Fancy A Quickie?

Creative Soul

Simon Mason stared at the empty shop front  reflecting his quizzical expression back at him. What was it she'd said?

His mind pushed back to a conversation a few days earlier with the woman he was rapidly, dangerously, falling for. They were sat in the restaurant he owned, sharing a part of themselves to dance around the agonisingly restrained chemistry. She'd mentioned she liked painting, writing, and she created a story right there in front of him. In the morning as they shared breakfast in his flat she explained how inspiration came from anywhere but some places were naturally more conducive to creation. The city they were in, for example, was so very old and from the mangled infrastructure and sheer volume of history it prompted more creativity than a sunset.

He had walked around the city trying to understand how she could pull something from very little when the empty shop unit jumped out at him.

In the dirtied reflection he could see part of an old turret from the original city walls. There were oddly narrow alleys between buildings, shops that seemed to warp perilously in uncanny directions and the hint of several streets leading off into a new world.

Simon's business brain was firing. There was something special here, he just needed to find it.

*

"You're lucky it's a nice evening or there's no way I'd come and meet you," Rachel smiled as she slipped between his arm and waist. Simon's mouth met hers and he peeled away with a pang of reluctance.

"You sounded excited on the phone?" she prompted.

Phone? he wondered briefly, not quite correlating the words with the enticing mouth that spoke them.

"Oh yes, well, something you said the other day has buzzed around my head since. What can you see here?"

He turned to look at the empty shop. Rachel glanced at him.

"In the window," he clarified.

"I'm guessing you don't mean dirt and bird poo," she began teasingly, "but I see the reflection of the West Turret, Hill Street Rise... a purpling sky... clouds... people heading home and others coming out..."

Simon nodded and a little smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"That's it," he muttered aloud.

"Do I win a prize for this mystery quiz?" Rachel chipped in. He laughed softly.

"You see it in a way I can't, you see... I wanted to open another restaurant but every concept felt so... so done. But this unit and your eyes..." Simon trailed off and turned back to the window.

"This had to be an artist's space. Somewhere people can come to write, draw, paint... a cafe or a bar, perhaps, but every chair points outside, and people have tables and easels to paint the city, or write their novel or whatever it is creative people do."

The words were flowing fast and breathless and his face couldn't disguise the excitement ready to burst. Rachel began to beam as the concept took hold and fired up her own imagination.

"That's incredible, Simon! Yes, oh, it's incredible! We could have poetry and story readings and workshops, painting clubs or lessons, maybe some kind of open mic night, a bar, of course, artists love alcohol..."

Her eyes lit up with the same excitement his own had.

"I knew you'd be on board," he grinned. "You said 'we'."

"Oh, no, I didn't mean that," she retracted hastily, "I wasn't meaning to take over, I was just caught up in the excitement, I never meant to suggest-"

"-I want you to be part of it," he cut in. "I'll only ever look at this from a business point of view because I can't do creative. I need someone who feels the way you do to keep things going the right direction. You do art and writing so your instincts have already shown the way."

"But I'm not an artist or writer, I just like to-"

"-Rachel, if you write something, anything, you are a writer. If you put a pencil to paper and draw, you are an artist. If you invest any part of yourself into it then you are a creator. It might not be your profession but it is your calling."

She stared at him utterly gobsmacked. He was right. Those bouncy curls and wide lips really hid a killer sense of gravitas.

"I never thought of it as being part of me, in my soul," she whispered.

"Yet another thing I can't resist about you: your creative soul," he answered honestly.

Their eyes flickered up to the scrubbed-out sign above the window, to the blank space which suddenly had a whole new identity.