XOXO Love, Dodo (HYUNGWONHO)

Chapter 3 - Ring My Bell

October 30 - Monday - 19:57

It's one of those days. The kind that stretch paper thin, to a near translucent degree, and drag perpetually as if to spite, ensnaring one in a state akin to the most exhaustive, numbingly inauspicious demonstration of limbo. A distinct passage of time is discernible, perhaps, at times, acutely so, yet, upon further inspection through the bare eye, there in its open range, only a matter of futile minutes have diminished. What is supposed to have been a simple four hour shift has mutated monstrously into what feels like - and might as well have been - eight hours. A clear lack of customers has me bored out of my mind. The emptiness bores me, the silence bores me.

I could really use a nap.

In the kitchen, Ten sings along to the music from our state of art PA system. A freshman at my high school from Thailand, his crystalline demeanor and inherently high-levels of extroversion make shifts with him pleasant and, when he's particularly sociable, go by in a blink of an eye.

Before running off to football practice, our shift-supervisor, Johnny, a tall boy, though arguably too young to supervise, only authorized to do so having been born the owner's nephew, had instructed thoroughly that Ten do inventory while I, admittedly tired, keep a diligent eye on the register and front of the shop. I really cannot comprehend how the owner expects Johnny to manage staff while away at practice, or if his uncle is even aware of his absence. However, Johnny calls the store often to ask how things are going, how the staff are holding up, though, while I assume this surely cannot be enough to keep a shop going under normal, more corporate circumstances, it is not my place to comment on how others manage when I am barely competent enough look after myself.

I get paid to be here, not to ask questions.

This is truly the apathy at which I approach the world and how it seemingly deals with me.

I glance over my shoulder to see how Ten is doing, but he's disappeared into the supplies closet by now.

Uninterrupted, the clock on the black wall behind me ticks and tocks raucously amidst a near dead silence, heckling me into a dangerously low state of consciousness if not for the shrill ringing of patrons exiting the shop. Three cylindrical chimes hung at differing heights, previously beautiful and metallic, years before my time, now well-loved and rusted from perpetual use, clang against the wooden door to my right.

Presently, four girls - the only customers in the last hour or so - exit with books and binders, and overpriced coffee in hand, bags slung across their shoulders. One girl, the most talkative, with wide hoop earrings and a luminous sun-kissed is tan, is fitted in a brown and gold pullover bearing the mascot of a local university stitched across the chest. It's the university at which my father teaches at.

The girls discuss with great dread yet buoyancy their university midterms, plans for this weekend, boys and work. The one last in line smiles widely at me and I wave her goodbye timidly. She, for some inexplicable reason, had tipped me well. She also went so far as to make attempts at small talk, though every instance had been ruined to some degree by my maladroit temperament and Johnny calling the store. Her fierce eyes and exemplary facial symmetry ring a bell, but no more than her friends do as they push the heavy wooden door, leaving a the chimes ringing in my ears.

If I had to guess, I believe she used to go to my high school; her senior year had been my sophomore year. What I guess to be her name is on the tip of my tongue, but I let it go.

It is that phase of the year where the sun begins to set early. Captured picturesquely by the shop's sable window frame, freshly dusted and wiped down expertly when I had searched desperately for odd jobs and tasks to kill time, the otherwise blue skies have become smeared by segments of peach, tangerine, and passages of rapidly budding darkness. Night approaches, faster. The warm glow of the setting sun propels a splendid gold deluge of warmth, orange light producing in contrast to it crisp shadows of the store's furniture against alabaster flooring tiles, and black and white walls.