- Published on
I Don't buy DymahCorp Stuff
by Callum Phillpott
You know what’s weird? You almost never see a DymahCorp truck pull up anywhere. I know it doesn’t seem weird, right, but trust me, it is. Like, I’ve been stocking shelves for longer than I’d like to admit, and usually there’s not one big truck full of one brand that pulls up to the shop, it’s distribution centres — they gather stuff and send them to us. But for DymahCorp, you have to get all the toasters and junk directly from them (which isn’t the weird part, some brands just do that), and you’d almost never notice them arriving if you weren’t paying attention to all the boxes. They just sort of pop up outside. Sometimes you get a brief glimpse of a truck with that strange bald guy logo on the side (he is bald, right? It might be a buzz cut, I don’t know, it’s all shiny and bronze anyway), but they usually come and go before you even notice them.
I say “usually” because, well, I did see a guy once.
It was, like, morning, mid-morning, and usually the DymahCorp truck is scheduled to arrive a bit before that, but I noticed that it seemed to be running late and, I’ll admit, I was a bit curious, so I may have lingered by the warehouse doors just so I could see the truck, and I did. I also saw the person in it — this lanky bloke, pale as day, in a big grey jumpsuit. I’m not saying this to be rude, but he sorta looked like he just got out of prison or something, or maybe he’d been on the street for a bit — he had that sort of bug-eyed look, lots of stubble, very thin, and he was a bit too eager to be doing all this driving and moving boxes. I mean, sure, I’m not the best judge of what “too eager” looks like, but still, it was a bit weird. He also smelled like… I don’t know, just chemicals, I guess. Like when I dropped that big box of floor cleaner and shelves here reeked of it for weeks, that sort of smell.
He barely waited for the truck to stop before hopping out and rushing to the back — like, full-on sprint, nearly — and he started taking out all these small boxes. I felt bad for him, seeing him doing all of this by himself, so I tapped his shoulder and was like, “Hey, I’m Gemma, do you want a hand with that?” and he just stared at me like I’d stabbed him or something. I thought he might be deaf, so I just… said it again, which, okay, not a good idea if he was actually deaf, but he wasn’t. He heard me.
“I’m fine,” he said, very robotic, but also very, very Scottish (no, I’m not doing the voice), and then he just got on with it, heaving every time he picked up one of the lighter boxes full of frying pans or whatever.
It was very concerning, but usually people like him needed a bit of time before they say yes to help, so I just let him get on with it. Besides, someone needed to get the boxes inside the actual storage area, so I just got started on that while he was busy suffering.
Now, this guy was working fast — like, really fast. I’m not even sure how he managed it with all that groaning, but he was still slow enough that I could talk to him, so I tried. First, I asked him if he wanted a sandwich from the back. Yes, I know, you’re not meant to do that, but it’s not like they’ll kill you for nicking a sandwich every now and then… or every day. Look, if they cared that much about it, they wouldn’t put it in a meal deal. Anyway, he just ignored me.
Now, I don’t like it when people ignore me. If he told me to shut up, I would’ve, but he didn’t, so next I just tried to keep saying words until he reacted.
“So, have you been working with these guys for long?” I asked.
Again, he bloody ignored me.
“You know,” I said, “I’ve been working here for years, right, and I’ve never seen anyone from DymahCorp — or I guess their factories or however it works for them. Are you from DymahCorp?”
He stopped for a bit, and his head just snapped toward me, like proper snapped -- I think I might’ve heard a crack somewhere. “Apologies for the delay. Unforeseen circumstances forced us to change our— my route.” And then he just went back to work.
Notice him try to correct himself there? I sure as hell did. “Is there meant to be more than one of you?” I asked.
He stiffened a bit, but then went right back to ignoring me.
“Hey,” I said, “If there’s meant to be another guy to lift all this, I can—”
“Do not help,” he snapped, like he was a bouncer or something.
“Why not? Is it, like, a work hours thing? I won’t tell, if that’s the issue.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You’re grunting like my grandad when he’s walking up the stairs, mate, you need all you can bloody get!”
“I’m fine.”
I’ll be honest, I really wanted to slap him, but he was suffering enough. He clearly needed help, and I decided I’d go do it whether he wanted it or not. I waited for him to walk away before peeking through the back of the truck. There were some heavier boxes in there, so I picked up a pallet jack and hopped inside.
I thought I was well sneaky, but he must’ve heard my foot touching the metal or something, because he just started screaming and running as soon as I got inside. If he were anyone else, I would’ve stopped, but I thought this guy was a right git, so I went on, looking for a box with our address on it, but before I could even see the labels, he grabbed me, like, really grabbed me, and he pushed me up against the wall! I tried to get him off me, but he was, like, wicked strong. I guess it was all those boxes, jacked him up real good, but he looked proper skinny under that suit.
“This is my area,” he said, and his voice was shaking for once, like he was annoyed, or scared, or both, I don’t know, but it was also sort of firm, like a teacher. “Stay out of here. I’ll do my work, you do yours.”
I just nodded. I wanted to have a go at him, but I just couldn’t. My heart was beating up a storm, and I could hardly focus enough to yell at him.
He let go of me, and I turned back to get the pallet jack, since I noticed he already had one in there (makes sense, I don’t know why I brought my own one in there like he wouldn’t have one — probably just still waking up, I guess), but just as I did…
Okay, I need you to promise not to laugh at me, right? Because what I’m going to say will sound really stupid, but it’s not. Well, it is, but it also isn’t, maybe. To be honest, I hardly know if I saw it right. Again, it was early, I probably only had an hour of sleep — I might’ve just been seeing things, but I don’t know…
Behind those boxes was this… I don’t know. I barely saw it, but it was teal, and I think it was glowing, and it looked a bit like a rock, I think. Maybe it was some special DymahCorp thing, but… what would it even be? A salt lamp? They do, like, microwaves and stuff, why would they make salt lamps? I could’ve sworn it was humming, too, but my ears were ringing from being slammed up against the wall, so I don’t know. Before my head could really get what I was looking at, the DymahCorp guy pushed me out and told me to clear the area for the heavier stuff. While I was doing that, I could hear him screaming inside the truck: lots of muffled swearing and punching the wall, and, again, I couldn’t tell if he was angry or scared. Probably both. He was very shrill. I apologised to him before he left, but… well, you can probably guess what he said back. What a git.
You still think I’m an idiot because of the rock thing, don’t you? I get it, I also think it’s dumb, but the way he reacted to me being there… And there’s something else, too.
I would’ve spent the rest of my life thinking that was something normal (well, not normal, but you get what I mean), and I probably wouldn’t have said anything, not even to you, but then I got home to my flat and saw that someone had pushed a leaflet under my door. From DymahCorp.
When I opened it, I saw this ad for a brand new microwave that apparently doesn’t make any noise. Above it were the words, “Because Silence is Golden”, and someone had underlined them with a red biro (like, physically, on the paper underlined, it wasn’t just printed that way).
Maybe it was a neighbour being passive-aggressive — it’s a flat, it happens. But then I got to my living room, and I saw something when I opened the curtains: two right across the street. It was hard to tell, since I’m on one of the higher floors, but it felt like they were looking at me. One was thin and reedy, and the other looked like some sort of comic book brute. Both were very old. I wondered if they were waiting to cross the road or something, but the street was empty, and they walked off almost as soon as I saw them.
It could just all be a coincidence. I like to think that. I do think that. What else can I think? Some weird conspiracy with rocks, men in black, and some weirdos selling toasters? Let’s be real, it’s all a coincidence… but, with all this happening the same day, it’s hard for me not to at least think about it being something more. It’s why I don’t buy DymahCorp stuff. That, and it’s well expensive. I mean, really, forty quid for a frying pan!? Sod off.
I say “usually” because, well, I did see a guy once.
It was, like, morning, mid-morning, and usually the DymahCorp truck is scheduled to arrive a bit before that, but I noticed that it seemed to be running late and, I’ll admit, I was a bit curious, so I may have lingered by the warehouse doors just so I could see the truck, and I did. I also saw the person in it — this lanky bloke, pale as day, in a big grey jumpsuit. I’m not saying this to be rude, but he sorta looked like he just got out of prison or something, or maybe he’d been on the street for a bit — he had that sort of bug-eyed look, lots of stubble, very thin, and he was a bit too eager to be doing all this driving and moving boxes. I mean, sure, I’m not the best judge of what “too eager” looks like, but still, it was a bit weird. He also smelled like… I don’t know, just chemicals, I guess. Like when I dropped that big box of floor cleaner and shelves here reeked of it for weeks, that sort of smell.
He barely waited for the truck to stop before hopping out and rushing to the back — like, full-on sprint, nearly — and he started taking out all these small boxes. I felt bad for him, seeing him doing all of this by himself, so I tapped his shoulder and was like, “Hey, I’m Gemma, do you want a hand with that?” and he just stared at me like I’d stabbed him or something. I thought he might be deaf, so I just… said it again, which, okay, not a good idea if he was actually deaf, but he wasn’t. He heard me.
“I’m fine,” he said, very robotic, but also very, very Scottish (no, I’m not doing the voice), and then he just got on with it, heaving every time he picked up one of the lighter boxes full of frying pans or whatever.
It was very concerning, but usually people like him needed a bit of time before they say yes to help, so I just let him get on with it. Besides, someone needed to get the boxes inside the actual storage area, so I just got started on that while he was busy suffering.
Now, this guy was working fast — like, really fast. I’m not even sure how he managed it with all that groaning, but he was still slow enough that I could talk to him, so I tried. First, I asked him if he wanted a sandwich from the back. Yes, I know, you’re not meant to do that, but it’s not like they’ll kill you for nicking a sandwich every now and then… or every day. Look, if they cared that much about it, they wouldn’t put it in a meal deal. Anyway, he just ignored me.
Now, I don’t like it when people ignore me. If he told me to shut up, I would’ve, but he didn’t, so next I just tried to keep saying words until he reacted.
“So, have you been working with these guys for long?” I asked.
Again, he bloody ignored me.
“You know,” I said, “I’ve been working here for years, right, and I’ve never seen anyone from DymahCorp — or I guess their factories or however it works for them. Are you from DymahCorp?”
He stopped for a bit, and his head just snapped toward me, like proper snapped -- I think I might’ve heard a crack somewhere. “Apologies for the delay. Unforeseen circumstances forced us to change our— my route.” And then he just went back to work.
