Well’s wrong with your mouth?
Lady, I’m just not paid enough to care.
Would closing it be too much to ask?
Is a decent wage, benefits, and satisfying career too much to ask?
Well, no.
Glad you agree. There you go, then. That’ll be $14.37. And that’s a twenty. $5.63 is your change.
The woman had a puzzled look on her face, took her change and left.
The man at the counter rested his weight on his hands, lifting his feet an inch off the ground. His job was one of perpetual boredom. Building arm strength and confusing the hell out of the occasional customer were brief moments of amusement, but alone they were a few stones thrown across a vast ocean.
The cashier blinked gradually, and soon enough the sun said “fuck this, you’re on your own.”
It crashed into the horizon. The moon apparently saw this, took the hint, refused to come out entirely. Even the celestial bodies seemed to share his plight, and seeing the horrific condition he withstood, thought him mad and fled in terror.
The wonders of an active imagination. Never before had a convenience store been host to such mythological murmurings as this!
Two minutes before freedom. Fred walks in, and the Atlas-sized bore was now his to bear. I got to get me home!
***
I went down the same old streets, avoiding those sketchy alleys paved with coke from end to end, hustling pimps pushing their goods on the side of the fresh-powder road. Never has temptation tugged me there, but often does it make me stare.
This night I walk again alone; no unfamiliar pass me in my stroll. By chance I saw the form of a man wave at me a spindly hand that beckoned one-two-thrice with force that my eyes and legs could not resist.
I followed it some ways away to parts I’ll say I’d never scene outside the confines of my head wherein I’ve pushed along some grisly plots as I make room for more pressing thoughts.
Bark and root and mud throw themselves upon my feet and strike my legs as they pursue the fellow up ahead a few steps that I knew were not made of a thing mammalian in origin.
Twas reptilia! This classy fellow, and having led me this far, sank away, leaving me under the stars surrounded by trees – I felt so lost, utterly, completely that I near damn cried.
Suddenly, without warning, another one appeared. This one was slender and sleek like the other was not and, to be frank and sincere [fine man, Frank Sinclair] it was kinda hot. A female, no doubt, as it kissed me so quickly and did to me things that, given our species, were illegal in most states, especially this one.
She finished moving me and made me fall (gently) and she laid on top of me, all morning basking in light of the sun who surely approved and said “Yeah, boy got some!”
As it was slithering off me I caught sight of my watch: 10 till the bells rand and work would begin
I ran to the shop still smelling like squamate and got there in time for a quick minutes doze.
Never again would I see such a creature, lured to her after my paid torment.
That’s just my luck, though.