The Observatory

Imagine walking down your local high street.

The usual mix of vape shops, bookmakers, charity shops – perhaps a bargain chain, a few independent shops clinging on.

You pass a shopfront with a curious mix of paraphernalia in the window; it seems it can’t quite work out if it’s a bookshop, museum or art gallery.

Your eye is caught by a strange ornament in the window display, so you venture inside. It doesn’t look like a shop. Or rather, it doesn’t feel like a shop. It looks like a living room, or a mix of different living rooms. A woman sits in the corner reading. Two people sit at a table deep in discussion. A child walks in from a doorway at the back and starts to rifle through some drawers. A ‘Shoplifters will be prosecuted’ sign hangs on a wall, except ‘prosecuted’ has been crossed out and replaced with ‘given a cup of tea and some colouring in’.
You venture further into the space.

The next room is part kitchen, part dining room. A long table is occupied by a group of varying ages, engaged in collage. A couple stand next to a boiling kettle, chatting.
Further, a room that looks like an architect’s office, but from the future.

The adjoining room looks like an otherworldly child’s bedroom, filled with unfamiliar furniture and trinkets, the walls and floor seemingly carved out of stone. Above, a skylight opens onto the night sky.

Animated chat tumbles down a staircase; a workshop by the sounds of it.

You retrace your steps, noticing the art covering the walls, alongside books and ornaments and children’s drawings pinned up.

The shipping forecast begins to play from a speaker somewhere.
After half an hour of exploring, you leave – late for an appointment.
You glance at the sign above the door on your way to catch your bus. ‘The Observatory’. You think about the place for the rest of the day, struggling to put your finger on exactly what it was. But you know one thing: you’re curious, and you can’t wait to go back…

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This is The Observatory.