The line of customers was unearthly long. I called for backup at the unmanned registers over the intercom and then turned my attention to the old woman at the front of line.
I tried not to panic as the old woman began placing her dozens of items on the conveyer belt.
I rolled up my sleeves. It was going to be a rough checkout.
I scanned the foodstuffs on the conveyer belt as the old woman unloaded them. Once the old woman had unloaded every item, she came to stand in front of the POA system.
“Hello... Kay.” She said without much enthusiasm, squinting at my nametag.
I kept my eyes down and replied bashfully, “Hello.”
I picked up a box of spaghetti and promptly dropped it. Automatically, I said, “Sorry!”
Like all shells, I was horribly uncoordinated, despite doing daily exercises to try and improve it.
“You’re fine.” The old woman replied with a yawn as I picked the box up and scrambled to scan it.
My boss and all my coworkers all thought I scanned the items far too slowly. I could hear them driving the whip in my head.
Darin can scan these items in under a minute. We expect you to be able to get through every customer in under five minutes.
Their expectations just made me more nervous.
The old woman looked bored and listless.
She must be thinking that I’m terrible at my job! I jumped to conclusions like I always tended to do.
I dropped a bag of candy.
The old woman chuckled. “Butterfingers today?”
I laughed awkwardly, trying not to take the remark personally. “I suppose so.”
Curse my shaking hands! I thought to myself as I snatched up the bag of candy and ran the bar code through the scanner.
At least it was easy to steady my hands once I realized how shaky they were. With a deep breath and a firm, clenching of my fists to ground myself in reality, I swept each item through the scanner as fast as possible without dropping them.
One, two, three, four…
I counted them, hoping it would help me focus and calm my thumping heartbeat. It worked.
I smiled. Before I knew it, I was halfway done.
With a flourish, I swept the final item—a bag of frozen peas--through the scanner like an artist finishing a painting with a clean stroke of their paintbrush.
“That will be…” I waited for the final dollar amount to appear on the computer screen.
It blipped into existence.
The smile melted from my face.
The numbers made my head hurt; I couldn’t read them.
The old woman luckily didn’t care that I didn’t give her the total. I was relieved and waited for her to insert her credit card in the POA system.
My eyes widened in horror when she pulled paper money out from her wallet.
She counted the dollars as she handed them to me. “That’s one-hundred-thirty.”
I put on a big smile, trying to mask my embarrassment at not knowing what she owed me. “Thank you.”
I took the cash and placed it in the register, closing it.
The old woman stood there, tapping her foot. “Where’s my dollar?”
“Oh… Do I owe you a dollar?”
“…Can’t you read the number?” The old woman asked.
I looked at the number again; it was unreadable. My mouth moved, but no words came out.
The old woman rolled her eyes. “You owe me a dollar.” She repeated.
“Okay…” I opened the register.
Oh no… I only have change.
My hands went cold with fear. How many cents are there in a dollar? 60?
I handed her six dimes.
The old woman looked annoyed. “Excuse me, where’s my forty cents?”
My heart skipped a beat. “Forty cents?”
The old woman sighed. “It’s alright, you’re just a shell after all. Why don’t you call your manager over?”
I lowered my eyes shamefully. I looked at the line of customers; all of them looked annoyed and angry at the long wait.
I shook my head. “It’s okay; I can give you the forty cents.”
I opened up the register and gave her four more dimes. The old woman didn’t even say thank you—she just went on her way. The rest of the day was just as horrible as the beginning. I drove home with tears in my eyes.
__
My nose wrinkled at the stench of old cigarettes pervading the air as I pulled into the filthy parking lot. Empty soda cans and beer bottles were being pushed to and fro by the shrieking wind; the apartment complex itself wasn’t any cleaner--piles of trash were stacked up against it and dirt was caked to the bottom of it.
After I parked, I looked out the window worriedly, making sure there were no weirdos in the parking lot.
