Harlan Ellison - Shatterday

He was deep in a corner, examining what seemed to be 9mm artillery shells made of sterling silver, when a voice from behind him said, “Those are intended for use in slaying were-dinosaurs. Only been one call for them; chap who swore his vicar changed into a killer stegosaurus at the full of the moon. Unlikely, but you never know. Try to keep up a full stock, y’know.”

The young man turned around, looking for the speaker, but saw only a life-sized, ecclesiastically dressed figure leaning rather precariously against a wall. “Not me,” the voice said. “That’s St. Thomas Aquinas.”

The young man looked amazed.

“Let you have him cheap,” the voice went on. “Not much call for Aquinas these days. Not since his Proofs were disproved. Have to fix those knee joints; he keeps leaning like a kangaroo with a broken tail.”

The young man with the filthy, caked hair and the ever so slightly cross-eyed look was suddenly frightened. He could not see the person speaking. It sounded—at first—as if it were an old man, with an English accent. But the second time the mysterious voice spoke it was a much younger man, with the accent diminished. He came out of the corner and stood in the open area just inside the door. He looked behind him, through one of the dusty windows. Just outside in the arcade alley there was heavy fog. A roiling gray soup that seemed to be lit from moment to moment by flashes of lightning. His fear grew. He had read about places like this, in fantasy stories. It was certainly one of those shops.

“Over here, young feller,” said the voice, now that of a seventy-year-old New England shopkeeper. “Over here, under the beaded lamp.”

And a beaded lamp in the rear of the shoppe clicked on. There was an old man sitting in a rocking chair under the lamp. The young man could just make him out. It was that far away.

He turned and tried the doorknob. It wouldn’t turn. He pulled at the door, but it wouldn’t budge. From outside the shoppe came the sounds of great beasts prowling, of thundering machines, of death and horror. He turned and stared down the length of the shoppe at the old man, who rocked slowly and waited. From outside came a thunderous explosion. Magnesium-flare brilliance illuminated the entire shoppe for an instant, revealing merchandise that made the young man’s blood run cold; in the moment of chill white light the face of the old man seemed to run and bubble and change: first it was the face of a beautiful woman, then the face of a Congolese Songe mask, then the face of a robot without nose or mouth, then the face of an ancient god—perhaps Cernunnos of the Gauls. Then the moment of cold light was gone, and it was an old man once more, nothing but an old man once again.

“Don’t mind the screams and shouts out there, son,” the old man said. “Just an idea of the management to discourage walkouts. Keeps people browsing till the storm’s over.”

The young man didn’t want to, but he suddenly found himself walking. Toward the rear of the shoppe. Toward the old man in the rocking chair. He tried to make his feet stop moving, but they placed themselves one in front of the other and he kept walking. But no matter how long he walked, the young man realized he was drawing no closer to the figure in the rocker.

He walked and walked, down among the fossilized remains of jabberwocks and eohippuses and broken reel-to-reel tape recorders, until his ankles began to blaze with pain from the walking. As if he had been striding uphill on a thirty degree slope. He found he was able to stop walking; he sat down on a three-legged stool to rest.

The old man said, “That’s a nice item, that one. Belonged to William Rufus, the Incarnate King; had a nasty dustup with The Lady of the Lake, he did; something silly about a macaronic song, I believe. Or maybe it was who had the louder climax. Can’t recall. Something like that. Let it go cheap if you’re interested. Sitting on it’s guaranteed to cure constipation instantly.”

The grubby young man leaped off the stool.

The old man was chuckling in a very friendly key. “ A w, hell, kid, come on over; I’ll stop playing around with you.”

The young man started walking. He was able to approach the old man. In a few moments he was standing beside him.

“Now. What can I do for you?”

The young man stared at him with faintly glazed eyes lit by a peculiar light. Just stared. He didn’t know what to say; he was actually, for the first time in his life, frightened down to the marrow. Even when he had been strapped in the orphanages, or beaten in the reformatories, or ganged in jail, he had never really known fear; it wasn’t in him to understand that kind of fear. But here, in this strange matrix of imponderables, with the brutal bellowing of shuffling autochthones filling the air just beyond the fogged windows, he was paralyzed with fear. He could not speak, did not know what he could ask for, did not know what he could have.

But knew he could have anything, just for the asking, just for the buying. That was what this shoppe was here for.

The old man seemed to understand his problem. He stood up and patted the young man on the shoulder. “Well, truth in advertising, young feller. We’re just what the sign says, a shoppe of wonders; your heart’s desire is here, somewhere. Just have to figure out what it is. You only get one chance, you know. Purchases limited one to a customer.”

He seemed about to say something more, but caught himself as his mouth opened. He looked at the young man a good deal more closely, and lines of worry appeared in his forehead. When he spoke again, there was an appreciable coolness in his manner. More businesslike, infinitely less friendly and playful. A bit more menacing.

“All sorts of items,” he said. “Complete set of books listed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, including Bergson’s ‘L’Evolution Créatrice.’ Cloak of invisibility. Just got in a fresh supply of black cobra blood from the Dinka; best black cobra blood on the market, you know; southern Sudanese; just smear some on the houseposts of your enemies. One hundred per cent guaranteed to produce incredible anguish and death. Love philters. Antigravitation discs. Dildos. Pills you can drop in your gas tank, just add water and it makes pure octane. Just name it, we’ve got it.”

For the first time the young man spoke. “When I leave here, will this shop vanish the way they do in the stories?”

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

“Why do they always do that?”

The old man sighed. “You know, you’re the first one who ever asked me that.”

But he didn’t answer the question.

He walked toward a case filled with small objects. “Hey, come on over here. Maybe we have something in here to suit your fancy.”

The young man scratched at his chest where his shirt lay open minus a button. He scratched at a bug bite. It was an angry red welt. He walked to the showcase and looked in. Eyes of newts. Toes of frogs. Other things.

They stood silently on opposite sides of the case for a few minutes. Finally in a strong young voice, the old man said, “Okay, bud, what’s your heart’s desire?”

The young man did not look up. “Power,” he said.

“What kind of power?”

“I want people to do what I want them to do.”

“That’s easy enough.” The old man reached into the case and brought out a black velvet pad on which lay a group of stones. They seemed to glisten and scintillate as though encrusted with dendrites. “Powerstones,” the old man said. “To make others do your bidding. Two bucks a shot.”

The young man looked up. “Why so cheap?”

The old man shrugged. He gave a little laugh that was no, laugh at all. “Cheapest things in the universe. Two dollars each is a good price.”