On the Other Side

"Have a nice day!"

The small bell hanging just above the front door rang, signifying another customer's departure from the store. Link's plastered smile and feigned cheer immediately evaporated as soon as he heard it. Slouched behind his place at the register, he sighed.

Every day was like the one before. It was almost June, meaning most proms, banquets, and other things of the sort were over, and not many had need of bountiful bouquets or fanciful flowers anymore. There'd be the occasional customer, often either a man who has no other idea what to get the woman in his life for her birthday or an older woman who has a passion for gardening, but for the most of the day, Magda's Marigolds was the quietest shop on the block.

Because of this, Link had plenty of spare time, but nothing better to do with it than arrange and rearrange the displays and sweep the floors of the incessant stream of fallen petals. How on earth had he ended up here? Working at a trashy fast food joint would be better than this. It'd be more exciting, at least. Link didn't even know a thing about flowers outside of whatever was in the reference guide book his coworker Anju had lent him.

It wasn't even as if it was a nice flower shop. It was crowded, poorly ventilated, and the volume of the speakers that were supposed to play pleasant music were broken so it was so quiet it could only be heard if no one in the shop was talking. No, it certainly was not a nice flower shop. Quite frankly it might be the worst.

There was one thing, however, that kept Link from completely losing his mind. One customer that kept coming back, every day, promptly at the same time every afternoon. This customer was distinctly different from the elderly gardeners and flustered husbands that made up the majority of the population of shoppers. She was young, probably around Link's age, and always sported a dark, old-looking t-shirt with ripped jeans. She often wore her hair up in a messy bun, a scarf or handkerchief tied around her head to restrain the flyaways.

She didn't seem quite like the flowery type. But every day, she would come, buy a single flower, and leave. It was never the same flower twice. One day she'd buy a carnation, the next a rose, the next a lily, but never again. As long as they had more new flowers, she would come and buy them. One by one.

This girl wasn't a complete stranger to Link. He knew she worked at the tattoo shop right next door and came by in the afternoons because that's when she was on break, though he hadn't any idea what her name was or why she was meticulously collecting all these flowers. They'd exchange casual banter for a bit before she'd make her selection and be on her way. It had gotten to the point where Anju had asked if the two of them were siblings because of how often she observed them teasing each other.

Working at the tattoo shop, Link would often muse, It must be so much cooler than it is here. In every sense of the word. Link pulled at his collared shirt in discomfort. It was always so dreadfully humid in the flower shop. Of course, the broken air conditioning didn't help. He bet the tattoo shop had working air conditioning. If only he could follow that girl and see things from the other side. He wanted to know more about her work at the shop, and how much more fun it must be than staring at the painfully colorful flora in his harshly lit shop that threatens to burn your retinas while simultaneously clogging your sinuses with pollen from the lack of air circulation. What he wouldn't give to trade places, even for a day...

"I'm sorry, sir, but I can't give you a discount unless you have the coupon with you," Link explained for the umpteenth time to the crotchety middle-aged man in front of him.

"Well, what do you know, you're a kid!"

"Sir, I'd like you to know that I am a legal adult and have been working here for over a year. I'm quite familiar with how we handle these types of issues."