Opinion | Are you for real?

Perhaps that’s why my eavesdropping ears sharpened one afternoon recently, when I overheard a conversation between a boy, four or five, I’d guess, and his mother. She was clearly exhausted from fielding his endless stream of questions while browsing the shop. It’s my favourite local antique store.

I’ll go as far as calling it a hobby to pop in whenever my time and budget allow, because I seldom leave empty-handed. The place has a kind of sacred silence, filled with souvenirs from both the near and distant past: crockery, art, war memorabilia, bric-a-brac, clothing, jewellery. Like a museum, it allows you to slip briefly into another time, surrounded by physical traces of history.

Sometimes, simply touching those objects grounds you more firmly in the present. Such is our strange relationship with the past. The quiet also makes it impossible not to overhear conversations, like this one.

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I couldn’t help but feel for the mother, patiently answering her son’s energetic questions about everything his eyes landed on or her hands hovered over. Mothers deserve awards for what they endure with children this age. I remember being that child, bored out of my mind while my mother spent what felt like hours browsing in shops, with strict instructions to “look only with your eyes, not your hands”.

It was torture. I sympathised with him silently as I now did exactly what I once I found unbearable. At least adulthood comes with the privilege of occasionally “looking with your hands”. The boy’s attention soon fixed on a stuffed and mounted buffalo head in the corner.

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