Time warp

 As often as possible another writer and I get together to free write using a trigger. Our trigger is a random line taken from a book. This was written Jan. 21.  “They are rather difficult to get on the older radios,” is the line we were working with.

Entering the shop was like entering into another world or at least another time. Instead of long spacious aisles with lights that would outdo the sun, the shop was dark and crowded. An antique dealer, who specialized in old radios, telephones and televisions, would think he’d cornered the market. 

 

Or maybe this man had cornered the market in this type of thing, which certainly wasn’t Andrea’s.

Andrea was all into the latest gadget. She didn’t quite line up to buy the latest iPhone the morning they went on dale, but she would be in the Apple store within the week.

The man behind the counter should also be out of time with gray hair and a pot belly but this man was probably around her age and she guessed under his Harvard sweatshirt he had a great body. He certainly had a great smile.

Andrea put her grandfather’s radio on the pristine counter top. Somehow it seemed the shop should be dusty but it wasn’t.

“Just a tube,” she said. “My grandfather would love to be able to listen to this radio again.”

She’d snuck the radio out of the nursing home when he was away having medical tests. Even when it stopped working, he kept it by his bedside. His wife, who had died five years before, had given it to him. When he was told he could bring five personal things to the nursing home, that was the first thing he had chosen.

The man took down a similar radio, switched tube after tube, stopping each time to turn the radio on.

“Traffic is heavy over the Southeast Expressway,” the radio blared and the young man lowered the volume. That will be $5.75.

Andrea took the radio and knew how happy her grandfather would be and returned to the current day world.