This time of year is the busiest for mail deliveries; it’s not uncommon to receive the wrong package. On your doorstep is a box that looks like it’s from a completely different era; it is wrapped in brown paper and tied with dark twine. It has scuffs and scrapes and a yellowed name tag--with your name and address on it. There is no return address and no indication where it came from. If you open it up you will find some sort of timeless item that feels as though it is easily decades old. It may not be particularly valuable, but this item seems to have been lost to time--and somehow ended up in your possession. Any time you look at it you are filled with the same sensation of timelessness.
Bella had bid her last client good evening on the doorstep with her silk robe drawn tightly about her to cut out the night’s chill. Her hands, slick with the oils she’d worked into sore and knotted muscles, worked together in an attempt to distribute and absorb their liberal coats. She had just poured herself a cup of tea and was sitting down to enjoy it when there was a knock on her door. Had her client forgotten something?
In the doorway stood only night air and silence. Had they changed their minds? She was about to close the door when something caught her eye. A harmless package on her doorstep, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a matching string. The antiqued tag had her name and place of residence on it but… no return address. A gift from a grateful client? Bella grinned to herself and gathered the package in her hands.
Immediately, she was struck with the most curious sensation. Nothing with a name but… the feeling of museums and dimly-lit libraries. Of dusty books and antique lamps. The feeling of long, windowed hallways and gramophones. Something without a name but full of voice and scent and sentiment. It took Bella’s breath away and left her feeling… somehow sorrowful. As though she was suddenly without something important.
Setting the box down on her table, she regarded it for a long moment over her tea. Why would she have been so struck by something so… utterly curious? It was a while before she finally leaned over and began unwrapping the parcel.
Inside, carefully packaged in dark tissue, was a bone teacup and matching saucer. What may have once been bright white had aged to delicate sepia. She held the plate up to the light to ensure what it was and as the light shone through… she was certain what she was looking at. Delicate plum and gold roses were painted along the rim of the cup and plate with delicate gold-leaf lining on the edges of both. No cracks. No chips. The set was, in a word, exquisite.
Again, Bella was hit with that curious sensation from before. She held the teacup delicately in her hands and, this time, allowed herself to be taken over by the sensation. Leaning back in her chair, she allowed her eyes to flutter closed as she envisioned a dark wood office with luxuriously overstuffed chairs and towering bookshelves filled with tomes. She breathed in the scent of a garden after a gentle rain. She listened to the clink of champagne glasses and light ladies’ laughter. The taste of rich chocolate and cream slide over her tongue as though she truly were indulging.
But when she opened her eyes again, she was home. The feeling, however, lingered on like a lover’s breath.
No matter where this curious little dear had come, it was hers now. And Bella set it in a place of honor, beneath her bow on the mantle. Whenever she happened to glance at it, that same sensation of times and places somehow lost to her drifted back.
