My story

The antique store

Waking up from that vivid dream again, it was the third time I had this dream in this week. I glanced at the ticking clock. The night was absolutely quiet. So silent that the tick tock sound of the clock made me felt annoyed. This time, I didn’t try to get back to sleep immediately like the last two times. I kept repeating that short dream in my head in order to go back into it.

As I recalled, the dreams always started with a fat, furry, white cat. The most memorable feature about the cat was its blue transparent eyes. It went on staring at me for a while then led me through a narrow alley. In the end, I was in front of an antique store, the cat already disappeared. Some small statues of animal could be seen behind the window of the store. They were moving around and chatting. The antique store was attracting me. Sometimes I even heard voices coming from the store. As I was reaching the door, the dream ended. I had never been inside.

“Meow… Meow…”- The fat cat from the dream was now meowing in front of my wide-opened eyes. Before I could react, it jumped away from me. It took me exactly one second to realize I wasn’t on my warm fluffy bed anymore. I was then lying on the cold hard stone floor inside the antique store. Without any hesitation, I stood up and had a quick overall observation of the place. The store was as marvelous as I remembered. There were many shelves on the wall, all made of wood. The animal statues had different sizes. They were wandering around the place. They were very detailed, skillfully made. Their eyes were sparkling under dim yellow lights. They seemed to be calm, unsurprised with my appearance. Now, I didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, a sparrow flew in the store and landed on my shoulder. It was a statue too. It gave me a comfortable, familiar feeling.

“So, Moon has finally decided to bring you here. He did have a hard time making up his mind.”-A tiger statue said out loud from the corner of the room. “Come on here, little girl! I’ll tell you the story of this store and of my own life.”- The tiger continued. I walked toward his place with the sparrow still on my shoulder. Through his slow, full of exhaustion movements, I could realize it was the statue of an old tiger. He could not even open his eyes properly, they just leaving a tiny space under the eyelids for him to see.

“It has been a long time already since Moon first brought me here.”

“The fat cat’s name is Moon?”-I had said that before I could realize.

“Fat cat! Hahaha… Yes, that’s him!”-The tiger laughed heavily. I was worried that he could chock if he didn’t stop laughing.

“Why did he bring me here? And …what are you guys?”-I asked curiously.

“He must have his own reason to bring you here but just like you, I don’t know. About us, as you have seen, we are statues, special statues. We all used to be animals but Moon turned us into wood. Don’t get him wrong, he doesn’t try to take life away from us. Instead, he has helped us not to suffer from pain by taking away our feeling sense. But he gave us more than what he had taken away. We can even think and speak.”-The tiger spoke slowly; his voice was showing gratefulness toward Moon-“Let me tell you about the time Moon met me. Back then, he was already as fat as he is now. I used to be the king of the jungle; life was extremely good for me. However, I ended up being a big cat in a circus. As I got older, people ignored me. They didn’t treat me the same way the used to. I was locked in a narrow, filthy cage all the time. I was lying in there day by day, waiting for death to come. But I guess no death wanted to take my life. I have been suffering like this for more than a year. Then Moon came, he looked straight in my opaque eyes. And when I woke up, I was already a statue, lying in this store. The best part is that all my pain is gone, forever...”

While the tiger was telling his story, the sparrow kept flying freely around me. It seemed to be utterly happy, especially when I played with it. I wondered what the miserable story behind this cheerful little sparrow was. Before I could ask, Moon was standing next to me and said “Time to go!” I felt asleep again. The antique store vanished one more time.

I could hear the annoying sound of the clock now. I crawled out of bed, thinking of the weird dream I had last night. It reminded me of the sparrow I caught last week, which was now locked in the cage. I finally understood the reason why Moon had brought me there. I ran to the living room, grabbed the cage, got out of the house and released the sparrow wishing him a happy life...