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“ I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world”
Madeline Miller
People came and went. Hundreds a week, thousands a month, millions a year. Different people with different lives and different minds.
Some bought fiction, some self help, some poetry. From time to time someone would try to steal, and from time to time Todd wouldn't say anything. It's not like they were losing much. And besides, someone who could afford to pay wouldn't rob, so maybe that person was just trying to survive. Or maybe not.
For Todd, time wasn't a thing anymore. Perhaps just a vague concept he once knew about, like a dream you barely remember, or a memory too dusty to be clean again. It was the store. It had this power: to make you forget about everything.
People came and went, but he always had to stay.
He had seen millions of lives start and end there. He had seen the light outside and the moving of the sun, and how it matched perfectly with the clouds. He had been cold and hot and the rain had poured sometime back when their roof wasn't that good. And he was tired.
When his sister asked him why, he couldn't tell. There wasn't really a reason, just the toll of having to go there everyday. No, he didn't enjoy his job, but who did anyway? Work was just a way to get money to live. It wasn't invented to enjoy it, that's what hobbies were for. The therapist had told him this was a very negative way of seeing things, and that it would hurt him in ways he couldn't even imagine. But it didn't matter that much anyway. Work was work, and you better learn to tolerate it before it was too late.
The day was Monday. An old clock hung n the wall behind him, ticking the minutes away.
Thirty seven minutes until lunch.
Outside was gloomy, and it didn't seem like anyone would come in. On days like this, people were either at work or sleeping. So maybe nothing would happen if he skipped a few minutes. But just as he was going to exit the store, a man walked in. A bit taller than him, he was wearing a bright yellow jacket.
“Oh, hi,” the man said. It took Todd two and a half breaths to realise he had to stay.
“Hi,” he answered, now as gloomy as the sky outside.
Todd went back to his position as boring owner, and the man started to look and touch everything as the new and strange customer he was. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Hmm, no,” he said. “For now. I'm not looking for anything specific.” He picked up a book, opened it in the middle and read a few lines. “I'm just looking".
“Alright,” Todd muttered, a little annoyed. If you were just looking, say you are just looking. You don't need to say so many words. Too many words.
There was a period of minutes where Todd went away, zoned out of reality, staring into nothingness, when the customer came back to the counter.
“I didn't find anything interesting but,” he looked behind Todd, at the shelf filled with stationery, and smiled.“I’ll have that yellow pencil”
“So a regular pencil?”
“It’s yellow,” the man said under his breath.
The thing about this customer was that he wasn't like any other that came by. He actually talked, kept conversation, he looked alive. Everyday the store would fill with grey people, but this one had color.
Todd reached for the pencil. It sure was yellow, more yellow than he remembered. Bright yellow.
“Here. It's fifty cents."
“Fifty cents for a pencil?” The man yelled, and after that, scoffed, and after that, came back to his normal demeanour. Todd didn't know what to say. “I mean, I guess it's normal.”
“Yeah it's the regular price for a regular pencil.” Todd assured him. This conversation was getting tiring. Todd glanced quickly at the clock. Fourteen minutes until lunch.
“But what if it was all yellow? Would that change a thing? And if it was red?”
“Listen, do you want it or not?”
The man looked doubtful for two, three, four seconds. During his moment of indecision, Todd realized he had a little blue flower attached to his hair. He had the urge to take it out, to take it, take the flower.
“Yes,” the man said, sighing. Todd gave him the pencil. “But would it be the same price?”
“What?” Todd took the coins and saved them inside the register box.
“A red pencil. Would it be the same price?”
“I don't think they make red pencils. At least not like these." Suddenly, something lit up inside him. A flame, a spark, or just a shadow. Something started moving, helping him realize what was happening.
Since he started working there, no one had ever talked to him like this. It would just be small talk about the weather, about meaningless things. No one dared to start real conversations, because no one was interested in them. Because no one was real. They were all too busy living.
But for some reason this random man kept talking and talking, and asking and speaking. He wouldn't stop, and a part of Todd was irritated by this, but another part didn't want it to end.
Because after all, what Todd longed for the most was someone –or something– he could just talk to. Someone who would fill the empty hole long growing in his soul.
“Well that's a shame.” The man picked the pencil and looked at Todd. Todd looked back at him, and smiled. He was the special kind.
“I guess it is,” he said. Quickly, without even thinking about it, he grabbed a sticky note and wrote down a number. “Here's the store's phone! Just in case you need to-” he stopped.
This was dumb. But the man was looking at him, eyes wide open, almost unnoticeable smirk, holding the pencil with his left hand.
“Yes?” he picked the note and read it.
“Just call.” Breath one, two, three. “In case you need it.”
“Okay.” Putting the note inside his pocket and the pencil behind his ear, he also took the flower from his head. The smirk was still there, “In case I call, I'm Dirk Gently.”
Todd picked up the flower, which was, to his amazement, perfectly fresh and not mushy or dead at all.
“I'm Todd-” But there was no one there anymore.
Almost like fire, Todd ran towards the entrance. Nobody.
A heavy cloud hid the sun, and the act of breathing became too hard to be bearable. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw a yellowish shadow cross quickly to the other side of the pavement, the one hidden by high buildings.
Mundane magic. He gazed towards the sky. Sun all over. The cloud had disappeared.
“Hey, deadbeat.” A familiar voice yelled nearby, and he had to look down. Amanda.
“You're late.”
“Sorry, I was too busy sleeping.” She punched him lightly on the shoulder and went inside the store. “Any customers today?”
Todd went behind her and a shy smile grew inside his lips.
“Yeah, a weird man bought a pencil.”
“Nice business,” Amanda laughed and sat behind the counter, eating a hot dog.
Todd picked his bag and a yellow pencil, and went back home.
What a dumb day that had been. Todd would remember it forever.