The Antique Shop

The Antique Shop is a creepy story about a young couple who come across a weird metal toy while visiting a dingy little second-hand store. This is roughly translated from an old Japanese urban legend. One Sunday, my girlfriend and I spent the day visiting antique shops and second-hand stores. We are both collectors. She likes to collect antique toys and I like to collect old video games. We went from shop to shop, but I couldn't really find anything that I wanted. It was beginning to grow dark when we came across a dingy little antique shop that was tucked away on a deserted side street. When we went inside, we saw that the tiny place was cluttered with all manner of junk. They seemed to be selling dusty books, tattered clothes, clocks, ornaments, toys and various other knick-knacks. There was an old Chinese man behind the counter. We looked around for a few minutes, but there was nothing interesting. I was about to suggest we leave when my girlfriend suddenly exclaimed, 'Oh! Look at this.' She was holding up some kind of weird metal shape, about the size of a soccer ball. It had 20 sides. I think it's called an icosahedron. This is the point where everything started to go wrong. 'What is it?' I asked. 'I don't know,' she replied, 'but it looks amazing.' We took the weird shape over to the counter and my girlfriend asked the old Chinese man how much it cost. When the old man looked up and saw the shape, the expression on his face changed. He seemed astonished. 'Uh, Oh, This...' he stuttered. 'This... uh... Yeah, how much this item... Well, you wait... I come...' The old man disappeared into the back room and we overheard him arguing with his wife in Chinese. We couldn't understand anything they were saying, but his wife seemed to be very angry. He came back a few minutes later, clutching a yellowed piece of paper. 'This unusual toy,' he said, handing the paper to my girlfriend. 'Name Rinfone... You read here... tell everything...' On the paper, there were some hand-written instructions and a few drawings. There were some strange symbols on the yellowed paper too. It showed the metal shape changing to resemble three other shapes. In one illustration, it looked like a bear, in another a bird and in yet another, a fish. It was kind of like a primitive transformer toy. 'Oh! Excellent!' said my girlfriend excitedly as she picked it up and began playing with it. 'It's like a puzzle.' 'You like?' asked the old Chinese man. 'I make you special price. You give me 100 dollar.' My girlfriend is very good at haggling, so she tried to get the old man to knock the price down. Finally, he said, 'OK, OK. You steal me, but OK. You give me 80 dollar, we make deal.' We left the shop and my girlfriend was beaming from ear to ear, satisfied with her new purchase. On the way home, we stopped at a restaurant and had a nice dinner. The next day was Monday. When I got home from work, my girlfriend called me. All she could talk about was her new toy. 'It's amazing,' she said. 'I really love this Rinfone puzzle. I can't keep my hands off it. Even at work. I managed to get it to look like some animals. This toy is way more addictive than your stupid video games.' After we hung up, she sent me a picture of her holding the shape. It had a head and two legs protruding from it and sort of looked like a bear. I sent her a text message: 'uh... great...' The next day, when I was driving home from work, she called me again. 'Seriously, this is so awesome!' she cried. 'I spent all night playing with it and barely got a wink of sleep. I managed to get it into the form of a bear finally. You have to come over and check it out.' 'Maybe tomorrow,' I said. 'I'm tired. I'm just going to go home and get some sleep. You should do the same.' 'Uh... yeah... whatever,' she replied. 'Next I'm gonna try and turn my Rinfone into a bird.' On Wednesday, when I finished work, I sent my girlfriend a text message. 'Hi babe. Do you get some sleep? I was thinking about coming over to see you tonight.' She replied, 'Sorry, can't. Busy.' I sent her another message: 'Busy with wha