"Mr. Nothingsworth"

Mr. Nothingsworth, proprietor of the “Whatnot” shop of castaway things and oddities, was a self proclaimed curmudgeon. The old coot loved to annoy all customers with his standard answer to any price requested for what they’d brought to sell.

“Nothings worth that,” he’d scoff and even if his eyes gleamed with a desire to own the object, his inflexibility to pay nothing for it remained. And so he’d earned his moniker, Mr. Nothingsworth, and owned it proudly.

The trinkets in Mr. Nothingsworth’s shop window were some of the oddest things you’d ever see and nothing he cared to sell, but they enticed customers into his store and he loved denying them a sale, almost as much as he loved acquiring things at below their fair value. 

 

An older woman entered the store and eyed the grumpy owner.

“Good afternoon,” she said in a chipper voice.

“Harrumph,” he replied.

The woman’s airy smile faltered but she took out a small, gold pocket watch from her bag to show him. “I’d like to sell this,” she said timidly and offered the price she wanted for it.

“Not worth that,” Mr. Nothingsworth grunted but his eyes coveted the gleaming object in her hand.

The woman sighed and bit her lip with worry as she asked, “What is it worth?”

Mr. Nothingsworth offered a price way below her asking.

The woman frowned and shook her head. “Never mind, I’d rather keep it,” she grumbled and dropped the watch back into her bag, “and I’ve had better offers,” she told him.

“Then you should take them and not waste my time,” Mr. Nothingsworth responded.

The woman’s eyebrows slanted downward with displeasure seeing how much he was enjoying the unfair exchange.  “I’d say good day to you but I’m sure that’s not what you want!” she huffed and stormed out of the store.

Mr. Nothingsworth quite agreed with her assessment and went back to doing the crossword puzzle in the daily newspaper.

 

He truly was a sour face, dour attitude fellow, who was happy in his grumpy little world, and that was exactly his state of being the day Ms. Sunshine blew in through the front door of his store.

The ray of sunshine that she was shattered his lovely, dusty shadows and her twinkling laughter peddled a joy that grated on his nerves. He wanted nothing more than to wrap blackout drapes around his being and his store and heave this happy person out the front door.

Ms. Sunshine picked up one of his beloved objects from the window display and his stubbornness grew.

She floated over to the counter holding it in her perfectly manicured hand and smiled at him. “How much is this,” she asked in a sunny, lilting voice.

Mr. Nothingsworth cringed at the sound of it and offered his patented response.

“Not for sale,” he said with a gleeful chuckle at her disappointment.

But, Ms. Sunshine was too happy-go-lucky and optimistic a person to allow his grim response to damper her hope. She made another offer, one that any other store proprietor would have gladly accepted for the item.

Mr. Nothingsworth shook his head, proving to be the stick in the mud he’d also had the pleasure of being described as.

Ms. Sunshine was not used to being denied anything but no frown marked her countenance as she studied the set features of the grumpy man behind the counter. She placed the unobtainable object down and looked around the dusty, light deprived store assessing both it and the owner by its unattractive state of being.

“Lovely store you have here,” she cooed, ignoring the dim lighting and imagining in its place sunbeams reflecting off the crystals in a vintage chandelier that hung from a hook in the grey ceiling above her. She also imagined a wisp of sunlight playing across the gleaming, black and white, marble chess set that sat upon an antique, mahogany game table. She could see the transformation some bright lights and dusting would bring to the store but, even though she could see the store’s potential to please, she could tell that wasn’t something the owner cared about.

“May I ask how long you’ve owned this store?” Ms. Sunshine asked, eyes twinkling with curiosity.

“None of your business,” Mr. Nothingsworth replied picking up the object she’d taken from its, precious to him, spot in the window and walked it back to its rightful place.

 

Ms. Sunshine was undeterred by his grumpy response and walked over to another dusty shelf eyeing the objects on it. They appeared to have never been moved once they’d been put in place and she ran a finger across the thick layer of dust that surrounded them until her thoughtful gaze fell upon a perfect little seashell.

Surely, he could part with that.

Ms. Sunshine held up the seashell and asked, “Would you allow me to purchase this seashell?”

 

Mr. Nothingsworth turned red, purple and blue seeing what she held aloft and, with a hurricane force of breath, yelled to her, “Put that down!”  

Ms. Sunshine was surprised by his fierce response and nearly dropped the fragile little shell but managed to hold on to it and place it back in its dust outlined spot.

“Sorry,” she said with a lifted brow.

What could a tiny seashell that looked like infinite others mean to him? She wondered where it’d come from and what the circumstances had been that brought it here as she walked away from the shell and its mystery. She continued walking, passing several crowded counters, and felt an almost imperceptible sense of loss as she wandered past the cast-aside objects.

 

“Hey, don’t go touching anything back there!” Mr. Nothingsworth yelled to her before she disappeared around a large bookcase of first editions.

“Just looking,” her twinkling voice responded.

Ms. Sunshine walked deeper into the store and the sense of loss she felt became profound, suffocating, life altering, perhaps even life stopping. Her own internal happiness faltered and she wasn’t sure she should go any further. The darkened corners at the back of the store were not welcoming her.

 

Mr. Nothingsworth grumbled nonsensical words of annoyance as he stepped away from his usual place behind the counter to follow her, not trusting she’d listened to his command.

