All You Can Feel

The cash register dings in the otherwise silent shop as the drawer slides open, greedily awaiting the cash.

“Thank you very much,” Archie says to his very last customer of the day, handing over the brown paper package containing the glass vial. “Enjoy your experience. See you next time.”

As the customer leaves the shop, Archie follows to lock the door from the inside, the timber floors groaning appreciatively underfoot, as if knowing the day is done. He passes by dusty wooden shelves and tables filled to capacity with glass bottles. The bottles are of different shapes, sizes and colours, but they all contain the same thing – experiences. Each vessel contains a unique feeling experienced during a human lifetime, clearly and carefully labeled to allow for an easier shopping experience. These feelings could be mundane, like feeling cold or hungry, or they could be extraordinary, such as the feeling of reaching the peak of a mountain after days of climbing, or diving into the frigid ocean in a thunderstorm. Almost all possible human experiences could be found within this small, crowded, dimly lit shop, appropriately named All You Can Feel.

Archie flips the open sign to closed on the door and breathes a sigh of content. Another successful day as the Merchant of Experiences. He looks around his little shop, simultaneously admiring the space and mentally taking note of the chores to be done before he can retire for the day. He sets about his nightly duties of closing the shop, counting the money, sweeping the floor and dusting the shelves, all the while humming a cheery tune.

Archie has been in the business of selling feelings and experiences for just over a decade now. He bought this building in a busy district surrounded by other magical stores, and while he made the upstairs portion into his living quarters, the downstairs became the shop of his dreams. He loves sharing his products with his customers, most of which came directly from him. In his youthful days, Archie lived a full and exciting life, experiencing all the fun and thrilling activities that a teenager and young adult could experience. Although he enjoyed himself immensely, he was always alone and never had anyone to share his experiences with. This caused him to start bottling up his feelings, intending to revisit them at a later date. By the end, he had collected so many bottles that sharing them with the world seemed like a better idea.

Archie originally only wanted to share his own experiences, hoping to give those that lived more sheltered and routinely lives, a moment or two of thrill. He soon realised not all his customers wanted the same thing. The rich wanted to feel poor, the poor, rich. The introverted wanted company, the extrovert, to be alone. The boring wanted excitement, while the excited just wanted a moment of peace. Some people came to experience new things for the first time, while others wanted to revisit the same feeling over and over.

Archie started to collect experiences from other people and add them to his collection, and the more he added, the more customers he received. Now his business is booming, his customers are happy and so is he.

After the nightly chores are done, Archie heads upstairs to his living quarters, washes up in the small bathroom, and has a light dinner of chicken stew with potato chunks. He then puts on a jacket, grabs a satchel full of empty bottles and heads outside into the chilly night. Every night, after his shop is closed, Archie goes for a stroll around his neighbourhood in search of new experiences to collect and take back to his shop. When he first started, he often wondered about the ethics of collecting and selling other people’s feelings and experiences, but after a while, after seeing how happy his customers became, after noticing that they were mostly the same people he collected from, he stopped worrying.

Tonight he turns towards the tavern that is located a few blocks away as he can hear the music and revelry from here. There are bound to be some good feelings to catch there. Archie has always been slight and quiet, with a face that is easily overlooked and forgotten. This quality is useful in his profession as the people he collects from barely notice him. As he walks down the street, blanketed by the starry sky, he collects the feelings of those he passes by.

There is a young woman walking down the footpath towards Archie alone. Her head is down and her arms are wrapped around her torso, trying to look as small as possible. She is trying to hurry without looking like she is hurrying, so as not to attract attention. She passes by Archie without noticing him, which is good for them both. He pulls out an empty glass bottle from his satchel and tilts it towards the woman. A thin wisp of black smoke drifts from the woman into the vial. Archie seals the bottle with a cork and continues down the street, already thinking of the label, Fear: of something worse than death.

Though the wisps of smoke trapped inside these bottles come from real people experiencing real emotions, they are nothing more than imitations of the real thing. Archie does not take any emotions away from people but rather collects a replica of them for his business.

Further down the street he comes across a homeless man, sleeping curled up against a building, trying unsuccessfully to shield himself from the chilly breeze. Archie takes out another glass vial and tilts it towards the man as he passes by, collecting a wisp of grey smoke, Cold despair.