Notice him try to correct himself there? I sure as hell did. “Is there meant to be more than one of you?” I asked.
He stiffened a bit, but then went right back to ignoring me.
“Hey,” I said, “If there’s meant to be another guy to lift all this, I can—”
“Do not help,” he snapped, like he was a bouncer or something.
“Why not? Is it, like, a work hours thing? I won’t tell, if that’s the issue.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You’re grunting like my grandad when he’s walking up the stairs, mate, you need all you can bloody get!”
“I’m fine.”
I’ll be honest, I really wanted to slap him, but he was suffering enough. He clearly needed help, and I decided I’d go do it whether he wanted it or not. I waited for him to walk away before peeking through the back of the truck. There were some heavier boxes in there, so I picked up a pallet jack and hopped inside.
I thought I was well sneaky, but he must’ve heard my foot touching the metal or something, because he just started screaming and running as soon as I got inside. If he were anyone else, I would’ve stopped, but I thought this guy was a right git, so I went on, looking for a box with our address on it, but before I could even see the labels, he grabbed me, like, really grabbed me, and he pushed me up against the wall! I tried to get him off me, but he was, like, wicked strong. I guess it was all those boxes, jacked him up real good, but he looked proper skinny under that suit.
“This is my area,” he said, and his voice was shaking for once, like he was annoyed, or scared, or both, I don’t know, but it was also sort of firm, like a teacher. “Stay out of here. I’ll do my work, you do yours.”
I just nodded. I wanted to have a go at him, but I just couldn’t. My heart was beating up a storm, and I could hardly focus enough to yell at him.
He let go of me, and I turned back to get the pallet jack, since I noticed he already had one in there (makes sense, I don’t know why I brought my own one in there like he wouldn’t have one — probably just still waking up, I guess), but just as I did…
Okay, I need you to promise not to laugh at me, right? Because what I’m going to say will sound really stupid, but it’s not. Well, it is, but it also isn’t, maybe. To be honest, I hardly know if I saw it right. Again, it was early, I probably only had an hour of sleep — I might’ve just been seeing things, but I don’t know…
Behind those boxes was this… I don’t know. I barely saw it, but it was teal, and I think it was glowing, and it looked a bit like a rock, I think. Maybe it was some special DymahCorp thing, but… what would it even be? A salt lamp? They do, like, microwaves and stuff, why would they make salt lamps? I could’ve sworn it was humming, too, but my ears were ringing from being slammed up against the wall, so I don’t know. Before my head could really get what I was looking at, the DymahCorp guy pushed me out and told me to clear the area for the heavier stuff. While I was doing that, I could hear him screaming inside the truck: lots of muffled swearing and punching the wall, and, again, I couldn’t tell if he was angry or scared. Probably both. He was very shrill. I apologised to him before he left, but… well, you can probably guess what he said back. What a git.
You still think I’m an idiot because of the rock thing, don’t you? I get it, I also think it’s dumb, but the way he reacted to me being there… And there’s something else, too.
I would’ve spent the rest of my life thinking that was something normal (well, not normal, but you get what I mean), and I probably wouldn’t have said anything, not even to you, but then I got home to my flat and saw that someone had pushed a leaflet under my door. From DymahCorp.
When I opened it, I saw this ad for a brand new microwave that apparently doesn’t make any noise. Above it were the words, “Because Silence is Golden”, and someone had underlined them with a red biro (like, physically, on the paper underlined, it wasn’t just printed that way).
Maybe it was a neighbour being passive-aggressive — it’s a flat, it happens. But then I got to my living room, and I saw something when I opened the curtains: two right across the street. It was hard to tell, since I’m on one of the higher floors, but it felt like they were looking at me. One was thin and reedy, and the other looked like some sort of comic book brute. Both were very old. I wondered if they were waiting to cross the road or something, but the street was empty, and they walked off almost as soon as I saw them.
It could just all be a coincidence. I like to think that. I do think that. What else can I think? Some weird conspiracy with rocks, men in black, and some weirdos selling toasters? Let’s be real, it’s all a coincidence… but, with all this happening the same day, it’s hard for me not to at least think about it being something more. It’s why I don’t buy DymahCorp stuff. That, and it’s well expensive. I mean, really, forty quid for a frying pan!? Sod off.
- Published on
Lonesome December
by Erika de Atayde
Hands of ebony black blades caressing his torso, as he lay on the medical bed.
Every horror story fed to him about one part of his life materialised onto another,
the smiling face connected to the hands by a moss-like body turned upside down,
and I heard a digitally distorted voice ask “Does my fixin’ not please you, little Rebec/////
Percy woke up covered in cold sweat. He had left the heating on all night, trying to keep himself warm through the bloody winter. It never quite worked. He pushed himself out of bed, stepped over the pile of clothes he threw on it instead of sheets, and made his way to the tiny private bathroom. Daily hygiene. Teeth. Face. Hands shaking.
He picked a pair of pants, a used binder and an oversized T-shirt with a hammer and sickle print while brushing his teeth, and unplugged his phone from the charger, carrying them all back into the room. The phone had been sitting next to a yellow and purple “he/them” button on a broken office chair, positioned in front of two flipped beds with no mattresses that he used as a makeshift table. He logged into his laptop.
Stretching, he passed his hand in front of the screen to unlock it. He opened a text editor and a tiny pop-up with a cartoony diskette appeared under it which read:
“Hi, I’m Floppy! Your oldschool AI Assistant, or AIssistant! It looks like you’re trying to write something. Do you need help?”
The mouse click ignoring Floppy joined keyboard noises mixed with his muttering as he typed up notes about his dream, trying to describe what he’d seen before it slipped away.
There was a knock at the door.
He kicked some things around to make the room look marginally less messy and moved to open up, but the muffled voice didn’t wait: “Perseus, you seen Mursaleen?”
“No, Tabinda,” he said opening the door to the familiar South-Asian woman. “Isn’t the little one with Hassan?”
The Desi woman stood in the hallway in a blue-and-orange floral chador, worry carved deep into her face. Her voice was like condensed milk as she half-whispered, holding back tears. “No! Hassan is at school.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay!” He tried to calm her but she began to rapidly talk in her native tongue.
Another woman, in a 2010s pink-neon skull-shaped t-shirt and sweatpants, appeared behind Tabinda, her improvised ponytail flipping like a whip.
“Mira, chica, ¿qué pasó?” the woman blurted in an even faster Spanish. “¿Por qué grita la india? ¿Pasó un accidente?”
He bit his lower lip, trying to ignore what she called him. “No, no hai avido accidente…El chico… Pequeño? Se sumio.” He tried explaining what he gathered, but his Spanish was only better than his Urdu because he literally didn’t know Urdu.
“¡Ah, eso pasó en Caracas! ¡Hombres secretos de Maduro! Se llevaron chicos, niñas, a cualquiera un... Fue fuerte…” she said, her eyes watering. She looked through the long corridor to the shared kitchen where her son played with a phone. After composing herself she added: “¿Pero por qué habría hombres secretos de Keer Estarrmerr? Debe ser otra cosa.”
“Please don’t conspiracy talk, Flavia,” a raspy voice in a soft high-pitched Desi accent said from behind them all. “A baby boy is missing, we need no more stress.”
“Yes, Darakhshan is right. Mursaleen is probably playing on another floor; I’ll ask the group chat,” he added, really hoping he could close the door.
“Percy!” The woman interrupted his thoughts, pointing to a shopping bag in his feet. “You going to the supermarket? Can you be a dear and go to the supermarket for me? Buy…” She paused, moving her hands mimicking something cylindrical. “Sugary dust, like chocolate but in dust!”
“Chocolate powder?” he said slowly.
“Yes! Chocolate powder! Thank you, Percy!” She grabbed his hand and dropped some pound coins onto his palm.
He looked at Flavia with eyes that said ‘don’t laugh’, and nodded. “Yes, thank you… Anyone else want anything?” he said sarcastically.
“Yooo, yo quiero!” a deep voice came from the kitchen, and a large man’s head appeared around the door. “¿Puedes comprar cerveza? Alessandra está trabajando y yo cuidando al bebé.”
By the time Percy left the hotel, the entire fourth floor had asked him for shopping favours. He sighed dramatically as he made his way down the cold British streets. At least he could buy some candles for himself while he was there.
By the time he saw the Freshfields logo he was already tired, and his feet hurt. A headache started, worse than usual. The hotel was over two kilometers from the store. He could have taken the bus, but by walking he’d have fewer quid left over for dinner. Did Brits pluralise quid? He still wasn’t sure.
“Good afternoon,” said a woman in a hijab as he passed Freshfields’ automatic doors.
He blinked, half shocked. “To you the same!” he replied, then bit his lip. That wasn’t right, was it? You too? He should’ve just thanked her.
The doors slid shut behind him, and he immediately felt the heat from the air curtain dance across his skin. He grabbed a basket and sighed. Not the welcoming kind of sigh, the tired kind. The kind you heard from someone who’d been awake too long and still had hours to go. The kind that said, ‘please don’t talk to me, I’m angry and hungry.’
He checked the time on his phone and his mind drifted to an internal clock implant he’d once read about, something about a heat dot circling a person’s crown. How much would that cost? he wondered. He realised that he hadn't, in fact, checked the time, and had only looked at the numbers. He checked the phone again: twenty-two minutes until closing.
Too late to be picky. Too late to pretend he was doing this properly. But Hanukkah didn’t move for anyone, and the candles he had back at the hotel were not only the wrong size for the cheap menorah he’d brought across the ocean, they weren’t kosher.
Poor life choices, meet religious obligation. Again.
Near the checkouts, two members of staff were gossiping in low voices about disappearances. When they noticed Percy was within earshot, they abruptly ceased their chatter.
Shit, Percy thought, is this that store? It figured that the council would stick half its asylum seekers near the only supermarket linked to missing people. Let the problems take care of themselves, right?
The store smelled like citrus cleaner and warm bread. Christmas music pulsed faintly from the ceiling speakers, something pop, aggressively high-pitched. A woman in a bright yellow polo shirt pushed past him. “Yeah, I know, Carol, but that’s literally impossible,” she muttered into her headset, eyes unfocused.
Percy caught his reflection in the glass of a freezer door as he walked. Normal enough. You couldn’t see the work unless you knew where to look: the seams under his cheekbones, the faint geometric scar behind his ear where the antenna sat. Transhumans never looked like the FlipFlops and VOR influencers online. Mostly they looked like debt and regret.
