Carve Me Open / r.l. + s.b. /

Charmed

"You are a dangerous collection
of all my favorite things.
An old soul, a heart of gold, and hands that make my body sing."
- via Nikita Gill

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Ms. Grimes' Wonder Emporium, August 1978

Remus fiddled away with the catalog books, his pen leaking ink onto a blank page. The clock had struck seven quite some time ago, and the sun had dipped below the skyline hours before; Remus had already taken inventory three times just as his employer had asked, however tedious the task had been. Ms. Grimes, the elderly but not senile owner of the shop, had lit her candles and closed the curtains, but this by no means meant that they were closed for the night. She'd been put to bed in her room upstairs – there'd been a small apartment she'd lived in just above the shop – but managed to escape the confines of her room in order to watch the television downstairs.

Business had been slow that day in the smoldering heat of August, as if it had been any slower in the lovely breezes of April, and Remus spent the majority of his time decluttering his workspace as Ms. Grimes always seemed to dirty it up during his off-time. How? Remus had no earthly idea.

Ms. Grimes was older than sliced bread and blind as a bat. She, of course, had spectacles, but she lost them every other hour of the day and would set Remus on a wild goose chase to find them. Not that he minded, really. It gave him something to do – a chance to explore. The shop was quite large with much more room on the inside than one would think from a quick glance from the sidewalk. So far, he'd found a secret room full of old, forgotten texts and a cupboard just under the stairs not even big enough for a child. He wondered why Ms. Grimes would have such a small space without the ability to fit in it.

Not only was she old and blind, but she was also nearly deaf. She did have hearing aids, and she typically had them in. However, that didn't mean she really listened to anything anyone said. Remus would be lucky if she paid attention to his catalog enough at the end of the day. He supposed she did this on purpose.

She had told him once in confidence, "There's never been a better time for hearing loss than now, my boy. Who the hell wants to listen to the children whine about their television programs, or old politicians cry about a war they never had to fight?"

While she was old, blind, and deaf, she also had bone-crushing arthritis. It came with age, so she said. When first employed at her shop, Remus would see her busying herself amongst her antiques – dusting and what not. She'd mingle with possible buyers, visit the neighbors across the street at the bakery, and even join Remus at the counter. Nevertheless, time brought about its usual fruits, and Ms. Grimes was confined to her back room with the company of a television and radio or her bedroom upstairs. She never watched the news, never listened to the international broadcast; her stations remained on old musical hits and the sitcom channels.

"I'm getting older now," she'd coughed. "So, I should start worrying about today, but most certainly not tomorrow."

Remus had taken a liking to the old woman. Yes, it was true that she spoke in odd, disjointed yet wise quotations, and her answers were, more often than not, rather vague and ambiguous. She'd claimed that she preferred her words to be left up to interpretation, that way if they led someone astray, they couldn't exactly blame her. Smart cookie, Ms. Grimes was.

Ever since her return from the chiropractor, Remus had decided to extend his duties as a caretaker. Not because he felt obligated to, but in an odd way he did, simply because she had no one. Her husband had died over a decade ago, and they never had any children. Coming from France, she had no close relatives who'd venture to England just to tend to her needs; if anyone was truly alone in that burrow, it had been Ms. Grimes. It had been her, the shop, and Remus. That didn't stop her from being the colorful human she'd always been – colorful being a rather generous descriptor.