Through the downstairs window of a big house, Archie can see a celebration taking place, a birthday party for a young girl surrounded by all her family and friends. Another bottle gets filled with warm golden smoke, Home.

He finally reaches the tavern, the noise growing louder with every step. Archie stands outside and absorbs the sounds of shrieking patrons, breaking glassware, waiters yelling orders and singing drunks. He doesn’t need to enter the tavern to collect these feelings. He uncorks a large glass container right there on the street and tilts it towards the building. Thick streams of burgundy smoke eagerly flows towards the bottle. He will call this one No Tomorrow.

He continues on, making a loop of the building on his way back home. As he passes by an alleyway behind the tavern, he witnesses a violent scuffle. Three large, muscular men, strongly smelling of stale beer, are repeatedly kicking a much smaller man curled up on the floor, who has his arms around his head, trying to protect it. From the bruises blooming on the smaller man's face and arms, and the blood that surrounds him in splashes and splatters, Archie assumes he has caught the tail end of the unfortunate interaction. Before he can act, the bullies slow down, shout some harsh words at their victim and walk away, ready to terrorise someone else.

Archie regrets his inaction, he could have obtained two different feelings from this one experience, one from the bullies and another from the victim. He sighs and shrugs, there will be other opportunities in the future. He turns to walk away when a croaky voice from behind stops him.

“You ain’t gonna help me up, mate?”

It's the beaten up man, trying to sit up against the wall, holding one side of his abdomen in pain and smiling at Archie condescendingly.

“You just gonna stand there and watch. Now that the show is over maybe you can help me yea?”

Archie freezes for a second and then quickly runs to help him stand. He isn’t used to being noticed, let alone acknowledged. Even the customers of his shop forget him as soon as they cross the threshold. It isn’t their fault, after a good few years of living on the edge, Archie now prefers being quiet and introverted, and therefore doesn’t usually extend anything beyond polite professionalism.

He approaches the man, now kneeling on the blood splattered pavement, one hand braced on the grimy wall. Archie takes his other hand and drapes it over his shoulder, offering him support as he stands with a groan of pain, pressing against his side. He must have broken some ribs. The two of them wobble towards the entrance of the alleyway and in the light, Archie is able to make out the man's face in more detail. His left brow has split, causing a gush of blood to flow down the side of his pale face and mingle with the blood from his split lip. He has a bruise blooming on his right cheekbone, like ink spilling under the skin, that is merging with the darkness and swelling around his right eye. His forehead creases with pain under his wavy brown hair, and his breathing is laboured with every step they take. He is going to feel terrible tomorrow.

“You need medical attention,” Archie says slowly, “Where should I take you?”

“Nah mate, this is normal for me. I'll be alright in a bit. Just help me to that bench there and then you can leave.” The man nods towards the bench across the street and they make their way to it slowly.

When the man is seated, Archie sits beside him. He would like nothing more than to go home and climb into bed, but he feels a sense of responsibility towards this injured young man, which is new.

“My name is Archie. What's yours?” Archie begins slowly, he doesn’t know the first thing about making friends, but an introduction couldn’t hurt.

“Nice to meet you Archie, I’m Luke.” There’s something teasing and sarcastic behind Luke’s smile and tone as if making small talk in this situation is ridiculous.

“Okay Luke, what did you do to deserve such a beating?” Archie can hear the irritation in his own voice, and belatedly worries about sounding rude. But Luke only lets out a breathy laugh, shaking his head.

“Oh I definitely deserved that beating. We were in the tavern and those brutes were having their dinner. As the waitress brought over their beers, I tripped her up and the beers went splashing all over their heads! The guys got up so suddenly that their table flipped and their dinner flew and landed on the next table over. It was actually quite funny, the chain reaction,” Luke chuckles under his breath, still gripping his broken rib. “Then it was just a matter of puffing my chest and uttering some goading words,” he shrugs, “Oh but you should've seen last week's drama. I was at another alehouse downtown and this gorgeous woman was sitting with this hunk of a man. I went over and started openly flirting with her, oh you should've seen the man's face, went red as a beet. He dislocated my shoulder and almost gouged my eyes out!” He pauses, then mutters contemplatively, “I wonder what’ll happen next week. I gotta keep moving around, you know, once you cause a scene, people tend to remember your face.”

