When You Stop Hating To Exist

Why We Can't Ever Make Plans

Due to having a free day, Jessie had walked over to the guitar shop. It had always been like that. Therefore, Chris had planned with her arriving. They had watched the news stating that there would be a storm.

Jessie did not hurry, she was not an employee there and customers usually came during the evening. They would do some ordering, restocking, sometimes reorganizing, putting up new decorations. The next decoration change would be the switch from Halloween to Christmas. She made a small detour to the kiosk, buying two mid-sized coffees and a few croissants from the local bakery.

Chris lived above the store; they could enter through the back door, meaning that she found the front door locked. For exactly that reason, Jessie had the keys. Entering, she heard severe swearing from the back of the store. After carefully putting their snacks down, she speed-walked over to Chris, removing her jacket in the meantime.

“This customer asked if we can inspect her band’s room, cause they have trouble finding out what AMPs they should buy.”
Jessie nodded. It did not sound like a too big problem. It did not explain the swearing.
“And guess when she asked.”
Jessie stayed quiet. Chris had turned over, desperation in their eyes. Their lifted their arms, only to literally break down with the next sentence,
“This morning,” a short pause and a desperate sight followed, “I did all the planning for sorting and stocking and shit and she decided to tell me now when she has time? I can’t believe it! How can someone be so disorganized? We’ll do the measuring today together but when it needs to be set up it’d be so great if you could do that alone. I’ll tell the band to help but I can’t rearrange the planning to also do that this week,” Chris had already started to go to his paperwork shelf, “I’ll pay you of course.”

Because Jessie came here so often and helped with everything. They had decided years ago, that whenever she came she would be payed minimum wage for the hours she had worked. Jessie needed all the money she could get and because she had nearly no responsibilities, everything above minimum wage would be unreasonable. Both profited.

Chris had retreated to get their jacket and Jessie had already sat down in Chris’s van, they had thrown her the keys over before leaving the storage room. She began sipping on her, now not that hot anymore, coffee. She was not hungry for a croissant yet. Chris then had joined her in the car. After downing about half of the cup, they started the engine and headed south. Jessie did not know where south was, she had looked at the compass that Chris had placed next to the middle console.

They arrived, without having to look at the map, in a neighborhood that Jessie had never seen before. It was not particularly special; she simply had never been outside her own before. Chris seemed to search for something, Jessie guessed the right house, and when they found it, Jessie was very glad that she had refrained from eating a croissant earlier. Chris’s braking was definitely not gentle. They nearly made a U-Turn; Jessie imagined the tires screeching, before squeezing the van through a small pass way between the houses. They parked in front of some garage doors that resembled doors from horse stables. If Chris knew which door it was or it they were just extremely lucky was unknown to Jessie, because in the exact moment they stopped the engine, the door they had parked in front slid open, revealing something that vaguely resembled an old school car repair shop.
Jessie could not take in the atmosphere; the smell was still present, before they were brought to a flight of stairs that let upwards. Above the car-shop was a huge empty space. Nearly naked concrete walls, except for the graffiti, small windows, old air conditioners dangerously close to falling down. The space was illuminated by Dachfenster so Fabrikstyle.

The house they knocked at did not stand out either. A bit worn down, still intact, about five stories and in a normal color. A, in Jessie’s eyes, tall woman opened the door. Jessie was not the tallest tree and therefore a bit biased when it came to guessing the height of someone else. This woman was averagely tall. She immediately welcomed them, leading them into the basement.