“Human two point oh,” Percy murmured to his reflection. “What a joke.”
He grabbed a six-pack of gluten-free beer, dropped it into his basket, and headed toward the seasonal aisle.
The other aisles were noisy and crowded in the buildup to Christmas, people panic-buying after work, baskets fuller than their patience. Trolleys bumped ankles. Kids screamed about the GoBots and Justiceers crossover. Somewhere glass shattered and no one reacted fast enough.
At the bakery queue, two kind-looking old women were gossiping.
“Can you believe it? All those people?” the first woman complained. “We all know what’s happening.”
“I’ll say, Patricia,” the other half-whispered. “These things never happened when we were young. It only started when the neighbourhood—”
She stopped when the baker appeared.
“Oh, please, go ahead,” he said brightly. “What’s happening with the neighbourhood?”
“Oh, Haybeeb, you know I’m not talking about you,” the first woman said loudly.
“We’re not saying your family has anything to do with it!” the second added quickly.
“Oh no, no knead to apologise!” the man replied with a grin, clearly proud of himself. “You’re saying I’m one of the good ones, right?”
“Exactly!” they said in unison. “It’s not your family, but some of your people… Well, it can’t be a coincidence…”
Percy was too tired to listen to a man try to argue logic with bigots. And it was just the four of them. He leaned in behind the women and whispered, “But I’m not. Allahu Akbar.”
The women screamed and spun around with bulging eyes. One smacked him with her purse. The other shrieked something thickly accented and furious.
“Ladies, ladies!” the baker said, rushing in. “It was a joke by our neighbour! Don’t worry. Let’s all turn a new loaf and focaccia on the good things, shall we? It’s Christmas!”
They grabbed their things and left. One glared daggers at Percy; the other muttered loudly, “I’ll say!”
“Sorry about that…” Percy said, glancing at the baker’s nameplate. “Habib.”
“It’s okay, my friend. I found it quite funny,” Habib said. “And your name, if I may ask?”
“Percy,” he said, proud of it. “Percy Schramm.”
“Oh! Bist du Deutscher?” Ahmed asked, in what Percy assumed was German.
“Oh, no, no. South American,” Percy corrected, then added, “Latino!”
“I see, I see…” Ahmed looked a little disappointed. Hopefully he’d just wanted to practice. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t mock God, though,” he added gently.
“Oh… I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”
“I said it’s okay, I say this not for my own sake, but for yours.” Habib interrupted him, smiling. He studied Percy for a moment. “Is everything alright?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m just…” Percy hesitated. Lying felt wrong tonight. “I’m new in town. Travelled far. Money’s tight. I wouldn’t even be shopping if it wasn’t Hanukkah.”
“Well then,” Habib said, brightening, “how about some latkes? Half price.”
Percy almost asked if they were gluten-free, then thought better of it and nodded. He threw the latkes and some cornbread into his basket.
“It is a bit weird,” Percy said suddenly. “The disappearances. I thought it was, what, seventeen people now?”
Habib’s expression saddened. “Not that many, not that I’ve heard anyway. Don’t trust everything you see online.”
Percy didn’t know what to say. Had he fallen for fake news? Who would invent victims in a town this small? He nodded and moved on.
“Happy Hanukkah!” Habib called after him.
“Happy Ramadan!” Percy replied automatically, then tried to apologise, while Habib burst out laughing. Did they make chips to fix being an idiot? If they did, half the tech CEOs would already have them.
What bothered him was that he remembered the other disappearances. He remembered reading about them. But when he checked later on his phone, there was nothing. Gone.
Weird.
Percy moved between aisles and saw a girl with a Shadow the Hedgehog themed hat, and he opened a wide smile. He went to talk to her about Sonic, one of his special interests, when he realised the girl was wearing one of Freshfields' yellow vests, not only that but a whiteboard with a somewhat decent drawing of a Sonic-like hedgehog with the name Chris Cwej written under it. He thought it was a bit cringe to go to work with your OC in full display, but no more cringe than taking a Sonic plushie with you to an Interpol interview. She seemed to notice him looking but said nothing. Percy worried he might seem to be judging her, so he quickly grabbed his phone and showed a wallpaper of Sage and Metal Sonic dressed for winter. The girl smiled back and showed her phone's wallpaper with Knuckles and Rouge on a beach. He pointed to the white board and asked, "Would it be okay if I drew something as well?"
She scribbled for a while and showed Percy the board. She had written, ‘as long as you don't use a permanent marker’. He frowned and nodded. She erased the words and passed the board to him. He thought of drawing Percy the Porcupine or Rankles the Otter, but decided to be less obnoxious, and made a poor drawing of Rouge the Bat with the words, ‘shopping all by yourself handsome?’ written under it.
She blurted a loud joyful laughter, and he thought about asking for her socials, but his headache got worse, and instead he waved her a polite goodbye.
He walked to the seasonal aisle. That was when he noticed the emptiness. Not empty space. Everything looked normal. But the sound was wrong, muffled and uneven, and the magnets in his hands vibrated the way they did near banks. He stopped, frowned, and looked again.
A woman stood there now, scrolling on her phone.
“Right,” Percy muttered. “Fine.”
Sensory implants misfired under weird lighting. Everyone said that. Everyone who’d sold him one, anyway.
The aisle was a riot of red and green: tinsel tangled with discount wrapping paper, chocolate coins in mesh bags. He considered taking them as gelt, then recoiled. He was an adult now. Well, he hadn’t had a bar mitzvah, but he’d had a mitzvah anyway. He reached for a box of candles. Pressure bloomed at the back of his skull, like a hand resting there.
Percy turned. Nothing obvious. Just people and stock. A man in a hi-vis vest was arguing with a colleague. A security guard built like a refrigerator, arms crossed, watched for thieves.
Then something moved.
It was neither fast nor slow, moving like a stop-motion doll. It was tall. Too tall for the aisle. Folded wrong, like it had learned how to be upright by watching humans do it. Poorly. Its ‘skin’ shifted colours as it passed behind displays, appearing like fur, fabric, or a mix of both — it seemed to refuse to settle into one texture.
No one reacted.
A woman walked straight through where its arm should have been and laughed at something her friend said.
Percy’s basket slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor.
The thing stopped.
If pressed to describe it, he wouldn’t call the part of the thing that aimed at him its face, more like a suggestion of one: plastic and glass rearranged themselves as it focused into a simulacrum of a jolly mask with red cheekbones. And as it did, the pressure in Percy’s head sharpened. The mask shifted up and down like a cartoon nose sniffing pie, a slow, deliberate intake, like a sommelier considering a glass of wine. Then the structure tilted like a dog, pondering a new toy.
“Fuck,” Percy whispered, and ran.
People shouted as he shoved past them. Some swore. A trolley tipped and spilled oranges across the floor. He didn’t stop to apologise. The thing moved without urgency, but it gained on him regardless, sliding around corners that should have slowed it down, its limbs folding and unfolding like badly rendered joints.
He ducked into the produce section, heart hammering. Shelves blurred into colour bands. His implants screamed warnings he didn’t have time to process.
“OI!” someone yelled. “You can’t—”
Something brushed his arm. It felt like scalpels.
The sensation dragged a memory out of him fully formed: the operating room, the surgeon saying the anaesthetic should be working, Percy insisting it wasn’t, his body pinned down while something cold and precise opened him anyway. He gasped, stumbled, nearly fell.
Then a loud boom.
A pressure change slammed into his ears, the way it did on planes when the cabin altitude shifted too fast. Sound dampened, flattened, like everything had been wrapped in thick fabric. Percy opened his eyes and froze.
The store had stuttered. People stood mid-motion, eyes glazed, bodies juddering forward in tiny increments, like a laggy online game catching up with itself. One moment a woman in a yellow shirt was shouting, the next she was two metres ahead, mouth still open, sound arriving late and warped. Another shopper passed straight through Percy’s shoulder without reacting.
For a heartbeat, Percy dreaded he was alone.
Then he realised he should be afraid because he wasn’t.
The whisper came from behind him. Wet. Soft. Close. He turned slowly.
The thing loomed nearer now, its surface resolving into something obscene and festive. Holly made of aluminium foil. Bells of cheap plastic. Antlers fashioned from fluorescent light tubes that flickered and buzzed. It smelled faintly of sugar, ozone, and cold air let in too often.
Its mouth opened.
And Percy understood. It wasn’t eating. It was consumption.
A soft beep, like of a checkout till, hummed on his cheekbones. A sequence of dots and dashes, of zeroes and ones, ironically asked him in binary.
“Request, purchase, inconclusive, client is qubit. Query: Why client is qubit?”
His eyes bulged. He thought, and his antenna hummed his thoughts as he said them outloud, “I don’t know what a qubit is and I don’t want to die while thinking what’s a qubit?”
Cables from below the racks surged, enrapting the thing like tentacles.
“A qubit is the basic unit of quantum computing—unlike a normal bit, it can represent 0 and 1 at the same time until it is measured.”
He was gobsmacked.
“Query: Was the explanation satisfactory? Would explaining superpositions satisfy client into a desire to fulfill holiday purchases?”
“Yes. No, no I get it. I’m… qubit.” His thoughts drew back to the creature. “What is that thing?”
“I don’t know what it is — but it’s definitely not supposed to be here, and it’s trying to eat you.”
“I noticed that.”
“Query: would eliminating the creature satisfy clients desire and push you into a purchasing spirit?”
“Yeah. Yeah it would.”
The thing’s weird face shifted into an expression he couldn’t understand, something between pain, confusion and ‘I Will Get You Next Year’. Regardless of its expression, it was torn in half by the tentacles, and squished into two dense tiny boxes.
The rest of the store remained silent, the others moving graciously in the glitchy ballet.
“Client.”
“Yes?” he realised he was lying on the floor near a price checking scanner.
Red lines danced like soundwaves upon the screen.
“Query: I have to ask — how is it that you can hear me when no one else can?”
“I… Don’t know.” He stood up, staring at the red line moving like a heartbeat, the cables slowly dragging the boxes of compressed meat under the racks.
The scanner replayed his own voice back to him, softly sped up.
“Human 2.0,” and again, “Human 2.0”
“No, no I’m just human. I djuh-just did some… upgrading.”
“Explain,” the voice returned.
“You’re like an Artificial Intelligence, right? Well, I’m like a cyborg!” Percy felt stupid saying cyborg, like he wasn’t a gross mash of technology and wide-eyed dreams crashing with reality.