 

Ms. Sunshine took out a small flashlight from her purse. She carried it always and for just this purpose, to shine light into dark places.

The circle of light passed over dusty, china dishes and tarnished, silver tea sets until the beam of light moved upwards and lit upon a framed picture hanging on the back wall.

 

“Hey, where are you going? There’s nothing back there, nothing for purchase. Come back this way.” Mr. Nothingsworth commanded as he doubled his steps to catch up to the beam of light she was waving about. He wanted her and her menacing light out of his store.

 

The light illuminated a friendly countenance in the frame and Ms. Sunshine studied it. The woman in the picture smiled back at her with contentment      

Mr. Nothingsworth stopped and stared at the face caught in the flashlight’s beam and he couldn’t look away. “Shut that flashlight,” he said, but not with his usual animosity. It was said in a voice trembling with pain.

Ms. Sunshine cut the light and turned to him. “Who is she?”

“None of your business and nothing back here is for sale,” he said turning away and walking back to the front of the store.

Ms. Sunshine followed but her curiosity was not diminished.

 

Mr. Nothingsworth lacked his usual attention to detail as he passed the counter holding the fragile shell and clumsily bumped his hip against it.

The tiny seashell slid off the edge and headed to the stone tiled floor below. Mr. Nothingsworth’s face turned ashen as he tried to catch it. His heart already shattering as he feared the tiny shell would too.

A manicured hand slipped under the falling shell just before it hit the floor, saving it.

Mr. Nothingsworth closed his eyes with relief. When he opened them again it was to stare into a pair of blue, curious eyes.

“Thank you,” he said gruffly taking the shell from her hand and placing it back on the counter.

“You’re welcome. I can see it means a lot to you.”

He nodded and walked back to his counter, hoping she would leave.

She did not.

 

“Did it belong to the woman in the picture?” she asked as she followed him.

His heart shivered in his chest and his eyes blurred but he did not answer.

“She’s very beautiful.” Ms Sunshine added.

Mr. Nothingsworth leaned his hands on the counter feeling as if he might collapse with the weight of the memories emerging. 

“Yes,” he murmured, “now please, go away.”

Ms Sunshine didn’t listen. She stepped closer to the counter and touched his hand.

He jumped and pulled back.

“You have to let the light in here,” she told him.

“I like it the way it is and if you don’t, please leave,” he said pointing to the door, wanting her to go.

“I understand you’ve lost something…precious, and that’s why you buy these well loved objects from others and refuse to let them find a new home. You want others to be miserable because you’re miserable…without her.”

Mr. Nothingsworth stared at the ray of sunlight that was this unknown person and in her face he saw his Annabelle. She had been a brilliant light and he had been awash in that light all the days of her life, and he was thrown into darkness when she left this world ten years ago.

Maybe he had kept to the darkness and caused others pain because he couldn’t be happy, but it didn’t assuage his loss, nothing could. But he’d never cared to consider why he acted as he did.

 

Ms. Sunshine touched his hand and squeezed it for a second. “You really need to let in the light,” she said then let go of his hand.

“What would I do with light? You have to be happy to enjoy a sunny day you know and… I can’t be happy.”

“You can be…if you try.”

“There’s nothing to be happy about, not for me. You need to go.”

“I’m sorry I bothered you,” she said with a sadness that took away the brightness from her smile.

Mr. Nothingsworth didn’t like seeing her bright smile dim. He may be a curmudgeon and happy enough in his state of darkness, but he didn’t enjoy snuffing out her happiness.

“Maybe I could…clean these things up and allow a few trinkets to be sold.”

Ms Sunshine smiled brightly and her eyes twinkled again. “That’s a start. These trinkets could use a new home…and some new hope.”

Mr. Nothingsworth felt that shiver of pain in his heart again but he shrugged it off.

“Sure, I’ll consider it.”

“Thank you,” she said with renewed happiness and walked out of the store.

 

The door opened again and it was the little old woman returning with the gold pocket watch.

“Okay, I’ll take your offer.” she said in a small voice and a very sad face.

She placed the watch on the counter.

Mr. Nothingsworth picked it up and eyed the fine workmanship of the timepiece.

“I think I may have been mistaken on that price I gave you earlier.”

“What? You can’t possible offer me less,” she cried.

“No not less, I believe I may have overlooked its worth. It’s far more valuable than what you’d asked for it,” he said then made her an offer much higher than what she had originally asked for.

The woman accepted it with gratitude.

“I don’t know why they call you Mr. Nothingsworth,” she said pocketing the money, “I think you’re fair enough to deal with and I’m going to tell my friends about it too.”

 “Whatever,” Mr. Nothingsworth said as she walked out of the store.

 

Suddenly, the overhead lights shimmered, growing brighter,as if they were having an electrical overload.

Mr. Nothingsworth stood under the bright beam of incandescent light that lit up every corner of his store and wondered what was going on. 

He was thinking he should check the electrical breaker switches when he felt a warm, familiar hug and a soft kiss upon his cheek. He lifted his hand to the spot on his cheek overwhelmed by the idea of her being there. And whether real or imagined didn’t matter, the thought of her lightened his heart.

The lights flickered and returned to their normal dullness but Mr. Nothingsworth... did not.