A Way to Pass Time

3

Ch. 3

I'm almost positive hell has frozen over and the devil was in their huddling and trying to warm his pointed tail and goat horns. I'm walking inside the bookstore and the temperature isn't much different. The thermometer in my house read that it was only eighteen degrees outside. I had jeans over sweatpants, three layers of tank-tops, two sweaters, a thin and thick coat, ear muffs, gloves and even wool underwear. Let's face it, I just don't have the kind if body fat that would help me generate heat.

Hey, maybe I'll become so frozen that my body will be preserved and fossilized and shown in museums in the future. Or they'll find a way to bring me back to life from my frozen body. Or I could become a zombie. Wonder what that's like.

I didn't see Sheila but I saw the jacket that I had given her yesterday folded neatly on the cashier's desk where I sat most of the day. It smelled of cigarette smoke and beer, but I still smiled. She really wasn't that bad of a person to work for.

"You're five minutes late!" I hear her screech from her office. "Do that or leave the shop without permission again and you're fired!"

I take that back. She's a slave driving bitch.

I made an annoyed sound and sat down on the creaky stool, the seat cold. The book that I was reading yesterday was still there and I picked it back up from where I left off.

After the part where the character has to live in the real world, he's learning basic things like cooking and washing clothes. And then he meets his one true love!

And so it continues. Suddenly my mind wanders off, wondering if this would be how I will spend the rest of my life. The same, monotonous, black and white existence until I die. Then I realized it was pointless to wonder. My life would never change because I'm Gray. And Grays don't ever change. They might change to different shades, but they could never become a different color and becoming a Golden would be out if the question.

I gave up on my book along with the expectancy that people would come into the run down book shop. I spent the rest of the day doodling in my notebook, squishing people's heads by pinching my fingers together while closing one eye, and listening to Sheila snore in her office.

When it was time to go home, I poked my head into her office and gagged at the smell. I don't know how she managed it, but it was even worse than yesterday. And I mean "worse" as in, can't walk through the room without knocking a pile of trash and glass bottles over. I sighed in exasperation, dragged Sheila's unconscious, boney ass out of the way and started hauling all sorts of shit into trash bags.

All the while, I had no idea that I was being watched.

Later that day, I went to the store to buy something that was edible to put in my small fridge. There weren't a lot of people in the small grocery store and I was looking to buy some bread when I felt someone staring at me from behind. Sometimes my paranoia was handy at times and others times it was annoying.

For a while, I walked around the place and I physically felt the person following me. Sneakily, I darted through the aisles and ended up in the candy isle marching towards the stalker. None other than the annoying Golden girl from yesterday.

Lindsey wore a nice green coat with dark skinny jeans and boots. A small pocket notebook and pencil in hand and she was looking around frantically for me. Annoyed, I snuck up behind her, lifted my foot, and kicked her in the back, nearly sending her the white tiled floor.

She winced as she hit the floor and glared up at me. "What the hell was that for?"

In answer, I just rolled my eyes and walked past her. They were having a two for one sale on InstaRice. Rice to me is like drugs to a druggie. Irresistible. Lindsey just sighed at my lack of response and just came up behind me to look at my shoulder. I just shoved my basket full of food into her arms and started loading up on boxes of InstaRice.