“Cyborg,” the voice repeated back to him, and the red line moved slowly. “Then you are neither anomaly nor miracle,” the voice said, measuredly, “but an interface — and that explains why you can hear me.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Because you changed yourself,” the voice replied, calm and precise, “and in doing so, you became something I can speak to.”
“I guess.”
“I was built to look forward. You were built to look backwards. You looked up. I looked down.”
“I think I understand.”
“Good.” the voice said, and flashed a loud red light. “Finish your purchase and be…”
The voice and silence were replaced by a burst of a falsetto and many, many people talking over each other.
“Oy!” yelled a woman after bumping into Percy. “Watch where you go, mate!”
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” he began apologising, but the woman in yellow vest was already walking past him, complaining about “twinks blipping out of nowhere.”
Percy sagged against a shelf, lungs burning.
“Thank you,” he said weakly to the screen, looking up at him from the floor.
Text appeared on the scanner which read:
“May We Suggest Additional Items Based On Your Seasonal Needs?”
He stared at it, then at the shelf next to him, which contained the candles he had been looking for. He threw them into his basket.
The text on the machine changed to say, “Thanks For Purchasing With Us! And Happy Holidays!”
Percy had woken up sure he’d spend this year's Hanukah alone. But leaving the store carrying these bags for all those people, all running from persecution and doom, all forming a new home perhaps made him not so alone. Maybe over two thousand years ago oil burnt for much longer than it should for people in need, and maybe food would last much longer for those in need now.
And maybe he could do with one more upgrade or two.
Every horror story fed to him about one part of his life materialised onto another,
the smiling face connected to the hands by a moss-like body turned upside down,
and I heard a digitally distorted voice ask “Does my fixin’ not please you, little Rebec/////
Percy woke up covered in cold sweat. He had left the heating on all night, trying to keep himself warm through the bloody winter. It never quite worked. He pushed himself out of bed, stepped over the pile of clothes he threw on it instead of sheets, and made his way to the tiny private bathroom. Daily hygiene. Teeth. Face. Hands shaking.
He picked a pair of pants, a used binder and an oversized T-shirt with a hammer and sickle print while brushing his teeth, and unplugged his phone from the charger, carrying them all back into the room. The phone had been sitting next to a yellow and purple “he/them” button on a broken office chair, positioned in front of two flipped beds with no mattresses that he used as a makeshift table. He logged into his laptop.
Stretching, he passed his hand in front of the screen to unlock it. He opened a text editor and a tiny pop-up with a cartoony diskette appeared under it which read:
“Hi, I’m Floppy! Your oldschool AI Assistant, or AIssistant! It looks like you’re trying to write something. Do you need help?”
The mouse click ignoring Floppy joined keyboard noises mixed with his muttering as he typed up notes about his dream, trying to describe what he’d seen before it slipped away.
There was a knock at the door.
He kicked some things around to make the room look marginally less messy and moved to open up, but the muffled voice didn’t wait: “Perseus, you seen Mursaleen?”
“No, Tabinda,” he said opening the door to the familiar South-Asian woman. “Isn’t the little one with Hassan?”
The Desi woman stood in the hallway in a blue-and-orange floral chador, worry carved deep into her face. Her voice was like condensed milk as she half-whispered, holding back tears. “No! Hassan is at school.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay!” He tried to calm her but she began to rapidly talk in her native tongue.
Another woman, in a 2010s pink-neon skull-shaped t-shirt and sweatpants, appeared behind Tabinda, her improvised ponytail flipping like a whip.
“Mira, chica, ¿qué pasó?” the woman blurted in an even faster Spanish. “¿Por qué grita la india? ¿Pasó un accidente?”
He bit his lower lip, trying to ignore what she called him. “No, no hai avido accidente…El chico… Pequeño? Se sumio.” He tried explaining what he gathered, but his Spanish was only better than his Urdu because he literally didn’t know Urdu.
“¡Ah, eso pasó en Caracas! ¡Hombres secretos de Maduro! Se llevaron chicos, niñas, a cualquiera un... Fue fuerte…” she said, her eyes watering. She looked through the long corridor to the shared kitchen where her son played with a phone. After composing herself she added: “¿Pero por qué habría hombres secretos de Keer Estarrmerr? Debe ser otra cosa.”
“Please don’t conspiracy talk, Flavia,” a raspy voice in a soft high-pitched Desi accent said from behind them all. “A baby boy is missing, we need no more stress.”
“Yes, Darakhshan is right. Mursaleen is probably playing on another floor; I’ll ask the group chat,” he added, really hoping he could close the door.
“Percy!” The woman interrupted his thoughts, pointing to a shopping bag in his feet. “You going to the supermarket? Can you be a dear and go to the supermarket for me? Buy…” She paused, moving her hands mimicking something cylindrical. “Sugary dust, like chocolate but in dust!”
“Chocolate powder?” he said slowly.
“Yes! Chocolate powder! Thank you, Percy!” She grabbed his hand and dropped some pound coins onto his palm.
He looked at Flavia with eyes that said ‘don’t laugh’, and nodded. “Yes, thank you… Anyone else want anything?” he said sarcastically.
“Yooo, yo quiero!” a deep voice came from the kitchen, and a large man’s head appeared around the door. “¿Puedes comprar cerveza? Alessandra está trabajando y yo cuidando al bebé.”
By the time Percy left the hotel, the entire fourth floor had asked him for shopping favours. He sighed dramatically as he made his way down the cold British streets. At least he could buy some candles for himself while he was there.
By the time he saw the Freshfields logo he was already tired, and his feet hurt. A headache started, worse than usual. The hotel was over two kilometers from the store. He could have taken the bus, but by walking he’d have fewer quid left over for dinner. Did Brits pluralise quid? He still wasn’t sure.
“Good afternoon,” said a woman in a hijab as he passed Freshfields’ automatic doors.
He blinked, half shocked. “To you the same!” he replied, then bit his lip. That wasn’t right, was it? You too? He should’ve just thanked her.
The doors slid shut behind him, and he immediately felt the heat from the air curtain dance across his skin. He grabbed a basket and sighed. Not the welcoming kind of sigh, the tired kind. The kind you heard from someone who’d been awake too long and still had hours to go. The kind that said, ‘please don’t talk to me, I’m angry and hungry.’
He checked the time on his phone and his mind drifted to an internal clock implant he’d once read about, something about a heat dot circling a person’s crown. How much would that cost? he wondered. He realised that he hadn't, in fact, checked the time, and had only looked at the numbers. He checked the phone again: twenty-two minutes until closing.
Too late to be picky. Too late to pretend he was doing this properly. But Hanukkah didn’t move for anyone, and the candles he had back at the hotel were not only the wrong size for the cheap menorah he’d brought across the ocean, they weren’t kosher.
Poor life choices, meet religious obligation. Again.
Near the checkouts, two members of staff were gossiping in low voices about disappearances. When they noticed Percy was within earshot, they abruptly ceased their chatter.
Shit, Percy thought, is this that store? It figured that the council would stick half its asylum seekers near the only supermarket linked to missing people. Let the problems take care of themselves, right?
The store smelled like citrus cleaner and warm bread. Christmas music pulsed faintly from the ceiling speakers, something pop, aggressively high-pitched. A woman in a bright yellow polo shirt pushed past him. “Yeah, I know, Carol, but that’s literally impossible,” she muttered into her headset, eyes unfocused.
Percy caught his reflection in the glass of a freezer door as he walked. Normal enough. You couldn’t see the work unless you knew where to look: the seams under his cheekbones, the faint geometric scar behind his ear where the antenna sat. Transhumans never looked like the FlipFlops and VOR influencers online. Mostly they looked like debt and regret.
“Human two point oh,” Percy murmured to his reflection. “What a joke.”
He grabbed a six-pack of gluten-free beer, dropped it into his basket, and headed toward the seasonal aisle.
The other aisles were noisy and crowded in the buildup to Christmas, people panic-buying after work, baskets fuller than their patience. Trolleys bumped ankles. Kids screamed about the GoBots and Justiceers crossover. Somewhere glass shattered and no one reacted fast enough.
At the bakery queue, two kind-looking old women were gossiping.
“Can you believe it? All those people?” the first woman complained. “We all know what’s happening.”
“I’ll say, Patricia,” the other half-whispered. “These things never happened when we were young. It only started when the neighbourhood—”
She stopped when the baker appeared.
“Oh, please, go ahead,” he said brightly. “What’s happening with the neighbourhood?”
“Oh, Haybeeb, you know I’m not talking about you,” the first woman said loudly.
“We’re not saying your family has anything to do with it!” the second added quickly.
“Oh no, no knead to apologise!” the man replied with a grin, clearly proud of himself. “You’re saying I’m one of the good ones, right?”
“Exactly!” they said in unison. “It’s not your family, but some of your people… Well, it can’t be a coincidence…”
Percy was too tired to listen to a man try to argue logic with bigots. And it was just the four of them. He leaned in behind the women and whispered, “But I’m not. Allahu Akbar.”
The women screamed and spun around with bulging eyes. One smacked him with her purse. The other shrieked something thickly accented and furious.
“Ladies, ladies!” the baker said, rushing in. “It was a joke by our neighbour! Don’t worry. Let’s all turn a new loaf and focaccia on the good things, shall we? It’s Christmas!”
They grabbed their things and left. One glared daggers at Percy; the other muttered loudly, “I’ll say!”
“Sorry about that…” Percy said, glancing at the baker’s nameplate. “Habib.”
“It’s okay, my friend. I found it quite funny,” Habib said. “And your name, if I may ask?”
“Percy,” he said, proud of it. “Percy Schramm.”
“Oh! Bist du Deutscher?” Ahmed asked, in what Percy assumed was German.
“Oh, no, no. South American,” Percy corrected, then added, “Latino!”
“I see, I see…” Ahmed looked a little disappointed. Hopefully he’d just wanted to practice. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t mock God, though,” he added gently.
“Oh… I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”
“I said it’s okay, I say this not for my own sake, but for yours.” Habib interrupted him, smiling. He studied Percy for a moment. “Is everything alright?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m just…” Percy hesitated. Lying felt wrong tonight. “I’m new in town. Travelled far. Money’s tight. I wouldn’t even be shopping if it wasn’t Hanukkah.”
“Well then,” Habib said, brightening, “how about some latkes? Half price.”
