As Is

Just north of town, a quaint Sargasso Sea for bric-a-brac: the barn, itself antique, spills over with a grab-bag panoply of outworn stock revalued as “unique.” Typewriters tall as headstones fill the loft where they’ve been ricked away like sacks of grain; a coffer yawns the must of oak—gone soft— when one man, squinting, lifts the lid to feign intrigue. Nearby, his wife surveys the smalls: art deco bangles bright as harpsichords, a glut of iron trivets, Christmas balls, Depression glass and warping Ouija boards. One man’s junk is another’s all the same. They don’t buy much, but that’s not why they came.