Caroline Mazeika

As she turned to leave the room a small flash of colour caught her eye. She paused, turned her head towards where she had seen it. There was something hidden in the bottom of the cabinet, she had missed it on her first cursory glance around the room. She stepped towards it and crouched down the get a better view. Nestled in the bottom pocket of the cabinet, pushed back from the edge into the deep recess was a small lifelike model of a shop front. The green painted wooden frame was stamped with the name ‘Armstrong and Co, West Green chemists’. The coloured bottles and jars glinted in the windows each replicated in proportionate model size. As she peered closer, she could see the faces of the proprietor and a customer inside frozen in time mid-conversation about dispensing of tablets. She reached for the circular brass door handle situated in the centre of the door and pushed to open. The bell tinkled as it announced her presence. The proprietor and customer each breaking their conversation momentarily and turning to look at her in surprise at being interrupted after so many years of solitude. The clean antiseptic smell of modern chemists was gone, replaced by the musty wooden smell of cabinets and a cocktail of unusual other worldly smells emanating from the contents of the shelves. The proprietor nodded a polite greeting at the stranger and resumed conversation with the first customer. On the counter between them was a small blue glass bottle stopped with an ornate glass lid. Inside she could make out the newly rolled tablets prepared specially by the chemist. He was proceeding in a carefully measured voice to state the dispensing information. ‘These tablets are very strong and not to be used by anyone but the patient. Ensure they take one daily with food and swallow whole. Take for 2 weeks and if no improvement has been seen in that time, come back to me.’