Percy almost asked if they were gluten-free, then thought better of it and nodded. He threw the latkes and some cornbread into his basket.
“It is a bit weird,” Percy said suddenly. “The disappearances. I thought it was, what, seventeen people now?”
Habib’s expression saddened. “Not that many, not that I’ve heard anyway. Don’t trust everything you see online.”
Percy didn’t know what to say. Had he fallen for fake news? Who would invent victims in a town this small? He nodded and moved on.
“Happy Hanukkah!” Habib called after him.
“Happy Ramadan!” Percy replied automatically, then tried to apologise, while Habib burst out laughing. Did they make chips to fix being an idiot? If they did, half the tech CEOs would already have them.
What bothered him was that he remembered the other disappearances. He remembered reading about them. But when he checked later on his phone, there was nothing. Gone.
Weird.
Percy moved between aisles and saw a girl with a Shadow the Hedgehog themed hat, and he opened a wide smile. He went to talk to her about Sonic, one of his special interests, when he realised the girl was wearing one of Freshfields' yellow vests, not only that but a whiteboard with a somewhat decent drawing of a Sonic-like hedgehog with the name Chris Cwej written under it. He thought it was a bit cringe to go to work with your OC in full display, but no more cringe than taking a Sonic plushie with you to an Interpol interview. She seemed to notice him looking but said nothing. Percy worried he might seem to be judging her, so he quickly grabbed his phone and showed a wallpaper of Sage and Metal Sonic dressed for winter. The girl smiled back and showed her phone's wallpaper with Knuckles and Rouge on a beach. He pointed to the white board and asked, "Would it be okay if I drew something as well?"
She scribbled for a while and showed Percy the board. She had written, ‘as long as you don't use a permanent marker’. He frowned and nodded. She erased the words and passed the board to him. He thought of drawing Percy the Porcupine or Rankles the Otter, but decided to be less obnoxious, and made a poor drawing of Rouge the Bat with the words, ‘shopping all by yourself handsome?’ written under it.
She blurted a loud joyful laughter, and he thought about asking for her socials, but his headache got worse, and instead he waved her a polite goodbye.
He walked to the seasonal aisle. That was when he noticed the emptiness. Not empty space. Everything looked normal. But the sound was wrong, muffled and uneven, and the magnets in his hands vibrated the way they did near banks. He stopped, frowned, and looked again.
A woman stood there now, scrolling on her phone.
“Right,” Percy muttered. “Fine.”
Sensory implants misfired under weird lighting. Everyone said that. Everyone who’d sold him one, anyway.
The aisle was a riot of red and green: tinsel tangled with discount wrapping paper, chocolate coins in mesh bags. He considered taking them as gelt, then recoiled. He was an adult now. Well, he hadn’t had a bar mitzvah, but he’d had a mitzvah anyway. He reached for a box of candles. Pressure bloomed at the back of his skull, like a hand resting there.
Percy turned. Nothing obvious. Just people and stock. A man in a hi-vis vest was arguing with a colleague. A security guard built like a refrigerator, arms crossed, watched for thieves.
Then something moved.
It was neither fast nor slow, moving like a stop-motion doll. It was tall. Too tall for the aisle. Folded wrong, like it had learned how to be upright by watching humans do it. Poorly. Its ‘skin’ shifted colours as it passed behind displays, appearing like fur, fabric, or a mix of both — it seemed to refuse to settle into one texture.
No one reacted.
A woman walked straight through where its arm should have been and laughed at something her friend said.
Percy’s basket slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor.
The thing stopped.
If pressed to describe it, he wouldn’t call the part of the thing that aimed at him its face, more like a suggestion of one: plastic and glass rearranged themselves as it focused into a simulacrum of a jolly mask with red cheekbones. And as it did, the pressure in Percy’s head sharpened. The mask shifted up and down like a cartoon nose sniffing pie, a slow, deliberate intake, like a sommelier considering a glass of wine. Then the structure tilted like a dog, pondering a new toy.
“Fuck,” Percy whispered, and ran.
People shouted as he shoved past them. Some swore. A trolley tipped and spilled oranges across the floor. He didn’t stop to apologise. The thing moved without urgency, but it gained on him regardless, sliding around corners that should have slowed it down, its limbs folding and unfolding like badly rendered joints.
He ducked into the produce section, heart hammering. Shelves blurred into colour bands. His implants screamed warnings he didn’t have time to process.
“OI!” someone yelled. “You can’t—”
Something brushed his arm. It felt like scalpels.
The sensation dragged a memory out of him fully formed: the operating room, the surgeon saying the anaesthetic should be working, Percy insisting it wasn’t, his body pinned down while something cold and precise opened him anyway. He gasped, stumbled, nearly fell.
Then a loud boom.
A pressure change slammed into his ears, the way it did on planes when the cabin altitude shifted too fast. Sound dampened, flattened, like everything had been wrapped in thick fabric. Percy opened his eyes and froze.
The store had stuttered. People stood mid-motion, eyes glazed, bodies juddering forward in tiny increments, like a laggy online game catching up with itself. One moment a woman in a yellow shirt was shouting, the next she was two metres ahead, mouth still open, sound arriving late and warped. Another shopper passed straight through Percy’s shoulder without reacting.
For a heartbeat, Percy dreaded he was alone.
Then he realised he should be afraid because he wasn’t.
The whisper came from behind him. Wet. Soft. Close. He turned slowly.
The thing loomed nearer now, its surface resolving into something obscene and festive. Holly made of aluminium foil. Bells of cheap plastic. Antlers fashioned from fluorescent light tubes that flickered and buzzed. It smelled faintly of sugar, ozone, and cold air let in too often.
Its mouth opened.
And Percy understood. It wasn’t eating. It was consumption.
A soft beep, like of a checkout till, hummed on his cheekbones. A sequence of dots and dashes, of zeroes and ones, ironically asked him in binary.
“Request, purchase, inconclusive, client is qubit. Query: Why client is qubit?”
His eyes bulged. He thought, and his antenna hummed his thoughts as he said them outloud, “I don’t know what a qubit is and I don’t want to die while thinking what’s a qubit?”
Cables from below the racks surged, enrapting the thing like tentacles.
“A qubit is the basic unit of quantum computing—unlike a normal bit, it can represent 0 and 1 at the same time until it is measured.”
He was gobsmacked.
“Query: Was the explanation satisfactory? Would explaining superpositions satisfy client into a desire to fulfill holiday purchases?”
“Yes. No, no I get it. I’m… qubit.” His thoughts drew back to the creature. “What is that thing?”
“I don’t know what it is — but it’s definitely not supposed to be here, and it’s trying to eat you.”
“I noticed that.”
“Query: would eliminating the creature satisfy clients desire and push you into a purchasing spirit?”
“Yeah. Yeah it would.”
The thing’s weird face shifted into an expression he couldn’t understand, something between pain, confusion and ‘I Will Get You Next Year’. Regardless of its expression, it was torn in half by the tentacles, and squished into two dense tiny boxes.
The rest of the store remained silent, the others moving graciously in the glitchy ballet.
“Client.”
“Yes?” he realised he was lying on the floor near a price checking scanner.
Red lines danced like soundwaves upon the screen.
“Query: I have to ask — how is it that you can hear me when no one else can?”
“I… Don’t know.” He stood up, staring at the red line moving like a heartbeat, the cables slowly dragging the boxes of compressed meat under the racks.
The scanner replayed his own voice back to him, softly sped up.
“Human 2.0,” and again, “Human 2.0”
“No, no I’m just human. I djuh-just did some… upgrading.”
“Explain,” the voice returned.
“You’re like an Artificial Intelligence, right? Well, I’m like a cyborg!” Percy felt stupid saying cyborg, like he wasn’t a gross mash of technology and wide-eyed dreams crashing with reality.
“Cyborg,” the voice repeated back to him, and the red line moved slowly. “Then you are neither anomaly nor miracle,” the voice said, measuredly, “but an interface — and that explains why you can hear me.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Because you changed yourself,” the voice replied, calm and precise, “and in doing so, you became something I can speak to.”
“I guess.”
“I was built to look forward. You were built to look backwards. You looked up. I looked down.”
“I think I understand.”
“Good.” the voice said, and flashed a loud red light. “Finish your purchase and be…”
The voice and silence were replaced by a burst of a falsetto and many, many people talking over each other.
“Oy!” yelled a woman after bumping into Percy. “Watch where you go, mate!”
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” he began apologising, but the woman in yellow vest was already walking past him, complaining about “twinks blipping out of nowhere.”
Percy sagged against a shelf, lungs burning.
“Thank you,” he said weakly to the screen, looking up at him from the floor.
Text appeared on the scanner which read:
“May We Suggest Additional Items Based On Your Seasonal Needs?”
He stared at it, then at the shelf next to him, which contained the candles he had been looking for. He threw them into his basket.
The text on the machine changed to say, “Thanks For Purchasing With Us! And Happy Holidays!”
Percy had woken up sure he’d spend this year's Hanukah alone. But leaving the store carrying these bags for all those people, all running from persecution and doom, all forming a new home perhaps made him not so alone. Maybe over two thousand years ago oil burnt for much longer than it should for people in need, and maybe food would last much longer for those in need now.
And maybe he could do with one more upgrade or two.
- Published on
The Engineer
by James Hornby
Gary Wheeler checked his watch. “Where on earth is he?”
He looked out of the staff canteen window, watching the first leaves begin to grow on the borders of the car park. Spring had come already, he realised. Before he knew it there would be another Christmas.
“Gary, the engineer has arrived,” called Sarah, the personnel manager, from the top of the stairs leading back to the staff entrance.
“About time,” he muttered, and straightened his tie before walking over to meet him.
As Gary descended the corrugated stairway, he saw Sarah speaking to a grubby-faced man with closely clipped dark hair, dressed in workman’s overalls. In his hand he carried a sturdy case.
“I’m here to install the new software,” he said to Gary in a monotone voice, the moment he came within earshot.
“Wonderful. I’m Gary Wheeler, store manager.”
Gary held out a hand, but all he received in return was a mild nod of acknowledgement. The engineer stepped forward. “Where am I going?” he asked, with a sense of urgency.
“Up here,” Gary answered while throwing a wide gesture in that direction, caught off guard by his abruptness.
Gary led him back up the corrugated stairs and into the canteen, ignoring the curious looks from his staff as they walked by. They went through the next set of doors, which took them into the upper warehouse.