Archie couldn’t relate, but he was astonished at how casually and proudly Luke was recounting these stories.

“Why?” was all he could think to ask.

Luke looked at him and some of the mischief and mirth dimmed in his eyes.

“To feel something,” he replied softly. When Archie didn’t respond, Luke continued, “I…I long to feel something deeply and completely. My entire life I’ve been surrounded by people, family, friends, and despite that, all my relationships have been very… shallow. I haven’t experienced anything extraordinary, I have nothing to show for my life, no exciting conversation starters, no interesting stories. And so I decided to change that. I became loud and disruptive, I got into fights, I purposely started trouble, so much so that I had to leave home. Or rather, I got kicked out,” he looks down sheepishly, the breeze playfully ruffling his hair, “Since then I’ve been hopping around like a nomad, from tavern to tavern, sleeping sometimes on the streets, sometimes on a friend’s couch.” He huffs a self-deprecating laugh, “I don’t know what I’m looking for. All I know is that I’m chasing a high that I have never experienced before.”

While Luke was talking, Archie got the opportunity to think about his own life. He had had such an eventful life, he had bottled up so many emotions and was now sharing them with the world. But somewhere along the way, constantly being surrounded by these feelings had made him almost immune to them. He had started to see the people around him not as humans, but rather as feelings to be collected. He now realises that he has also not felt anything deeply and completely for a very long time.

In the silence that follows, both Archie and Luke ponder their separate lives.

“Ahem,” Luke clears his throat as the silence takes a step toward awkwardness, “anyway, all this talk of life is kinda making me depressed. How bout you share some of that liquor you’ve got, hey?”

At Archie’s confused expression, Luke clarifies, “Oh don’t be like that. I heard the bottles clinking in your bag when we were walking. I’m not gonna take it all. I’m just asking for a sip, we’re friends now aren’t we?”

Realisation dawns on Archie and he looks at Luke apologetically, “Actually those aren’t liquor bottles.” He carefully takes out one of the glass vials for Luke to see, the golden smoke within swirling lazily.

“What is that?” Luke’s eyes light up in wonder.

“It’s an experience,” explains Archie proudly, he loves explaining his profession to others, and watching as their faces transform with newfound possibilities. “I have a shop a couple of blocks away where I sell feelings and experiences. This one is new, I only just collected it.”

“How does it work?”

“I’ll show you.”

Archie smugly pulls out the cork and the golden smoke flows out and envelops them, flooding their senses. They both look around in awe, the smoke sparkling and shimmering, like glitter in the air. They close their eyes, heightening their other senses. The scent of roasted chicken with honeyed vegetables mingles with the sweet taste of birthday cake, making their mouths water. They can faintly hear clapping and the voices of loved ones, encouraging, praising, celebrating, cocooning them in a warmth that feels like a hug. They stay suspended in that moment for a while, as if time around them has stopped. When the smoke finally dissipates, both Archie and Luke open slightly dampened eyes, both having just experienced the feeling of home and being loved for the first time in a long time, maybe even for the first time ever. It takes them a moment to find their voices and when they do all Luke can say is “wow,” and Archie replies with a “yeah.”

“And you said this is your job? You work with these….experiences?” Luke enquires.

“Yes, but I never open any of the bottles for myself, they’re always in the shop for my customers.” Archie wonders when and why he started prioritising others over experiencing things for himself.

“Mate, if I was you I probably would’ve opened them all up by now.”

“Maybe you're right….”

Archie makes a sudden decision, “Luke, why don’t you come with me to my shop. It’s not too far from here. I’ll patch you up, we can have some late supper, I think I also have liquor in there somewhere. And then we can browse my collection together.” Archie isn’t used to the newfound confidence that is growing inside him, but he is willing to embrace it.

“Yea sure man, that would be nice,” Luke sighs, suddenly remembering how battered and bruised his body is. “Thanks.”

The two of them, so different and yet so similar, stand up slowly, and limp off towards All You Can Feel, with Luke leaning heavily on Archie and Archie providing the needed support.

They converse as they go, about nothing and everything, their voices growing distant, yet their friendship growing stronger, with every step.

In the near future, Luke will come to realise that it is not necessary to risk his life to have meaningful experiences, while Archie will finally be able to not only share his experiences, but also to truly feel them himself, rather than keeping them bottled up.