Writers 
There was a shop on a street
that appeared only at night,
between a bakery that sold memories
and a bookstore that sold dreams.
Its windows glowed silver,
its door had no handle,
and above it hung a sign:
YOUR TOMORROW IS FOR SALE.
Inside, glass bottles lined the shelves.
Each contained a different morning.
One held a wedding beneath the rain.
Another held a mansion by the sea.
One shimmered with gold and applause,
another with children laughing
in a house filled with sunlight.
The shopkeeper wore no face,
only a smile that moved
whenever I looked away.
“What would you like?” it asked.
“A better life,” I answered.
It reached for a bottle
filled with golden dust.
“This one contains success.
You will become everything
you once wished to be.”
“How much?”
“Three years of your present.”
I laughed nervously.
“That sounds expensive.”
“Everything you want
costs something you already have.”
I walked farther inside.
There was a bottle labeled LOVE,
another labeled FAME,
and a little blue one labeled PEACE.
I reached for the blue one.
The shopkeeper stopped me.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“You will lose the ability
to understand every battle
you never needed to fight.”
I hesitated.
Then I put it back.
For the first time,
the shopkeeper looked disappointed.
I wandered through the aisles
until I found a dusty bottle
hidden behind the others.
It had no golden light,
no beautiful label,
no promise of greatness.
Only one word:
ENOUGH.
“What does this one do?” I asked.
The shopkeeper stepped away.
“That bottle cannot be purchased.”
“Then why keep it?”
“Because people rarely want
what they already possess.”
I stared at the bottle.
Inside, I saw a small kitchen,
an unfinished book,
a friend answering my call,
a morning without dread,
and myself laughing
at something completely ordinary.
Nothing extraordinary.
Nothing the world
would stop to admire.
Yet I wanted it
more than every other bottle.
“How do I get it?”
The shopkeeper pointed
toward the door.
“Go back.”
“But I haven't bought anything.”
“You have been buying tomorrows
your entire life,” it whispered.
“You keep spending today
on a future that never promises
to arrive exactly as imagined.”
I stepped outside.
The shop disappeared.
The street returned
to its ordinary darkness.
And there I stood,
holding nothing.
Yet for the first time,
I noticed the stars,
the cool air against my skin,
the sound of someone
singing behind a window.
I had not purchased a better tomorrow.
I had simply returned
to the one day
I could actually touch.
And somewhere behind me,
in a shop that no longer existed,
a faceless shopkeeper
placed another bottle on the shelf.
It contained an ordinary morning.
The label read:
TODAY.
And nobody came to buy it.
