hippie crypt 𓇗 ✧˖°.

shopkeeper blues

𓇢𓆸  . . .

The gig was far from glamourous, it was an embarassment, but that didnt make it any less enjoyable. It was ridicule & it was broken glass, it was men in trucker caps shouting & waitresses rolling their eyes. It wasn't a glorious gig but it was what made Myrna Richis feel a little more human & a little less alien. She dragged her feet across the pavement the whole walk back home. The startling sensation of rain rolled off her back. Her body felt sore, but her soul felt free. Her heels were scratching the asphalt so hard you'd swear they were creating little sparks of fire if you were walking behind her. There was blue glitter streaming down her eyes that mirrored her childhood watercolor paintings of muddy skies & the torn pink chiffon of her dress billowed behind her & she couldnt help but smile at its resemblance to carnival cotton candy. 

She had bruises on her knees from the intensity of the performance & she had 15 bucks in her purse that proved that no matter how loud she screeched into the microphone, it was just a local tavern & 15 bucks is all she'd get for her visceral expressions upon it's dimly lit stage.

But if its for the money, you're not really doing art, you're doing commerce. Myrna didn't chase money, she chased a dream, she chased an innate primal desire to express & create, to craft objects & performances that reflected concepts & emotions. She didn't want to be tied down by commercialism, by cash registers, or stocking shelves. Though she valued & deeply respected blue collar workers whom allowed & created the spaces for artist's to inhabit, she wanted more, she wanted raw expression. But every night when she'd get home, she'd be met with her own overthinking, or the physical incarnation of her insecurities, her father. Her dad was a nasty virus that couldn't be neutralized with the relieving medication of music & art, in fact, his poison only became more potent with each & every show, each & every painting, each & every lyric. 

Myrna's dreams were like colourful fireworks, lighting up the skies with hope, but her father's words were like clouds, blocking out the light and dimming her spark. Each time she found a glimmer of joy, he was there to snuff it out, like a thief stealing away her happiness.

As she ran into her shop, she was met with the tormenting face of her deadbeat dad, the thorn in her side, the voice in her head that stunned her growth. Whenever Myrna felt herself growing, her father came and sprayed pesticides on the petals of her ambitions once watered by her creative endeavors, wilting all the vivid joy that was starting to bloom. Upon her arrival, there he was, his words spewing hatred upon her, suffocating the post-gig bliss like malathion aspyxhiating garden pests. 

It was a colorless day in the evergreen state, a heavy rain lulled rosebay flowers to rest & a mist blanketed the serene hemlock trees like swaddle newborns. Myrna could only wish to be in the place of those silent giants, because unlike the foggy tranquility outside, there was nothing but turmoil within her. The way rain beat the window-panes wasn't nearly as forceful as the blaring voice of her father, which was reverberating through the thin walls of her worn out antique shop, "Richis Relics". which doubled as her house too. Myrna cradled her head in her hand, her fingertips tracing the wary lines of stress that so harshly etched onto her forehead with each word that erupted out as result of her dads ignorance.

"Well, you just wait & see, you'll end up a washed up hooker, just like your mother!" He blurted out, looking down at Myrna with discontent, waving his hands in the air as if he were swatting away fruit flies. Myrna's mother left when she was five & she could hardly remember her voice most days, but she always sympathized with her, because as Myrna grew, she knew exactly why her mother chose to leave. "You're nothin' but a talentless burnout, you can barely bring in customers, I can't keep helpin' you. You're hopeless!" 

Myrna couldn't allow this all too familiar conversational loop dawn on her again & again, so she didn't yell back this time. Instead, she kept her head in her hands, her palms acting as shields that protected her pupils from the upsetting sight of her sorry excuse of a father, whom was towering over her with his frustration stuck between his gritted teeth like a string of floss that just couldn't be broken. His teeth were chipped & it was surely due to how much he'd grind them together whenever he was fuming. It was like wind-up chatter teeth. He'd shout till his jaw started to ache. 

It was recollections of suburban nightmares that haunted her bones in moments like this, Myrna felt like her ten year old self all over again, like a cowering lamb at the slaughter. 

He was the exterminator & she was the pest, he was the butcher & she was the unknowing cattle. 

He was the barb wire that'd cut her whenever she tried to jump over a high fence. 

Her father made her feel like a marionette, with strings wrapped tight around her limbs, controlling her every move. She tried to break free, to dance to the cadence of her own heart, but his grip only grew tighter.

Myrna's dad was cruel, he was cruel in her youth & his cruelty only grew taller beside her limbs, which struggled to meet the grandiose scale of his psychological warfare. Myrna bloomed late, & when she did bloom, her dads abuse seemed to grow too. In disbelief of Myrnas silence, her father walked away, mumbling profanities to himself as he rushed out of the store. The door slammed with a sweet ring of the doorchime that was so unbelievably different from the assaulting rhythm of his fists that'd pound on counters whenever the two would get into arguements. 

Myrna released the pressure from her hands that dug into her skin, dropping them down to her her lap, her palms up to the ceiling, cupped as if she were small once more, asking her dad for candy, examining the glitter that'd smudged off her shiny ash-painted eyelids & onto her spiralled fingerprints.

Myrna sat there in the shop, the peeling floral wallpaper tormented her as she attempted at setting her focus on anything other than her racing thoughts & her heart which was being pumped with blood faster than she could blink. Her eyelids fell heavy, her head even heavier, & she found herself falling into an uncomfortable sleep with her head hung down against the dust-ridden checkout table. As she drifted off to sleep, she was consumed by the weight of her own thoughts & the heaviness of her past.

The weight of her struggles made her feel smaller & smaller, like a stone eroding under the constant onslaught of her troubles.She knew she wanted something more liberating than the weight of a crumbling business that crashed down onto her every passing moment. Richis Relics, that dirty old shop was more of a heirloom than it was an establishment. More of a burden than a business. Some families pass down shiny bracelets or wooden boxes, but the Richis family was different, the Richis family didnt pass down pretty reminders of strong ancestral feats, the Richis family passed down generations of pain.

The Richis family passed down stains. 

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 ✧ ; A/N ... i know this chapter is a bit of a bore but dont fret, kurt will be introduced in the next chapter !!