A doorway in a desert draws eyes and wonder. It could be open or closed. The wood could be dried and grooved or shiny and smooth. The door could be flat on the sand, but it is almost always standing.

>Right now, it's open.
The dinner plate eyes of feather bang were paired with an even frown as he stared back into my face.
>Why is it open?
Night glider fared no different, standing immediately to his right and staring up at me at my counter. 
>You see, while it's narrative and symbolic meaning are important, that's not really what I'm implying. 
Feather bang shifted his gaze first. He looked into night glider's dark blue face and she looked into his pale yellow face for a moment. Their eyes followed the air around this space, tracing a line across the bright blue sky before flicking across the sand to the base of the door frame. Their gaze traveled up the almost splintered wood, consumed the flaked green paint, crossed the gap, and settled on the thick brown door and it's remaining spotty white paint. A breeze shifted the door on it's remaining hinge with a slight creak. Their dinner plate eyes and even frown returned to me, at my counter, instead.
>No, lo- hhh,..
Feather bang blinked.
>You're letting the outside in.
Night glider's eyes darted for a moment, scooping the dry expanse of land between us and the nearest mountain. Feather bang did not look away, breathed.
I folded my hooves and stared back.
"What are you doing here?"
"Yeah, you weren't here yesterday. Wasn't that desk heavy? What's the point of this?
>Again, I'm operating my store here. We keep discerning wares for appropriate mome-.
"You got any wood?" Featherbang asked, politely. "We're looking for wood."
>This isn't... to find items of interest, you must only look.
Feather bang had already trotted off halfway through my sentence, but night glider was still listening. I gestured behind her, a short distance away, at the center of my room. She saw a collection of ponies rotating the layers of a large totem pole in the sand nearby. Double Dimond pressed a wing, rotating the middle layer leftwards, and slid along the ground after it, giggling. Party favor swung out from behind the totem, hoof pulled by the rotation of the opposite wing, and was flung a short distance where he plopped onto the soft sand. Party favor flung himself back into the same wing, rotating it and himself behind the totem, and double diamond was pulled from behind the totem and dropped onto the sand.
>Don't just touch merchandise if you don't understand it, over there.
Other than that, night glider saw many of her friends quietly chatting, and sun, and sand, and sky, and a door. She looked back towards me.
>No, you have to look FOR something
"Look for what?"
>No, for "something." And don't take your eyes off it once you see it.
Night glider obliged, really looked, and found between herself and my doorway a display shelf containing only a pink metronome, an oaken barrel of swirling condensed air, and a tiny grey plastic box with a handle on top and some simple latches on each side. Night glider stepped away.
"Hey, wait a minute." Party favor looked distrustfully at the totem.
>Glad you've noticed what happens when you touch things. Bring that over here. Don't go behind it. Drag it backwards, to me.
Party favor pointed at himself.
>Yes, you.
Party favor dragged the totem over to me, digging a divot into the sand on the way. I claimed the top head of the totem pole, held the pole out, pointed away from me, and shook it. It's far easier than it looks, always a party favorite. Double diamond fell onto the ground with a yelp and then skittered away. I leaned the totem on the front of the counter. Party favor followed after double diamond. 
Featherbang backed into the row boat leaned against my counter and it fell over, chopping the sand with it's keel and settling. "Auh" He looked down at the rowboat and walked sideways around it, back to the front of my counter. He accused me, "Hey this is wood." A green unicorn slowly followed his path around the boat.
>look, you can't have the rowboat for
"What does this do!" Nightglider slammed the metronome onto my counter. 
>That, is a wishing device.
I stopped for a moment, let that hang.
>BUT, instead of actually granting the wishes made, it just makes whoever is related to the wish late for work at some point. Don't think to hard about it.
"Gasp" night glider's eyes sparkled and she glanced at all the ponies in the room.
>Or make a wish, then doom them all all in one go. That would be hilarious. Wouldn't it?
Night glider scrunched, "Uh, no."
Feather bang spoke up. "Look, we kind of need to be back in town right... now..."
Feather bang and... the green unicorn glared at night glider while I retrieved my guestbook. Featherbang, despite being angry, kept breaking eye contact.
>Miss... Dear Darling, are you, perhaps, a fan of closing front doors?
"My name isn't Dear Darling."
"Dear Darling, get her!" Feather bang moved himself behind Dear Darling.
"My name is Dear Darling." 
"he he he" Night glider reached up a hoof and pressed it into the middle wing of the totem, swung under the totem with the wing, and was gone.
"Hey!" Feather bang pressed the middle wing of the totem, swung under the totem with the wing, and night glider was tossed into the air.
At least that's one problem solved.
"No!" Dear darling pressed the middle wing of the totem, squng out of sight, and feather bank was flung at night glider. 
