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"What about Egan?" Polly asked, loudly enough to be heard through the swinging door which divided the delivery bay from the staff kitchen.
"Leave him." Kirk scoffed. "He never eats with us anymore. And anyway I want to treat you all to soups at that new place! I can't pay for the whole store."
Egan sat and listened as the group enthused about soups and the cute little toast bears the restaurant used as croutons. Their voices faded. Finally, he stood and made his way across the short, sticky lino with squeaking shoes to retrieve his box of cold sandwiches from the ancient, wheezing refrigerator. Someone had taken his yoghurt. "Hm." He picked up the damp, chilled plastic box and shoved the door closed to ensure it did not open itself, then left for the safety of the janitorial closet.
Perhaps it was the yoghurt. Perhaps it was the fact that the same child had left a yellow puddle on the same section of grey stone floor three times this week. Perhaps it was the way Polly watched him with sad eyes but said and did nothing, but by the time his shift was ending Egan felt curiously numb.
"You're closing tonight." Sinhjit was a tall man who loomed over everyone and had a face which apparently incited trust. Egan thought he seemed sad. "Gris called in sick."
"That's four hours from now." He had been looking forward to the leftover salad and beef waiting at home, to watching the next installment of Jar Revegers with his feet up.
"I know, I'm sorry. We can't afford to pay you overtime but you live close so just come in fifteen minutes before, okay?" Sinhjit meant it when he said that he was sorry but the man had duties to attend to and lazy staff to wrangle and he was already turning to leave.
Egan felt a distant roiling in his gut. It pulled heat to it until his thighs were cold and stiff and his stomach ached. "Sinhjit." He muttered. The manager kept walking, clearly not hearing the quiet words.
Egan watched the stooped, lean back retreat. He watched tired feet drag as they carried his employer away and glanced up to find Polly's wary, apologetic smile on him again. The faces of his slacking colleagues, of Trisha who always worked twice as hard as any of them hauling herself to restock shelves in spite of her age and Dejaun listening to his music as always, in his own world as he mopped floors.
The ridged metal of the fire door mats scuffed under his trainers and he looked down, the upside-down view of toes in shade and heels framed by sunlight something he might paint, if he ever painted. Smiling faintly, he pulled off the uniform shirt and folded it. Placing it neatly on the security desk under the nose of a frowning figure who merely watched, he read the badge one more time. "Help yourself."
The vest he wore did little to shield him from cold wind and drizzle as he unlocked his old car with a grinding click and it was not much warmer inside, but as he drove home and turned the knob which strove valiantly to kick a timid artificial fire to life, as he opened the refrigerator and eyed its meagre contents, he smiled.
The clock, when he next looked, told him that closing time had been and gone. His cellphone lay silent and unattended on the arm of the couch and he set aside his plate and glass to lean back and pat his stomach. "You know, I think it *was* the yoghurt."