Lines

Cashier

"Hey, start wrapping up. I'm gonna start cleaning."

She adjusted the collar of her uniform, a button threatened to escape. A slight scent of exertion exuded off the fabric - a long day.

This would be the last double she picked up as a favor.

The last hungry mouth approached, provided his order in a delightful monotone, and rescinded her attempts at small talk. She punched everything in as a robot does. Her emotions were not welcome in this particular transaction.

As the hungry mouth walked away to salivate patiently, she began to wipe down the counter. Streaks of soap scum followed, they would fade away. 

She caught her reflection briefly. Her smile had faded away.

She looked up, something caught her eye. The trembling silhouette of a man.

She squared away her station before glancing once more, and still the figure trembled.

Was he crying?

Perhaps he was laughing. Perhaps he received some good news. 

And yet it had been ten minutes between sightings. Good news rarely lingers through tears for such a duration.

She approached the man slowly, carefully. As though startling the man would turn him feral. Would turn his tears to blood.

But no such outcome occurred. She merely rounded the corner to a man sitting in a booth. He looked at her, and she at him. He continued to silently weep. His tears were apparent, but he produced no sound to mark their arrival before, during, and after the encounter.

"Are you alright?" Her words felt hollow, but she couldn't muster the distant memory of emotion quickly enough to ascertain confidence.

"Yes."

Curt. She hadn't expected that but knew it was only natural.

"It's been a few minutes, are you sure?"

"I'm sorry to bother you."

"No, not at all! Are you positive you're alright?"

"If you must know, I'm not alright."

"We're closing soon but did you want to talk about it?"

With those words his face changed. He looked horrified. As though the sorrow crashing down over him was temporary. In its absence, reality set in.

"Of course, you're closing. I truly am sorry. I lost track of time once I received the news."

"What hap-" She was cut off before she could ask her - perhaps too candid - question.

"I came here because I knew I had to cry. I knew I had to sob, even. And I knew if I did so alone, in a private space, well..." his voice trailed off and he looked down. The fear upon his face was replaced with shame. But it soon collapsed again to the returning sorrow.

"Sir, it's ok you can st-"

"No, no, truly. I have to get going. Thank you."

His words became monotone. And the robot of a man picked himself up, threw away a napkin, and left.

The words he left behind continued to echo within her, as she remained frozen in place before the now-empty stall.

He needed a public place to cry, or else what? She did not want to know, she wished she had remained behind the counter. She wished she had said nothing at all to the trembling but private man amidst the bright fluorescence of the public.

She dreaded the news tomorrow as her head hit her pillow.

But nothing came.

She hit the pillow again, and awoke to another day without commotion. At least none that pertained to the forlorn stranger.

A month went by, she had forgotten. It had almost goaded out her humanity, but after a week of being more encompassing to her clientele she returned to her old habits. An angry mom, a businessman who tosses his plastic payment at her, the homeless man she has to turn away as her manager looks on, her emotions were buried once more. And the robot punched in the orders for the salivating mouths. They bore no eyes, they bore no language, they merely grunted and she acquiesced their gaping maws.

As she was walking home she saw it in a Newspaper vendor. It doesn't click in her head until a moment later.

"Local man hangs himself."

She backs up to look more closely.

"Authorities discovered a man's body in his residence after neighbors reported foul smell."

It couldn't be.

"After examining the scene, authorities discovered the body was of baker John Mayfield. John a decade prior opened a bakery in town, but had to close down due to financial struggles in a few years later. Five weeks ago John's wife and child were lost in a fatal car accident. He had no other close relatives. Authorities say he left a note scrawled across several foreclosure letters that merely said 'Take this vessel as well, it's all I'll have left.' John's bad luck began in childhood upon losing his parents in a coal mining accident which threw him into unsuccessful fostering efforts before finally loosing him to the world. Sometimes you just don't have much luck in this life. May we all take for granted what we're given in the moment."

She expected to cry but she found the tears did not surface.

She merely walked home, woke up her parents, and requested to sleep with them tonight.

And as she slept, she trembled with silent sobs.