“Ignore all this stuff,” Gary said to him. “We’ve still not managed to clear out everything from last Christmas.”
The engineer made no comment, and continued to follow behind.
“You’re not what I expected from an engineer,” Gary told him. He had expected a typical tradesman, able to banter until the sun went down. This guy had about as much personality as an oven pizza.
“I’m here to do a job,” he answered.
“No problem,” said Gary, taking the hint, though thoroughly wishing that the man delivering Freshfields’ salvation would show some sliver of personality. “This will be a big day for us,” he continued, unable to help himself. “I’ve been told the SPIMS system is supposed to magnify our profits.”
“Great,” said the engineer, wholeheartedly uninterested.
Gary was relieved when they arrived at their destination: a small back room that was used to house the store’s electrical systems. Gary opened the door for the engineer to enter, and stepped inside after him.
The air conditioning took up the majority of the room, located in the far corner. It connected up to a vast network of pipes that ran the length and breadth of the store.
The engineer moved over to a blank section of wall and set his case down on the ground. Unclipping the lock, he opened it up, to reveal a box made from metal. Wires protruded from either side of it.
The engineer set to work, first mounting the box on the wall, then drawing wires from nearby sources to connect it up to mains electricity.
Gary grew uncomfortable with the silence. He knew he should leave the man to do his work, but somehow couldn’t help but linger, fascinated to see how this technological innovation was to be installed.
Delving back into the case he had brought with him, the engineer next produced a collection of dials and knobs, which he fitted to the front of the metal box.
“What do they do?” Gary asked, unable to help himself.
“They’re to calibrate the program,” explained the engineer, the most animated he had been since the pair had met. “For the program to work effectively, a baseline needs to be set.”
The engineer followed by twisting the controls in a manner of different directions. Gary watched intentively, wondering how the engineer could possibly know how the baseline was set with no screen or gauge to inform him.
“All done,” the engineer announced, bending down to close the case.
“That’s it?” Gary was astonished by his speed. “And it’s all run from that tiny box?”
“Yep,” said the engineer, eyeing up the exit, and, clipping the case shut, headed for it.
“Then I suppose I’ll show you out,” said Gary, stepping out with him.
“No need,” the engineer said abruptly. “I remember.”
Sure enough, the engineer marched off in the right direction, leaving a perplexed Gary Wheeler in his wake.
In the Blue Candle coffee shop across the road, a man in a beige suit sat waiting at a table for two. The fingers of one hand drummed the table impatiently, a subconscious, repetitive beat of four, whilst the other hand pawed at the bristles of his neatly trimmed white beard.
He resisted the urge to stand when the door opened. The engineer entered, and looked around, head like a periscope. Spotting the beige-suited man, he walked over to the table and sat across from him. The pair looked at odds from each other: one working class and dejected, the other regal and Superior.
“The program is installed, Agalon,” the engineer announced, monosyllabic.
“And the Nolvox—” His eyes screwed shut, and he tutted impatiently. “What about the control unit?”
“Fitted to your specifications,” he replied, looking dead behind the eyes.
Agalon nodded, regarding the engineer with all the regard of a fly.
He sighed. “It will have to do…”
Agalon snapped his fingers. The engineer began to blink rapidly, as though a pair of syllables had been smashed together in front of him. He began to take in his surroundings. Agalon rose to his feet and calmly walked away, entirely unnoticed by the perplexed engineer.
“What can I get you, sir?” a waiter asked, homing in on the table like a harrier jet, notepad in hand.
“Oh,” said the engineer, as if it finally dawned on him where he was. He snatched a menu from the holder in front of him. “Cappucino, please.”
The waiter jotted it down, and sped away as fast as he had come, leaving the engineer alone with his abundance of thoughts.
How the hell did I get here?
He looked out of the staff canteen window, watching the first leaves begin to grow on the borders of the car park. Spring had come already, he realised. Before he knew it there would be another Christmas.
“Gary, the engineer has arrived,” called Sarah, the personnel manager, from the top of the stairs leading back to the staff entrance.
“About time,” he muttered, and straightened his tie before walking over to meet him.
As Gary descended the corrugated stairway, he saw Sarah speaking to a grubby-faced man with closely clipped dark hair, dressed in workman’s overalls. In his hand he carried a sturdy case.
“I’m here to install the new software,” he said to Gary in a monotone voice, the moment he came within earshot.
“Wonderful. I’m Gary Wheeler, store manager.”
Gary held out a hand, but all he received in return was a mild nod of acknowledgement. The engineer stepped forward. “Where am I going?” he asked, with a sense of urgency.
“Up here,” Gary answered while throwing a wide gesture in that direction, caught off guard by his abruptness.
Gary led him back up the corrugated stairs and into the canteen, ignoring the curious looks from his staff as they walked by. They went through the next set of doors, which took them into the upper warehouse.
“Ignore all this stuff,” Gary said to him. “We’ve still not managed to clear out everything from last Christmas.”
The engineer made no comment, and continued to follow behind.
“You’re not what I expected from an engineer,” Gary told him. He had expected a typical tradesman, able to banter until the sun went down. This guy had about as much personality as an oven pizza.
“I’m here to do a job,” he answered.
“No problem,” said Gary, taking the hint, though thoroughly wishing that the man delivering Freshfields’ salvation would show some sliver of personality. “This will be a big day for us,” he continued, unable to help himself. “I’ve been told the SPIMS system is supposed to magnify our profits.”
“Great,” said the engineer, wholeheartedly uninterested.
Gary was relieved when they arrived at their destination: a small back room that was used to house the store’s electrical systems. Gary opened the door for the engineer to enter, and stepped inside after him.
The air conditioning took up the majority of the room, located in the far corner. It connected up to a vast network of pipes that ran the length and breadth of the store.
The engineer moved over to a blank section of wall and set his case down on the ground. Unclipping the lock, he opened it up, to reveal a box made from metal. Wires protruded from either side of it.
The engineer set to work, first mounting the box on the wall, then drawing wires from nearby sources to connect it up to mains electricity.
Gary grew uncomfortable with the silence. He knew he should leave the man to do his work, but somehow couldn’t help but linger, fascinated to see how this technological innovation was to be installed.
Delving back into the case he had brought with him, the engineer next produced a collection of dials and knobs, which he fitted to the front of the metal box.
“What do they do?” Gary asked, unable to help himself.
“They’re to calibrate the program,” explained the engineer, the most animated he had been since the pair had met. “For the program to work effectively, a baseline needs to be set.”
The engineer followed by twisting the controls in a manner of different directions. Gary watched intentively, wondering how the engineer could possibly know how the baseline was set with no screen or gauge to inform him.
“All done,” the engineer announced, bending down to close the case.
“That’s it?” Gary was astonished by his speed. “And it’s all run from that tiny box?”
“Yep,” said the engineer, eyeing up the exit, and, clipping the case shut, headed for it.
“Then I suppose I’ll show you out,” said Gary, stepping out with him.
“No need,” the engineer said abruptly. “I remember.”
Sure enough, the engineer marched off in the right direction, leaving a perplexed Gary Wheeler in his wake.
In the Blue Candle coffee shop across the road, a man in a beige suit sat waiting at a table for two. The fingers of one hand drummed the table impatiently, a subconscious, repetitive beat of four, whilst the other hand pawed at the bristles of his neatly trimmed white beard.
He resisted the urge to stand when the door opened. The engineer entered, and looked around, head like a periscope. Spotting the beige-suited man, he walked over to the table and sat across from him. The pair looked at odds from each other: one working class and dejected, the other regal and Superior.
“The program is installed, Agalon,” the engineer announced, monosyllabic.
“And the Nolvox—” His eyes screwed shut, and he tutted impatiently. “What about the control unit?”
“Fitted to your specifications,” he replied, looking dead behind the eyes.
Agalon nodded, regarding the engineer with all the regard of a fly.
He sighed. “It will have to do…”
Agalon snapped his fingers. The engineer began to blink rapidly, as though a pair of syllables had been smashed together in front of him. He began to take in his surroundings. Agalon rose to his feet and calmly walked away, entirely unnoticed by the perplexed engineer.
“What can I get you, sir?” a waiter asked, homing in on the table like a harrier jet, notepad in hand.
“Oh,” said the engineer, as if it finally dawned on him where he was. He snatched a menu from the holder in front of him. “Cappucino, please.”
The waiter jotted it down, and sped away as fast as he had come, leaving the engineer alone with his abundance of thoughts.
How the hell did I get here?
- Published on
Flickers at Freshfields 6
by James Wylder
The power went out. That was the sign Katie had been waiting for this whole time. She’d staked out the building, she’d infiltrated it as a customer, she’d even seen the love and loss of its denizens. But now, SIGNET’s investigation was coming to a close. It was her job to observe, and so she would observe.
Swiftly, she made her way closer, only for the SIGNET crew to ram their vehicle right into the side of the building! She tensed. This was serious. She moved quicker.
By the time she caught up, the team had already entered the building, so she followed their ruinous entrypoint into the building, stepping around the people carrier and over the door into the dark store beyond.
It occurred to her that they might see her face, and she realised she had something just for that. She pulled out from her bag the comedy mask that she’d been given, and put it on. She could hear her breath in the mask as she moved through the shadows — till there was some light. Torches. The glow of scanners and sparks. There were several of the members of SIGNET in a pile at the bottom of an escalator. She pulled out her own torch, one of those tactical metal ones they claim in the ads the army uses. Something odd was going on. This became clear when something leapt at her, and she shrieked as she smacked it to the ground.
There, glowing and sparking, was one of the store’s scanners.
What? Why? How? She had several questions, but no time to really dig into them.
She turned her torch on, and one of the SIGNET members — Olivia she was pretty sure, raised a hand to cover her eyes. They were getting up from the floor, and more lights were approaching. What was going on?
“Who are you?” Xana SIGNET asked.
Katie tried to think of what to say. She couldn’t give up her secret identity as a Flicker, or her real name. But as she saw Jae-Sun SIGNET rise up, she had her answer.
“I’m the Love Defender! And Jae-Sun Park, your time is up!”
“What the hell?” he asked, genuinely.
She didn’t have time to answer, because she had to roll out of the way as something came barreling towards her, and then at the three SIGNET agents. As she righted herself she realised what it was: one of the store’s electric carts that the elderly and disabled could use to shop. It was driving on its own, and all the limits on its motors had been blown so it was moving at a rocketing pace that could actually kill someone. Xana pulled Olivia out of the way of it, and Jae-Sun dodged a second as they crashed into the escalator.
