The bronze antique bells jingled as I entered. The store is small and foggy with the incense’s smoke and the tile flooring that was once marble white, now permanently discolored with mud and sea salt. The lights flickered alternately as if to drive away its customers. The cashier is slouched down in his chair with the newspaper over his face.
“Hey, I’d like a box of cigarettes.”
The cashier tipped the newspaper up a bit and peeked through. While mumbling to himself, he grabbed the box of cigarettes from under the counter and threw it on top. “Twelve bucks!” he said.
I raised my right eyebrow as we made eye contact. He is now wearing the newspaper like a hat; I can see the dark spots under his bloodshot eyes. “Do you take credit?” I asked.
“You’re not from around here, huh?”
“Does it matter?” I just wanted my smoke.
“You’re the first customer we have that uses credit,” he gave a loud laugh that sounded like coughing “this town is so far behind, the only thing that changes these days are those damn tides.” Indeed, what he said is true. It has been a long time since I have last set foot here, but I bet that I can still get to wherever I am going, blindfolded. “We sell umbrellas too!” he said as pointed out the window.
I gave him a fifty for the umbrella; I no longer felt the urge to smoke. On my way out of the store, I saw some sunny smiles in a glass vase on the chipped windowpane; probably the only redeeming property in this store. “Hey, I’m going to take one of these as well.” The cashier grunted in response. I placed the small sunflower into my coat pocket and walked out.
*
Isabella Wilmer always tied a sunny smile onto her white sun hat as she walks two miles from the hills north of this town to come play with us at the orphanage, bringing her maid Erica along with her. When we were little, we would play house together. We would stack the bricks that we took from the fifth street buildings, literally removed them from the walls of the abandoned homes and built our own. I was always the father and Isabella, we called her Izzy, was always my wife. We would wander through the playground, playing with the younger orphans and adopt them. Izzy would usually adopt a girl first. She would teach her daughter all the things her parents taught her and did things that her parents probably never did. She would carry her everywhere she went, feed her treats that Erica brought, told her stories from books that she had recently read, and sometimes slept together on the dusty wool rug that I laid out for them.
As we grew older, our house games slowly came to an end; however, Izzy remained the same. In fact, everyone seems to have remained the same. Izzy still visited, they still looked up to her like their mother, and she treated them like her children as she passed sugar cookies around and read books to them. Those days, I would sit and wonder if she would be just as happy if we were to be married one day; or if these feelings simply an imaginary creation constructed by years of role playing. I left the orphanage, hoping to be more then a pretended husband; I am real.
*
The cement streets are full of cracks and potholes, which is fine since automotives have yet to populate the roads. On a hot day, it stank of feces and dead fishes. On a rainy day, it reeked of rotting trash. Even a flood wouldn’t be enough to cleanse this town. The buildings are about half a century behind and its deteriorations were beginning to show. Other than its lack of hygiene, bad things seldom occurred here. There was no history of any serious sicknesses, natural disasters, or war. This little town feels like that of an ancient painting; unchanging, however rotting away with time.
Yet, I don’t dislike being here. The sound of the rain drops hitting my new umbrella felt homey. The uneven sidewalks, the roaring sea nearby, the shouting of sailors and seamen; they all bring back memories of a plain and peaceful time.
