Sit Softly On Your Shoulder

Chapter 1: Navigating Quicksand

"Happiness is a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will elude, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder."

-Thoreau

Lan Zhan unlocks the thick rusted padlocks from the heavy shutters and in one go, pulls the weighty metal protection up, revealing twin dusty windows caked with cobwebs and two mannequins gazing back at him with disdain. A large spider creeps away, hiding from the sudden bright light intruding on its hunting ground, and Lan Zhan reins in his instinctual shudder.

For a few moments, he simply looks.

This shop used to belong to his mother, and she left it to him years ago. Lan Zhan didn't have the time to deal with it then, busy with his studies and heartbroken about her death.

And then stumbling upon an unexpected career that took off like a rocket: antique dealership.

It was a surprise to himself as well, that he had an unusual knack for finding the strangest of items and not only that, but finding someone to care about them. Of course, having wealthy people care was a side-benefit he didn't dare to question lest he jinxed it, but the innate happiness of matching people to priceless antiques and heirlooms gave him a sense of accomplishment, reuniting old things with new lovers.

But this place?

Lan Zhan has never been so unsure of anything as much as he is of this shop. He doesn't know what he's going to do with it, either.

From a business point of view, his mind is at war with sentiment, and he's very much aware that he's kept this place out of obligation and love for his mother. He knows he doesn't have time to stand in a shop and run it; he has no experience in this area beyond a few fading memories of being here, in this lost and forgotten little town of Yiling where his mother ran away to, an escape from a world of pain and suffering.

There is no reasonable explanation why his fingers are itching to unlock the door and explore whatever lies on the other side of it, or why his heart is jack-rabbiting inside his ribs like a fish deprived of oxygen.

Should he not bother with it at all? Sell it as a whole business to somebody else, anyone who will be much more competent to run it efficiently? Perhaps he should face facts: going into the street behind him and fetching the first person he sees would be a better candidate for the job than himself on every level.

But there's a stubborn piece of his heart that rebels instantly, refusing to let go.

Blue's Fabrics.

In this foreign country, hundreds of miles away from Suzhou, his mother retained her married name, translating the Lan in it to the colour of her favourite gentian blooms, even incorporating the delicate flower into her logo.

Lan Zhan misses her so much.

He doesn't blame her for leaving, rather that he feels relief on her behalf that she managed to get away and make a new life for herself, here on the outskirts of London.

Yiling is a quiet little town with green oaks dotted about the centre and chirping birds that he can still hear even as Lan Zhan steps into the dark interior of his mother's shop.

As his eyes get used to the dim light, he sees rolls and rolls of fabric, all covered in layers of dust. This place has remained shut for the best part of six years, and is just steps away from falling into decay. Still, fabric doesn't "go bad" as his little experience in antique rugs and costumes has shown him, and the business part of his brain that doesn't like to waste anything, protests vehemently at the thought of hiring a skip and throwing all of this away.