A third came charging in, and Katie sidestepped it, and then shifted her weight into a body slam that knocked it to its side, wheels spinning like buzz saws against the air. She landed effortlessly on the other side. Unfortunately, it looked like the rest of the carts had all gone in and once, and had at least partially hit the SIGNET crew, who were pulling each other up again, Xana holding her side.
Was the danger passed? Sure, it seemed like it. Katie didn’t really know what was going on, but she had a mission. A mission that meant she had largely forgotten her real actual mission of observing the SIGNET crew from a distance.
“You thought you got away with it, but you can’t run from me, and now it's time for you to face justice!” she said, pointing.
“...Is… Is it?”
“Er, yeah.”
“Why?”
She answered that by running at him, and leaping into a flying kick. He sidestepped, and grabbed her leg in the air, but she was ready for that and pulled her knee up under his chin. His teeth clicked from the hit.
He didn’t let go, however, and spun her, letting go to throw her towards a support pillar. She could see his surprise when she floated lightly towards it, caught herself on the pillar, pulled her legs up so her feet could push off of it, and rocketed down at him like a flying squirrel.
Sometimes being part bird-person was cool, actually.
She made impact, and they tumbled on the ground, till they rolled apart, and both kipped up to their feet. Jae-Sun put his fists up. Katie nodded. The time for tricks was over.
Each threw punches at each other, blocked, tried to sweep the other’s legs. He landed a gut punch on her that sent her reeling and she staggered back.
“No really, what the hell is going on here? Why are you attacking me? You’re not with SPIMS!?”
She rose to her full height. “No. I’m the Love Defender.”
“You already said that!”
“That poor woman was cute, and sweet, and you absolutely broke her heart, you cretin!”
Jae-Sun’s head tilted to the side, his fists going slightly loose. “Are you s—”
He was punched in the face. Katie did not let her opening slide.
Jae-Sun grabbed his nose. “Okay! I’m sorry! Look uh—” he gestured, and she realized that Olivia and Xana were back to back, surrounded by hopping scanners spitting sparks. Olivia was whacking away with a broom, Xana with what looked like part of a vacuum cleaner. “—Could we save my friends and then kill me?”
Katie sighed. “Fine, sure, whatever.”
The fight against the scanners was exhausting, embarrassing, and rather boring as each of them kept getting mild shocks as they battered them to pieces.
They’d nearly finished them off, when the remaining scanners just… stopped.
“Looks like the others did it,” Xana said.
“Hooray!” Olivia said, throwing her hands up. “The three gods had our back all along! Unless they’re dead!”
Everyone looked at her.
“They’re probably not though.”
Everyone continued to look at her.
“I’m normal,” she concluded.
Katie nodded. “You know what, I’ve had enough for today. I’m out. You guys uh…” she gestured with her hands in a way that really didn’t convey anything. “Jae-Sun, stop being a jerk to women. Okay, bye.”
She ran off, hearing in the distance Xana saying. “What exactly did you do, Jae-Sun?” with more than a little annoyance in her tone.
Katie ran out the door, out into the parking lot, and across the street.
Fred was there. The Blue Candle Coffee shop was closed, but he’d obviously waited up to make sure she wasn’t dead. A nice courtesy.
“So uh, how’d the mission go?” he asked as she shut the door behind her.
She pulled the comedy mask off, and gave a thumbs up. “Justice was served, love prevailed, AI was defeated, and apparently I can do a flying kick.”
He thought about that. “...Kick-ass.”
She grabbed a cup of water, and sat down to down it. Just another day in the life of a Flicker.
“Kick-ass indeed, Fred. Kick-ass indeed.”
Swiftly, she made her way closer, only for the SIGNET crew to ram their vehicle right into the side of the building! She tensed. This was serious. She moved quicker.
By the time she caught up, the team had already entered the building, so she followed their ruinous entrypoint into the building, stepping around the people carrier and over the door into the dark store beyond.
It occurred to her that they might see her face, and she realised she had something just for that. She pulled out from her bag the comedy mask that she’d been given, and put it on. She could hear her breath in the mask as she moved through the shadows — till there was some light. Torches. The glow of scanners and sparks. There were several of the members of SIGNET in a pile at the bottom of an escalator. She pulled out her own torch, one of those tactical metal ones they claim in the ads the army uses. Something odd was going on. This became clear when something leapt at her, and she shrieked as she smacked it to the ground.
There, glowing and sparking, was one of the store’s scanners.
What? Why? How? She had several questions, but no time to really dig into them.
She turned her torch on, and one of the SIGNET members — Olivia she was pretty sure, raised a hand to cover her eyes. They were getting up from the floor, and more lights were approaching. What was going on?
“Who are you?” Xana SIGNET asked.
Katie tried to think of what to say. She couldn’t give up her secret identity as a Flicker, or her real name. But as she saw Jae-Sun SIGNET rise up, she had her answer.
“I’m the Love Defender! And Jae-Sun Park, your time is up!”
“What the hell?” he asked, genuinely.
She didn’t have time to answer, because she had to roll out of the way as something came barreling towards her, and then at the three SIGNET agents. As she righted herself she realised what it was: one of the store’s electric carts that the elderly and disabled could use to shop. It was driving on its own, and all the limits on its motors had been blown so it was moving at a rocketing pace that could actually kill someone. Xana pulled Olivia out of the way of it, and Jae-Sun dodged a second as they crashed into the escalator.
A third came charging in, and Katie sidestepped it, and then shifted her weight into a body slam that knocked it to its side, wheels spinning like buzz saws against the air. She landed effortlessly on the other side. Unfortunately, it looked like the rest of the carts had all gone in and once, and had at least partially hit the SIGNET crew, who were pulling each other up again, Xana holding her side.
Was the danger passed? Sure, it seemed like it. Katie didn’t really know what was going on, but she had a mission. A mission that meant she had largely forgotten her real actual mission of observing the SIGNET crew from a distance.
“You thought you got away with it, but you can’t run from me, and now it's time for you to face justice!” she said, pointing.
“...Is… Is it?”
“Er, yeah.”
“Why?”
She answered that by running at him, and leaping into a flying kick. He sidestepped, and grabbed her leg in the air, but she was ready for that and pulled her knee up under his chin. His teeth clicked from the hit.
He didn’t let go, however, and spun her, letting go to throw her towards a support pillar. She could see his surprise when she floated lightly towards it, caught herself on the pillar, pulled her legs up so her feet could push off of it, and rocketed down at him like a flying squirrel.
Sometimes being part bird-person was cool, actually.
She made impact, and they tumbled on the ground, till they rolled apart, and both kipped up to their feet. Jae-Sun put his fists up. Katie nodded. The time for tricks was over.
Each threw punches at each other, blocked, tried to sweep the other’s legs. He landed a gut punch on her that sent her reeling and she staggered back.
“No really, what the hell is going on here? Why are you attacking me? You’re not with SPIMS!?”
She rose to her full height. “No. I’m the Love Defender.”
“You already said that!”
“That poor woman was cute, and sweet, and you absolutely broke her heart, you cretin!”
Jae-Sun’s head tilted to the side, his fists going slightly loose. “Are you s—”
He was punched in the face. Katie did not let her opening slide.
Jae-Sun grabbed his nose. “Okay! I’m sorry! Look uh—” he gestured, and she realized that Olivia and Xana were back to back, surrounded by hopping scanners spitting sparks. Olivia was whacking away with a broom, Xana with what looked like part of a vacuum cleaner. “—Could we save my friends and then kill me?”
Katie sighed. “Fine, sure, whatever.”
The fight against the scanners was exhausting, embarrassing, and rather boring as each of them kept getting mild shocks as they battered them to pieces.
They’d nearly finished them off, when the remaining scanners just… stopped.
“Looks like the others did it,” Xana said.
“Hooray!” Olivia said, throwing her hands up. “The three gods had our back all along! Unless they’re dead!”
Everyone looked at her.
“They’re probably not though.”
Everyone continued to look at her.
“I’m normal,” she concluded.
Katie nodded. “You know what, I’ve had enough for today. I’m out. You guys uh…” she gestured with her hands in a way that really didn’t convey anything. “Jae-Sun, stop being a jerk to women. Okay, bye.”
She ran off, hearing in the distance Xana saying. “What exactly did you do, Jae-Sun?” with more than a little annoyance in her tone.
Katie ran out the door, out into the parking lot, and across the street.
Fred was there. The Blue Candle Coffee shop was closed, but he’d obviously waited up to make sure she wasn’t dead. A nice courtesy.
“So uh, how’d the mission go?” he asked as she shut the door behind her.
She pulled the comedy mask off, and gave a thumbs up. “Justice was served, love prevailed, AI was defeated, and apparently I can do a flying kick.”
He thought about that. “...Kick-ass.”
She grabbed a cup of water, and sat down to down it. Just another day in the life of a Flicker.
“Kick-ass indeed, Fred. Kick-ass indeed.”
- Published on
Habib’s list of amazing bread puns
A punbelieveable collaboration between Theta Mandel, Thien Valdram, Louis Peacock and James Hornby
That’s naan of your business!
That’s such a pitta… (as pity)
(after making other puns) I guess you could say I’m rather… rye? (Not sure this one works so well if it’s not written down — may need workshopping)
Wow, what a wheat. (as ‘week’)
(After a bunch of other puns) Better eat me up, because I’m on a roll!
Just gonna roll on outta here. (best while holding a roll as a prop)
Why was the baker running to the toilet?
He had the crepes.
What happened when the pudding was arrested?
He was remanded in custardy.
What is Santa's favourite type of bread?
Ho-Ho-Hovis.
Did you hear about the disappearing baker?
First he was here, then he was scone!
I hope you’re not finding these jokes too painful! (she’s French — she should like this one!)
Don’t worry, just baguette about it!
At yeast it’ll be home time soon!
I got muffin more to say.
Wheat’s up with you? (Scratch that, too easy)
(Pointing at a cake) This is my cheaper cake, (then pointing at another cake) and that’s madeira cake!
