An Oldie but Goodie...

So, I've discovered a new glitch in the system here at dear old Blogger.com. This story has been absolute hell to post on here without major portions of it being set to black text automatically. Since the default background on here is black, previous attempts to post looked like I was playing a fun little game of "Infer what the hell is going on in this story by reading every other page." Sure, it can be done, but you'd just hate me for it. So, it's fixed now. Also, I'm took out the big fat reveal in the middle and would like to see whether the story fares better or worse as a result. So, here we are, actually posting a readable copy of Final Purchases to the blog. Enjoy, suckas.

The store was dimly lit and musty as hell, which, Jonas thought, is actually pretty funny under the circumstances.

He'd already decided that he didn't like this store one bit, even though Dorothy was completely enamored with this stuff. Junk, he thought, surveying the aisles of battered toys, worn quilts, and badly dented picture frames. Hell, some of this stuff looked it had been through a pretty nasty fire at some point. Which, Jonas thought to himself, is probably pretty likely. Dorothy was currently cooing over a selection of old photographs that looked like they had to date to at least the 1920s, and probably even earlier than that.

Jonas couldn't have cared less about anything that this store had to offer, though, and let his gaze wander around while she picked through the shoddy stock.

His eyes landed on one of the staff, a pretty young girl probably no more than twenty-six. She was helping a wizened old hunchback of a woman get something off of one of the top shelves, keeping up an animated conversation with the whole time she was standing on the stepladder. Pretty girl, he thought absently. She really doesn't belong here.

She got off the stepladder with surprising grace, considering that she came down from the top shelf carrying a large rocking horse that had to weigh at least as much as the girl, and handed it to the old woman. Surprisingly enough, the old woman actually jumped for joy and let out a loud whoop that caused more than a few people to look at her. The girl just traded a knowing smile with another employee who was walking past, showing a child of about eight to the display of comics.

The girl traded a few more words with the old woman, apparently offering assistance carrying the cumbersome thing, but the woman shook her head politely and walked off, clutching the rocking horse close to her as though it weighed no more than a pocketbook.

Jonas was brought back to himself by a tug on his shirt sleeve, and he turned around to see Dorothy holding up a tattered Raggedy Ann doll. "Oh, my God, Jonas, look!"

He looked closely at it for a moment, but he didn't see anything special about it. In fact, it was in pretty bad shape. One eye was working loose, hanging down from a loose thread forlornly. The hair, which had originally been thick red yarn, was now worn and frayed to the point where Raggedy Ann was nearly bald. Her white apron was stained a dull brownish white, and her hands were covered in a faded pink stain.

"It's very nice, dear," he said dutifully.

"Nice," she said, incredulously. "This is more than nice. This looks exactly like the one I had when I was a little girl. I remember that I couldn't say Raggedy Ann, so I just called her my Baby Annie doll. I lost it when I was seven, and my parents couldn't get me to stop crying for days."

Jonas nodded, still listening with one ear, but getting increasingly tired of the dinginess of the store around him. He looked down at the tile floors disdainfully. Didn't they ever mop in here? He saw what had to be at least twenty years of dust, dirt, and God only knew what else.

He wandered around for a moment, picking up anything that caught his eye. Admittedly, there wasn't much. He stopped briefly to look at a box of baseball cards that had to be worth a small fortune nowadays, and considered asking how much it cost. Then he decided that a small fortune was probably exactly how much they were asking for it, and put it down on the shelf again.

He found an old Buck Rogers zapgun toy that he remembered playing with when he was younger. He held it in his hand for a moment, feeling a pleasant wave of memories wash over him. He'd spent countless days running around his backyard, pretending to zap space aliens back to Pluto, or whereever his imagination had summoned them from on that particular day. He looked around for a moment, trying to find the girl who had been helping the old hunchback a minute ago to ask a price on the zapgun, but she was nowhere to be found. Well, surely they can't be asking too much for this. And if they are, why then I'll put it right back. No harm, no foul. He nodded to himself without even realizing it, and continued to stroll the aisles slowly, his arm swinging absently. Every now and then the hand carrying his gun (he didn't know when he'd started thinking of it as his gun, but he had) would smack against his hip, and even though he hadn't had a day in over twenty years where the slightest wrong move would send pain shooting through his arthritic hip, he didn't even notice. His hip didn't notice either, didn't even send up the slightest twinge when the gun hit, even though the zapgun was one of the old ones that was actually metal, and felt as though it had to weigh at least two or three pounds.

He stopped to look at a clothing rack near the back of the store. There was a suit on the rack, really the only suit on the rack, that looked exactly like the one he'd worn on the day he'd married Dorothy. He remembered it well, because he'd been poor back then, just like everyone else, and it had been his only suit. He felt foolish in it, because it was too short in the legs, and he looked as though at any moment he expected the wedding to be flooded out. Still, he hadn't cared, because the realization had come to him that the radiant woman standing next to him was his, that she had just agreed in front of God and everybody to spend the rest of her life with him.

He'd even laughed with Dorothy when, later that night, she'd told him that he'd walked around all day with a mustard stain on his pants. They'd both laughed over that, and then she'd snuggled up close to him, buried her face in his chest, and fell asleep. Jonas had stayed awake for a while longer, simply stroking her hair and marveling at the fact that she was his.