I gulped, and, after seeing that there was no one in the parking lot but me, I flung the car door open. I stepped out, made sure I had my wallet and keys in my pocket, slammed the door shut, and locked the car door.
Due to the biting wind, I shoved my hands in my pockets, and, while constantly throwing glances over my shoulder, ran over to the beat-up building and climbed the white staircase whose paint was peeling.
Room 206. I repeated to myself. Once, I had forgotten which suite I lived in and I had accidentally jiggled my keys in someone else’s lock. A six-foot-tall man with a mean face and even meaner muscles appeared in the door and told me to… Buzz off.
I walked along the balcony until I arrived at my door. My teeth chattered as I jiggled the keys in the lock. It opened with a satisfying click, and I stepped inside, shutting the door behind me.
I wasted no time; I crawled under the blankets on my bed. I smiled; my face was a little chilly, but my body warmed up fast.
I grabbed the remote on the nightstand next to my bed and turned on the TV, pulling the blanket up around my nose.
I frowned. I forgot that I had tried to watch the news for a few minutes last night before getting bored and turning it off.
I cocked my head to the side.
The reporter was commenting on some graffiti I had spray painted last night. Most of them were just random designs, but one was…
I smiled.
One was a very handsome man with blue eyes and blonde hair.
I bashfully sank further under my covers with my cheeks reddening and my eyes batting. How embarrassing that my artwork of him should end up on the news!
Graffiti of any kind was illegal; art that was not government approved was illegal in general, but I couldn’t help myself.
I was tired, so I left the TV on and flipped onto my side, closing my eyes.
My body suddenly went rigid. My mind was transported.
The dark tower called out to me as it liked to.
__
I was in a dark, scary, cage. There was straw underneath my pale, white toes which shone ethereally in the lightless tower.
I was hugging my knees for warmth. I had been alone in that cage for a long time; I was hungry, cold, and naked.
Every so often, I would stand up and grip the metal bars on my cage, shaking them and screaming for help. There were no guards outside of it; there was no one at all.
There were only eerie echoes and thick shadows cast on the grimy, chipped, stone walls of the tower for company.
Time passed.
The only thing to be heard was my own weeping and the shrieking wind bellowing up from a gigantic stairwell just outside my cage.
Time passed. My skin was caked with dirt, my stomach begged for food, my brain pleaded for any kind of human contact and affection, but none came.
I became so overwrought with misery and loneliness that I began to look out at the world beyond my cage in a different light.
I had to look at the world in a different way if I wanted to survive.
That rock looks like a dog! I thought to myself, brightening. And that stalactite looks like an ape holding a staff!
A smile came to my face as I surveyed my surroundings and, suddenly, I was no longer in an unforgiving, cruel prison.
I was in another world. A world of my own imagining.
In this world, me and my dog were locked away, and there was an ape… A wizard-ape with a mighty staff who had caged us. My dog had a jewel embedded in its collar—a jewel that could bring peace between humans and apes as foretold by an ancient prophecy—and the wizard wanted to prevent us from taking it to a good wizard who could use it to cure the evilness in human and ape hearts.
But there was one more person in the room—a shadow in the shape of a human man!
My mouth widened. That one… That one is my friend.
On my adventure, this man would be me and my dog’s guardian and friend and—
The shadow moved.
I fell on my rump and scooted away from the bars.
The shadow sped, like liquid, under the bars and into my cell. It paused, the top of its shadowy head touching my feet.
I hid my face behind my hands. “Please don’t hurt me!”
The only sound was the shrieking wind.
Two soft, gentle hands grabbed my wrists and peeled my hands away from my eyes. The shadow man was no longer pasted to the ground. He stood upright like any other human; he was seven-feet-tall, his neck, arms and legs were incredibly thin, and two, bright, circular eyes peered out of an otherwise completely black head.
He offered me a hand.
My heart told me he was a friend, the same as my imagination did. I grabbed his hand and let him hoist me to my feet.
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