I step through the automatic doors of the mall and take the escalator up to the third level. I do this every Wednesday through Sunday; ride the escalator, open shop, work, close shop, and then, back on the escalator again. 9am up, 9pm down, five days a week.

 The third floor of the mall is busy. Customers shuffle listlessly through the wide open space, bouncing in and out of the various shops. They browse the stores with wallets already in hand, examining price tags and counting their dollars. Next to the fountain, an old man in tattered clothes shakes an empty aluminum soup can, begging passersby for change.

  in the quietest, least-visited corner of the mall, between the food court and the kiosk selling tacky press-on nails and hair extensions, is an always-empty shop. My shop. The reason I ride the escalator every Wednesday through Sunday, 9am up, 9pm down. 

Inside, I hang up my coat on the hook and flip the sign from CLOSED to OPEN. Then, I turn to admire my inventory— shelves upon shelves of dust-covered mason jars, cobwebs strung between them like telephone wires. These jars have to be dusted at least once every week, so that they don't look so abandoned. Sometimes, I even swap their places around, so that it looks as if some of the jars are leaving in the hands of happy customers, as if new ones are pouring in to fill their places. Tricks, illusions— the tentpoles of sales.

From the drawer below the cash register — also dusty with disuse— I take out a threadbare gray rag and begin dusting the jars. Inside, the contents swirl, responding to my presence, excited by my touch. Colors burst inside the glass, and a tiny microcosm awakens in each jar. Within, I see people— babies gurgling, children playing, couples growing old in rocking chairs, side by side; places— some local, some exotic: America in the winter, summer, spring, and fall, Paris, Berlin, Dubai; events— weddings, graduations, births. These jars are full of things that will never come to be. They are jars full of hopes, wishes; jars full of dreams.

I shake the dust out of my rag, put it away in its drawer, and call out to my non-existent customers: "Deep discounts on human dreams! Dreams for as low as seventy-five cents a piece! Amazing spectacles all, each one unique!" One or two people look my way, attracted by the sound of my voice: when they read my sign and scan my inventory, however, they turn away, taking with them their fat leather wallets and the pungent, tangy smell of dollar bills. I raise my voice and bellow louder, and with as much passion as I can muster: "Only seventy-five cents for a beautiful dream of your very own! They make wonderful gifts! Look lovely on a coffee table. Get ‘em before they're gone!" Again, the space in front of my counter remains empty.

I slump, defeated. Even the lady at the hair extension kiosk has got a customer! Quarters and dimes clink in her palms as she counts them, making beautiful music. I tell myself that it's not on me. The dream-selling business is dead; has been for years. I don't blame those people who shuffle on by me with their gazes fixed on the floor, pretending that they cannot hear my desperate cries to "take advantage of these deals while they last!" Who wants to buy a dream, anyway? Dreams are nothing but colorful air. Why trade cold, hard cash, something tangible and real, for something as slippery as a dream?

"Excuse me."

"Yes?"

Before me stands the beggar with his aluminum soup can— the one I passed by earlier on my way to my shop. His face is lined, his hair knotted and mangey. The nail beds of his calloused fingers are black with dirt.

"If you've got a dream, then we'll give you a fair price for it. Now, if you would just give me a moment to check the register, I can see if I've got enough—"

The beggar laughs."No need," he says, with a toothy grin. I'm not here to sell anything. I'm here to buy."

My eyes are on his aluminum can, immediately. I am trying to peer over the jagged metal lip, to catch a glimpse of the treasures inside. I can practically feel the drool welling in my mouth. 

"Certainly. What kind of dream are you looking for? We're running a sale this week on dreams from the eighteenth century; just $3.99 each. Or, perhaps, you'd rather browse by subject? We have dreams of love, dreams of travel—"

"What about that one right behind you?"

I am reluctant to turn my back on him, afraid that this man and his money might be gone by the time I turn back around. 

"This one here? Fifth from the left?"

"That's the very one."

I take the jar in sturdy hands, careful not to scratch the glass, lest I devalue my already low-priced merchandise. A cobweb clings to the lip of the lid, missed by my careless cleaning. I slap it away and return to the counter where, miraculously, my customer remains.

"Well, would you look at that?" There is wonder in the man's voice, and, when he picks the jar up, he holds it not like one afraid of depreciating the value of a product for sale, but as one who is holding something genuinely precious and irreplaceable. 

The beggar raises the jar to his lined and spotted face and peers into its depths, behind the thin screen of glass. For him, the dream pulses and swirls. The colors glow as they rearrange themselves into a moving image, a tiny scene. Inside the jar, a young woman stands with her back to me, brushing paint onto a canvas stretched taut across a wooden easel. Around her are green trees, green fields, and a still blue pond. The sky within the jar is aflame with a brilliant red and yellow sunrise, which the woman replicates on her canvas in loving detail.

"Simply beautiful," says my customer, misty-eyed. 

There's something familiar about that scene that I cannot quite put my finger on. "Yes, lovely. Very colorful."

"How much?"

"Just a-dollar-twenty-nine for this dream." My eyes fall, again, to the aluminum can.

"I'm afraid I've only got ninety-eight cents. Would you take it?

No hesitation: "I will."

I hold out my palms to receive my payment as the man shakes his can out over my hands. The coins fall like little silver, disc-shaped raindrops. They clink; they sing. My customer, meanwhile, takes his dream, his jar of air, in grimy hands, admiring it proudly. Inside, the artist paints and paints as the sun slowly rises. All so familiar. I have seen this scene before. It crashes over me, suddenly: wasn't this my dream, long ago?

"Thank you, ma'am." My customer smiles. Then he walks off, down the escalator, holding his empty can in his right hand and his dream in the left. I watch him disappear. 

And, then, I follow him.

Outside, the day is warm and bright, but the dream still glows like fire in the beggar's hands, and I spot him easily. Sitting down on the sidewalk, the beggar gazes into his jar with a peaceful smile, watching the sunrise, watching the woman paint. Then, he places his right hand firmly on the top of the jar and unscrews the lid.

The dream rises in a flurry of color, free from the glass prison it's been kept in for years. It swirls into the sky, up, up, and away, until it has disappeared into the light. The beggar watches it go with a bittersweet smile, holding in his hands an empty jar and an empty can, suddenly destitute. Standing here with the beggar's ninety-eight cents— cold, solid, real— clutched inside my fist, why do I also feel that I've lost something?

 I make my way back through the automatic doors, up the escalator, and into my shop. From behind the counter, I shout, "Dreams! Get your dreams here!"