"Ah!" Night glider flew back at the totem. Feather bang followed after. Dear darling released him once more. My eyes glazed over. The totem was shifted and jostled away from my counter in the melee.
>This is what I get for making you a named pony.
A high pitched squeal, "Ah, you jerk!" Cinnamon cinnamon, a purple earth mare, had been pulled into a toy punching suit on a platform. Sugar belle was in the opposing suit. One of them had opened the plastic box.
There we go.
>Only way out is if one of you ladies wins a fight.
They could hardly move, just dodge a little and punch the air.
Cinnamon cinnamon began to understand her situation. "Sugar belle, I know I don't know you that well, and maybe I just called you a jerk, and I'm sorry, but," she sniffled, "there has to be a better way out of this. If we work together, I think we ponies can overcome anything, and we don't need to give in to our worse natures to do it!" Cinnamon cinnamon actually managed a smile at the end of that speech, clearly feeling better. 
Sugar bell blinked. "I'll do what I gotta!" Sugar bell's robot suit lurched forward and drove a second blow into Cinnimon's tummy, pushing the wind out of her, and a final blow into her snoot. Cinnimon flew backwards out of the robot like it wasn't even there. Sugar yelled "Sorry!" and waited with a smile to be released. "Wait... no!"
Featherbang had finally figured out to leave well enough alone and returned to my counter. He reached into the boat and pulled out it's oar, only to find it was more like two sticks that had grown around each other, one end a reasonable handle and the other end more like a tuning fork.
"This is literally just a stick. Come on. We can't just go back empty hoofed."
>Look, have you not been paying attention? No, not you, I'm dealing with someone else. Look, whatever it is, you can't just take it because it's wood. Everything which is here is here for a reason. Mam, no, we don't take returns. Even if we did, that  would still control your whole tribe. Giving it back doesn't unbind you. I'm sorry, I'm talking to someone who wandered in from the dragon lands because SOMEONE left the DOOR OPEN.
Featherbang looked around for a dragon. Ember looked around for anyone. "What?" They said in almost unison, seeing nobody extra. 
I sighed and held my head in my hooves.
Party favor walked up, now covered in polka dots, somehow.
"Wait, so then why is there a boat here?" I sucked in through my teeth.
>Oh my god, you can't just ask that.
"..." Party favor looked ashamedly at the floor, contemplating the gravity of his actions. "Why is there a boat here?" Everything flinched. 
>No, look, you can ask that about anything else here but not that.
He reared on his back legs and kicked, grinning. "But why is there a boat here?!" A white split nothing between the space overhead. 
>have you no decency? No tact or discernment?"
"Why is there a boat here!" Featherbang had joined in, as did night glider, who had somehow been released. 
The full stock of my store, the socks and the curses, the skills and the verses, jostled with new vigor to pour from the pores. The world rotated around the boat and the boat rotated in the same direction. The boat was and was where it was and under it could be sand or could be rock or lava or sea and I can't say I really can't say where oh where could it be.
"Why is there a boat here? Why is there a boat here? Why is there a boat here?" most of them had joined in, ignorant as the universe unraveled behind their eyes, a throng jumping forcefully on piano wire suspending them above the defined selfsame below. I screamed, I died, I sat, I cried, and I nonhinged and lived and we all did and only I knew. I knew I knew but what did I knew? Could I ever describe the cracks of the sky? I could describe his laughter, one party favor, pearly whites chattering in the gap when he said "I didn't listen!"
"I got some, scramble!" Sugar belle held the barrel over her head and threw it down into the ground where it shattered, releasing an unmeasurable time of murky captured sound into my shop, and when it cleared, they were gone, and the door was closed.

>Point being, they took the staff with them, and the barrel's fragments. It's meant to appear as an excellent explanation for the original source of starlight glimmer's staff, but it could just as well have occurred long after starlight's time as the leader of Our Town. That hole in the details, through which details can slip in, well it's probably a feature and not a bug! I bet it's got something to do with the point, the themes. There's got to be themes. That's why you found it when you looked around here, in this white void where my shop really resides. This is the void from which stories emerge, the great desert, because I am the merchant of interest.

>And you might be asking, what is the price for this interest if you're such a great merchant? Well, my friends, the price is obviously your votes! Give me your votes! Just hand over every vote and a win as payment and I'll throw in Cinnamon Cinnamon for free! She landed in my boat, the one in front of my desk, and now who could say where she is? That's right, she's everynowhere, and I can give her to you, or, well, maybe you don't give me your votes, and then, well, Aaand she's gone overboard!

"Ok but like we don't get it."

>...
>my existence is tiresome.