He turned to look at her, and he stood watching her as she picked through a display of old, tattered quilts. My God, he thought. What did I ever do to earn that woman? Even now, he still felt the familiar rush in his heart, the way it sped up whenever she was near. Age had been kind to Dorothy, giving her a look of wisdom and experience without ruining her features, and he could still see traces of the young woman she'd been in her high cheekbones and soft, gentle lips.

He was startled out of his reverie by a voice near his shoulder, saying, "Are you finding everything all right, sir?"

He turned to see who had spoken, and he recognized the girl from earlier. She was smiling at him, and looked genuinely interested in helping him. "Oh, no. I'm fine. I'm just waiting for my wife."

She smiled, and said, "Well, let me know if you need help finding anything."

He was distracted by what sounded like a scream, and he ran forward, moving surprisingly fast for an eighty-four year old man. He didn't even notice that he'd dropped his items.

It hadn't been a scream for help, or of terror, he soon found out, but a shriek of delight. The boy that he'd seen another employee helping earlier was lying on the ground, a hyperactive puppy licking his face while he rolled back and forth, giggling.

Well, will wonders never cease? he thought to himself. What don't they sell at this place?

Jonas walked stiffly over to the quilts, where Dorothy was still picking through them. "We should get going," he said.

"Oh, don't be silly. What's your rush?"

He looked pointedly at his watch. "I don't want to miss the train."

She kept looking through the quilts, not even looking at him as she said, "Oh, there'll be another train."

"Do you feel like waiting around for another train? Because I sure don't."

She swatted at him playfully, saying, "Oh, don't be such a grumpy old poop. It'll still be there when we get there. And besides, when are we ever going to come back here?"

"Well, I just don't know that we're going to be able to take any of this with us when we get where we're going. To be honest, I'm still not even sure where we're going."

She stopped looking at the quilts long enough to give him another one of those playful swats and said, "Well, I know where I'm going. If you don't want to come with me, then that's your problem."

He started to walk away when the loud speaker came on overhead. "Attention customers. The next train is leaving in ten minutes. If you are riding the next train, please bring your final purchases up to the register.”

He turned around and grabbed her, saying “That’s us. Let’s go.”

“Wait, Jonas, look at this. It’s the blanket that we slept with on our honeymoon. My God, I never thought I’d see this again. My God, it’s even still got our initials on it. You remember that, how we wrote them down with that big black marker? I didn’t think those would survive the first wash, especially with the big washers that hotel used.”

“Come on, Dorothy. Let’s go.” He was getting impatient now, and his hip was starting to throb again, probably from when he’d ran up to see where the scream was coming from. It wasn’t fair, he’d thought that he was done with arthritis, but if the throb in his hip was any indication, then there’d be no respite even now.

Still she resisted, and Jonas turned around with a yell on his lips, and it died instantly.

Dorothy was standing there, clutching the doll to her chest in one hand and the blanket in the other. She was also holding some photographs that he hadn’t noticed before. “Don’t you get it, Jonas?” she said, and he was shocked to hear her voice quavering, to see the tears forming in her eyes. “We can’t leave yet. This isn’t just stuff, just junk. This is ours. And I’m taking it.”

Jonas felt his shoulders slump, and he said, “I’m sorry. You’re right.” He stood still for a moment, then said, “Say, hold on a second, will you?”

Before Dorothy could answer, he was running towards the back of the store, hoping that his things were still where he’d left them. And there they were, laying in a neat little pile like he’d set them there rather than fling them every which way. He grabbed the suit off the ground, picking up the Buck Rogers zapgun (barely even noticing his initials scratched into the butt of the gun in the long, straggling handwriting that he’d used as a child), and as he did so, he saw a dress on the rack that looked exactly like the one Dorothy had worn on their wedding day. He grabbed it too, and then ran back to meet Dorothy.

She had found a few more things as well, and together they managed to get it all to the cash register. “How much do I owe you?” Jonas asked, reaching for his wallet.

He’d just realized that his wallet was gone when the girl behind the counter, the same one he’d seen twice now, smiled and said, “Don’t worry sir. That’s all yours. We were just holding it for you.”

He smiled, and said, “Thank you,” before scooping everything up in his arms and heading for the door.

“Do you need any help, Jonas?” Dorothy asked, and he broke into a large grin. “I sure do, pretty lady. You can carry this for me.” He handed her the Raggedy Ann doll, which was no longer the dirty and stained thing that Dorothy had picked up off the shelf, but looked as fresh and pretty as the day that Dorothy had first played with it.

On the way out, Jonas saw a hat hanging on a coat rack near the door that looked familiar. He shifted the bulk of the weight into his other hand, then pointed with his free hand to the hat. “Excuse me, miss?” he shouted to the girl behind the counter. She looked up politely, and he said, “Is this mine too?”

She nodded to him, and said, “Why yes, sir, I believe it is.”

He grinned and gave her a jaunty thumbs up, something that he hadn’t done in years, but to be honest, he hadn’t felt this good in years. He grabbed the hat off the rack and put it on with a flourish, the same way he used to do it when he and Dorothy were dating. He put out his arm, and said, “Shall we go, then, my dear?” Dorothy took his arm, and they walked out side by side.

They got to the station just in time to see the train pull out, and Dorothy looked at him and said, “Oh, dear. We missed the train.”

Jonas looked at her and smiled. He sat down on the bench and threw an arm around her. “Don’t worry. There’ll be another train.” She smiled back at him, and put her head on his shoulder. He kissed her lightly on the top of her head, and then he sat back to wait.