Toaster

It was a dull, raining day… I glanced up at the other cashiers. Ruby was reading her book, Simon was dozing in his chair, and Clara was busy typing away on her IPad to her new boyfriend.  I checked the doors again, though I knew what I would see there. No cars in the parking lot, no costumers walking through the doors, nothing, nobody, anywhere. I turned for a second to look at my watch when suddenly I heard the doors open and there stood our first costumer of the day. He was soaked from head to sneaker, and he was grinning like there was no tomorrow. He wore jeans and a hoodie, and as I stared at him, his smile flickered and as I blinked, he had disappeared. I glanced around and saw nothing there.  “it must all be in my head” I thought as I turned to the door, grinning, ready to welcome any non-disappearing costumers. A few hours later it was like we had put a “Free” sign on everything in the store! Ruby fell from her chair as costumers flooded in the front and Simon actually screamed as he awoke from a dream where apparently he was being chased by a giant squirrel. Clara looked up from her IPad as though all these people were there purely for the purpose of interrupting her chat with her boyfriend. She was sullen the whole day long. I almost had no costumers the entire day. I was just assuming that no one would notice if I just dozed off for a while, when someone walked up to me and said “excuse me but are you open?”  I looked up and there standing in front of me was the hooded boy I had seen earlier “you!” I gasped before he put his hand over my mouth. “calm down sweetheart alright? I just wanted to buy this.” And with that he placed a large box with a toaster on the side with letters that spelt out ‘NEW AND IMPROVED! NO MORE BURNT TOAST FOR YOU!’ on the side of a silver chrome toaster with four slots on the top . I couldn’t help cracking a smile, for some reason it just amuses me that a guy would by a toaster “so, your girlfriend sick today? Needed you to get some toaster?” I said nonchalantly as I passed it over the scanner “no girlfriend, just need a new toaster.” He said in the same tone, not looking me in the eyes “Oh I see.” I said nodding my head in an understanding way. I bagged the toaster and passed it to him, whispering as I did “have a nice day.” He eyed me questioningly and walked, no limped, to the door. Strange, when I saw him earlier he had been in perfect health. As I pondered over why he would limp in such a way that he looked like a hunchback, an old woman                came up behind me and said “you’ll want to keep an eye on that one. He’s got a reputation around here.”

But as I turned around to ask her what he had a reputation for, she had gone.