slight dent and a scorch mark in the shape of a lower case 'i'. He looked down at his feet to find a small shard of silver metal, still glowing orange in places and smoking. He pulled his sleeve down over his hand like an oven glove and picked it up. Feeling confused and a little shaken, Max stumbled back into the shop and sat down with his back against the door, wondering what on earth had just happened. He inspected the metal shard wrapped up in his sleeve- it was no longer glowing, and appeared to have remnants of white paint here and there. He flipped it over to find the other side much the same, save for a slightly imprinted shape that must have been an embossment of some kind. Max rubbed away at the dirty metal with his other sleeve and gasped as a familiar shape appeared, one he had seen time and time again in his weekly science magazines- a sweeping arc and a sprinkling of stars surrounding one word that spoke of new discoveries and far off planets: NASA.

Shop, meanwhile, was having somewhat of an identity crisis. When his name was 'Post Office' he was an office, where people posted things, which seemed logical; when he was named 'Bed and Breakfast' he gave people beds, and he gave people breakfast; as for the past few years under the name of 'Shop', well, he had acted as a place where people came to do 'shopping' (a concept he never quite understood, as the way he saw it a piece of paper and a few scraps of metal didn't seem a fair exchange for the sustenance humans called 'sweeties' and 'pop', which- as far as he could see- were vital to the survival of their small, noisy offspring). It seemed to shop, therefore, that given his track record, his main purpose in life was to fulfil the title printed on his sign, and as the burning sensation on his face was constantly reminding him, his previous title of 'Shop' had been very recently changed, by some small flying menace, to 'Ship'. Now, Shop knew what 'Ships' were: he had been guilty, on occasion, of peeking over Max's shoulder at the comic books he read at lunch time and, though he would never admit it, rather enjoying it too. 'Ships' were things flown through space (and sometimes time, though thinking about this for too long made his rafters ache). They had control panels and rocket boosters and a crew and a pilot and a heroic captain and-

And shop had none of these things.

Shop had /Max/.

A groan of resignation rattled through Shop's brickwork, as he consoled himself with a phrase he heard frequently from Karen when she was counting the week's earnings:

'Where there's a will there's a way.'

Shop turned on the tannoy system with a click and, with an effort that threatened to crack a beam or two, tried to wrap himself around /making words happen/.

'M-m-ma-ax...' he managed, startling Max out of his rocket-filled daydream. The boy stood up quickly, clutching the shard of metal to him like a child's toy.

'Who's there?' he squeaked.

Shop tried again,

'I-it's m-me, Shop, ooh I think I'm getting the hang of this. I don't sound at all like Karen, though, I rather thought I would, I sound one of those grumbling old beardy ones, what are they called, old men? Yes, I sound like a grumbly old men, how odd. Now, Max, we're going to be having a bit of a change around here and though you're not exactly what I'd call... Dear boy why are you shaking? Are you intending to be that colour? A new 'look' you're trying out?'

'Wh-wh-wh-' Max replied.

'Oh dear,' sighed shop, 'I think I've broken him.'