Adella and the Convenience Store
Yumi scans over shelves of various types of chips and snacks in plastic multi-colored bags with nondescript logos. Celeste does the same over a wall of coolers filled with bright sugary drinks. Outside the window, lights hanging on the masts of sailboats dot the black sheet sky over the floating dock and cast wavering gold daggers over the water. The convenience store nods gently with the waves underneath. Adella peruses the aisles in search of ibuprofen, and Alexandrov stares out the window at all the sailboats.
"Hey what should I get?" Celeste asks Yumi who's crouched down near the drinks, examining a package of cherry twizzlers. She stands up to look at the drinks, and goes over them like Celeste before her.
"This one," she points, putting her finger right on the glass.
Celeste pulls the drink out of the cooler, fog rolls out as she opens the door. "Why this drink?"
"Because I like the colors."
A sugary fruit juice drink in a bright teal and red can collects condensation in Celeste's hand.
"Me too," they say, smiling.
-
By chance, Celeste and Adella convene at the front counter where one night shift clerk looks sullenly at a cash register, the other looks dejectedly at a wall of merchandise behind the counter.
In a deadpan voice, the cashier asks them, "You guys ready to check out? I can help you ov–"
"Aw man~" the other clerk sighs. "Look," He points to a clock on the wall whose hands are no longer moving. "Time stopped again."
"Aw, this is the third time this week!" The other cashier says as she looks away from all the ibuprofen and bandaids Adella has stacked on the counter. She kneels down behind the counter. "Well, take the clock down and just move it yourself for now while I call the manager." She resurfaces from behind the counter with a landline telephone. The other clerk sighs even deeper than before and takes the clock off the wall. He sets the clock down on the counter, face down, and starts turning the gears by hand.
"I had to do this last time too," He mutters to himself.
"Hey, what about outside? See, look at the light from the sailboats," Alexandrov says.
The clerk, phone held against her shoulder, responds while dialing the manager. "Huh? Oh, reflections of light exist outside of time."
Alexandrov looks again. Sure enough, the light cast over the water by the boats shimmers like before, but the water itself remains still.
"Ah" Alexandrov says, putting his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker.
-
-
Yumi continues browsing the aisles. The entire store is stuck in time. Dust no longer settles in the furthest recesses of shelves and expiration dates on bottles of milk are temporarily nullified. With the least bit of interest in whatever it is Adella talks about with the clerks, Yumi pulls a particularly vibrant drink from one of the coolers. The light blue and sunset colored bottle lingers in Yumi's hand as she closes the cooler door. Upon walking away, a ghost phases through the glass cooler door, its body made of a black fog with glowing yellow eyes. Yumi watches the ghost, in its lumbering gait, walk into one of the aisles. Out of curiosity she peeks around the corner of the aisle to spy on the ghost. As if in slow motion, the ghost lurches around the store picking this and that from the shelves; some tomato soup, a box of dry pasta, salt, what looks to be some raspberry flavored candy, and then drops everything into a basket at the end of one of the aisles. Yumi sneaks around the store, watching with a sense of mystery as the ghost shops. Looking around now, however, she notices that there are several more ghosts also walking around the store at a prehistoric pace, picking items off of shelves and dropping them into baskets.
"Hey, looks like it's time for the nightly rush," says the clerk who's listening to the phone ring in her ear. "You keep turning the clock and I'll take care of customers."
"Okay!" the other clerk says, suddenly more enthused about their task.
"Does this happen often?" Adella asks the cashier.
"Eh, often enough for it to be annoying, but not often enough for the manager to find a permanent solution."
Adella nods, "Truly mysterious."
Adella looks around for a moment, noticing Celeste is no longer in line behind her. Looking back, she sees Celeste has moved toward the back of the line with Yumi.
"Where'd you find that drink?" Celeste asks.
"It was on the bottom shelf in the cooler. This one is eventide flavored!"
"Oh cool, this drink is sun flavored!" Celeste says, as they show each other their drinks.
Adella calls to them, "You two, I'll be waiting on the dock outside with Alexandrov, don't be long, okay?"
Yumi gives Adella a thumbs up and a smile.
-
One by one the ghosts carry their bags of whatever out to the docks where they fade away again soon after. Yumi and Celeste put their drinks on the counter.
"Did you remember to bring some money with you?" Celeste asks.
"Nope!" Yumi says.
Celeste squints their eyes at Yumi before reaching into their pocket. "Alright, well I'll cover you this t—" Celeste's eyes widen as they search their pockets.
"Uhm," they mutter.
Yumi searches her own pockets.
"Hey, how much longer until the manager gets here?" The clock manning clerk groans. He's sitting on a footstool behind the counter.
"How long until the manager picks up her phone is probably a better question," the cashier says.
"Here!" Yumi, in a stroke of luck, produces a wad of bills from her backpack, then takes a moment to flatten them out on the counter. "Thanks!" She says. She and Celeste take their drinks and leave.
"Uh, they forgot their change,"the cashier says.
-
-
Adella and Alexandrov sit on a boat slip and watch the light shimmer even over the motionless water. Masts and lanterns and lamps both gold and silver decorate the marina floating still in the infinite expanse of night in the middle of an ocean.
"Do you think the world will ever end?" Alexandrov says, breaking the silence.
A seagull nearby takes flight into the void. Adella looks at her bag of bandaids and headache medicine next to her.
"Not while I'm still in it."
-
“Okaaaay~” Celeste says as they and Yumi exit the convenience store. “We’re ready to do our homework now.”
Adella looks back to be met with the colorful patchwork of bandaids that dot Yumi’s and Celeste’s shins and knees. The result of exploring the heights of the library, and the depths of the many drawers it holds.
“You know I’m going to hold you accountable for such a declaration, right?” Adella warns them.
“Don’t worry, we got what we were looking for, so it’ll be easy now,” Yumi says confidently.
All four of them return to the library to study. Adella assigns literature homework to Yumi and Celeste, a short story that Adella particularly loves. Yumi and Celeste read almost a quarter of the material before growing bored and impatient, at which point they begin drawing doodles on steno pads hidden behind their books until Adella goes to sleep.
