If I ever opened a shop, there would be no cash register.
No stockroom.
No “Sale!” signs.
Just a wooden table, a pot of tea, and a small sign on the door:
We trade in stories, not goods.
Here’s how it works.
When you come in, you take a seat with a stranger.
One of you tells a story—any story.
Where you were this morning.
A loss that still surprises you with its ache.
That time the jacarandas bloomed too early.
The other person’s task is not to fix, advise, or even comment.
Just listen.
No interruptions.
No nodding furiously to show you understand.
No “that reminds me of the time I…”
Just presence.
When the telling is done, there is a pause.
Then you step to the side table—a jumble of paper, pencils, seashells, buttons, driftwood, feathers, fragments of fabric.
You choose one, or you make something—a quick drawing, a tiny poem on a card, an object pieced together from wire and beads.
Then you place it gently in front of the storyteller.
“This is what I heard,” you say, and you unpack it.
You speak back the heart of their story as you understood it, and you give them your poem, your sketch, your found object as a gift.
It’s theirs to keep.
A reminder that they were heard.
In this shop, nothing is sold.
But many leave richer than they came.
The Afterword 
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