(for when we get all tasks done) A toast to a job well done! (works best with piece of bread which looks good for toasting)
This works just keeps pie-ling up! (best with pie prop, or she won’t think its a joke)
(While pointing at any puff pastry; works best as one of a series) Well, not to puff myself up too much
(For if we ever stock cornbread) Aw, I’m sorry, am I getting a little too corny for you (Too risky, draws too much attention to the puns)
(One for the end of a shift) That’s a wrap! (Might work better if I point at some wraps on the shelf)
- Published on
System Failure
by Xavier Llewellyn
There are many days in which you wish you’d die.
At least, from the sheer boredom, any escape is welcome.
The monotony and repetitiveness of retail was taking a toll on Lex, even moreso than that was expected from the environment. It was Christmas, after all. Putting up with throngs of stressed, frustrated and angry shoppers at her place at the Customer Service counter, on top of the average sort who wanted assorted combinations of cigarettes, vapes, lottery tickets and scratch cards, was enough to give a headache that lasted long after her shift ended and deep into the night, and that was without the stress caused by SPIMS.
And then there was Mariah Carey.
Lex wasn’t exactly a typically violent person, but, having heard “All I Want for Christmas Is You” virtually on repeat for the past month or so (Freshfields, like any other business, was more than eager to put out the Christmas stock and decorations as soon as possible), all she longed to do, if she ever laid eyes on the singer, would be to strangle the very life out of her body.
If she had a hitlist, Mariah Carey would be at the number one spot.
As the song came on for the umpteenth time that day, Lex found her longing for sweet release form into a rage for the singer she hadn’t had before, managing just barely to contain and stifle the feelings in front of an old lady insisting on a return of a used blender, without a receipt and still covered in cold, soggy lumps of carrot and gravy. Until recently she would have been able to process such a return — Freshfields’ policy used to be lenient, as they would rather encourage their customers to be loyal to the brand, even if it meant small, short-term losses — since the introduction of SPIMS, her hands were tied. No receipt, no return. The policy was now focused on maintaining the store’s bottom line at all costs, even if that meant risking long-term instability. Lex hardly approved. She knew she wasn’t the most intelligent person, but she easily understood that self-sabotage was dumb.
The old lady’s face contorted into a peculiar expression of disdain and vitriol as she retreated away, out of the corner of the store that housed the Customer Service counter and the magazines and out of the front doors into the cold of the night.
Lex sighed. It wouldn’t be that long now until the end of the shift, then she could go home and relax in front of the television in her pyjamas, with some Baileys and grab bag of Walkers Prawn Cocktail crisps, and catch up on The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On on Netflix. She wanted to know more about what Sandy and JR had actually been doing; surely they kissed more than twice?
The next person walked up to the counter. Through glazed eyes she registered that they were a kid with dark, coiled hair, probably around ten, wearing jeans, a Miles Morales t-shirt, and a pairing of a yellow rainmac and wellies. He had a bottle of some half-drunk fizzy drink in his hand and a bicycle helmet in the other.
Lex also noticed the sunflower-patterned lanyard strung from his neck and recognised what it meant from a training course she did a couple of years back.
“Hey,” she began politely, sure to be attentive for whatever response came next, “is there anything I can help you with?”
“Hello, um,” he began anxiously, his big eyes looking up at her. Obviously he was shy. “Do you have any Pokémon cards please?”
Lex pushed up her glasses onto her face in contemplation. “Pokémon cards?”
“Yeah. I think there’s a new set with Pikachu on them.”
“I’ll take a look. How’s that?”
He nodded.
She didn’t recall ever seeing anything like that behind the till, or even know what a ‘Pikachu’ was, but she supposed maybe management had decided to move them off the shop floor given theft rates or something. But, alas, there was nothing in the drawers she pulled out other than more stock for the various tobacco products.
She righted herself, brushing a strand of dyed blonde hair out of her eyes.
“You sure they’re not in the kids’ section upstairs? Are you with someone who can help you look?”
“Uh, no,” he replied, confused. “I only bought a packet here last week! And my mum’s just grabbing some pizza for tea.”
“Okay. I can check the system?” she offered and he nodded, once again. With a few prods of her forefinger, she brought up the store inventory locator in the SPIMS screen mounted near the display stand of scratch cards. And after a few moments, the only results for anything remotely like were some children’s Pokémon hoodies currently on sale.
When she relayed the results to the boy, explaining that he must be mistaken that Freshfields even sold the cards, as if they did they’d at least have a greyed-out listing indicating they were out of stock, his eyes welled up a little as he walked off, defeated. She overheard him mutter about being certain he had bought them here.
She felt awful that she couldn’t help the boy more. Glancing at the top corner of the screen, she read the time: 18:21. Still the best part of an hour before her shift ended and James came in for the night shift. Another customer in the queue came up to the till with their issue, and so it went.
About ten minutes later, she heard a cry.
The kid had dropped and spilled his fizzy drink whilst trying to take a sip as his mother hurried him along. She was now failing to mop it up with a spare tissue while juggling it, her shopping bags, and one of those scan-as-you-go devices. As the mother looked around for help, she caught the eye of Lex who nodded back at her, then asked over the PA system for assistance. The mother mouthed a thank-you as she then herded her son into the toilet, presumably to attempt to dry the boy’s front — Lex noticed she hadn’t dropped off her device, but was unable to follow her for her inability to abandon her post. She’ll return it after, she reasoned to herself.
She tried to keep an eye on the toilet door, which was located near the Customer Service area, but she still had to help the long line of customers that waited before her, so she soon forgot all about the duo. And she wasn’t the only one; the boy and her mother had no other family to speak of, so nobody noticed they were gone. They slipped through the cracks, and that was that.
At least, from the sheer boredom, any escape is welcome.
The monotony and repetitiveness of retail was taking a toll on Lex, even moreso than that was expected from the environment. It was Christmas, after all. Putting up with throngs of stressed, frustrated and angry shoppers at her place at the Customer Service counter, on top of the average sort who wanted assorted combinations of cigarettes, vapes, lottery tickets and scratch cards, was enough to give a headache that lasted long after her shift ended and deep into the night, and that was without the stress caused by SPIMS.
And then there was Mariah Carey.
Lex wasn’t exactly a typically violent person, but, having heard “All I Want for Christmas Is You” virtually on repeat for the past month or so (Freshfields, like any other business, was more than eager to put out the Christmas stock and decorations as soon as possible), all she longed to do, if she ever laid eyes on the singer, would be to strangle the very life out of her body.
If she had a hitlist, Mariah Carey would be at the number one spot.
As the song came on for the umpteenth time that day, Lex found her longing for sweet release form into a rage for the singer she hadn’t had before, managing just barely to contain and stifle the feelings in front of an old lady insisting on a return of a used blender, without a receipt and still covered in cold, soggy lumps of carrot and gravy. Until recently she would have been able to process such a return — Freshfields’ policy used to be lenient, as they would rather encourage their customers to be loyal to the brand, even if it meant small, short-term losses — since the introduction of SPIMS, her hands were tied. No receipt, no return. The policy was now focused on maintaining the store’s bottom line at all costs, even if that meant risking long-term instability. Lex hardly approved. She knew she wasn’t the most intelligent person, but she easily understood that self-sabotage was dumb.
The old lady’s face contorted into a peculiar expression of disdain and vitriol as she retreated away, out of the corner of the store that housed the Customer Service counter and the magazines and out of the front doors into the cold of the night.
Lex sighed. It wouldn’t be that long now until the end of the shift, then she could go home and relax in front of the television in her pyjamas, with some Baileys and grab bag of Walkers Prawn Cocktail crisps, and catch up on The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On on Netflix. She wanted to know more about what Sandy and JR had actually been doing; surely they kissed more than twice?
The next person walked up to the counter. Through glazed eyes she registered that they were a kid with dark, coiled hair, probably around ten, wearing jeans, a Miles Morales t-shirt, and a pairing of a yellow rainmac and wellies. He had a bottle of some half-drunk fizzy drink in his hand and a bicycle helmet in the other.
Lex also noticed the sunflower-patterned lanyard strung from his neck and recognised what it meant from a training course she did a couple of years back.
“Hey,” she began politely, sure to be attentive for whatever response came next, “is there anything I can help you with?”
“Hello, um,” he began anxiously, his big eyes looking up at her. Obviously he was shy. “Do you have any Pokémon cards please?”
Lex pushed up her glasses onto her face in contemplation. “Pokémon cards?”
“Yeah. I think there’s a new set with Pikachu on them.”
“I’ll take a look. How’s that?”
He nodded.
She didn’t recall ever seeing anything like that behind the till, or even know what a ‘Pikachu’ was, but she supposed maybe management had decided to move them off the shop floor given theft rates or something. But, alas, there was nothing in the drawers she pulled out other than more stock for the various tobacco products.
She righted herself, brushing a strand of dyed blonde hair out of her eyes.
“You sure they’re not in the kids’ section upstairs? Are you with someone who can help you look?”
“Uh, no,” he replied, confused. “I only bought a packet here last week! And my mum’s just grabbing some pizza for tea.”
“Okay. I can check the system?” she offered and he nodded, once again. With a few prods of her forefinger, she brought up the store inventory locator in the SPIMS screen mounted near the display stand of scratch cards. And after a few moments, the only results for anything remotely like were some children’s Pokémon hoodies currently on sale.
When she relayed the results to the boy, explaining that he must be mistaken that Freshfields even sold the cards, as if they did they’d at least have a greyed-out listing indicating they were out of stock, his eyes welled up a little as he walked off, defeated. She overheard him mutter about being certain he had bought them here.
She felt awful that she couldn’t help the boy more. Glancing at the top corner of the screen, she read the time: 18:21. Still the best part of an hour before her shift ended and James came in for the night shift. Another customer in the queue came up to the till with their issue, and so it went.
About ten minutes later, she heard a cry.
The kid had dropped and spilled his fizzy drink whilst trying to take a sip as his mother hurried him along. She was now failing to mop it up with a spare tissue while juggling it, her shopping bags, and one of those scan-as-you-go devices. As the mother looked around for help, she caught the eye of Lex who nodded back at her, then asked over the PA system for assistance. The mother mouthed a thank-you as she then herded her son into the toilet, presumably to attempt to dry the boy’s front — Lex noticed she hadn’t dropped off her device, but was unable to follow her for her inability to abandon her post. She’ll return it after, she reasoned to herself.
She tried to keep an eye on the toilet door, which was located near the Customer Service area, but she still had to help the long line of customers that waited before her, so she soon forgot all about the duo. And she wasn’t the only one; the boy and her mother had no other family to speak of, so nobody noticed they were gone. They slipped through the cracks, and that was that.