1.8 You're Feeding Them

     “And what he said was just plain stupid!” 

“No, no, you’re wrong. He was completely justified in what he said! They are a threat!” 

Talk radio blared out through the convenience store, filling the air with the pitchy voices of puppeteers. Obi straightened up a row of lottery scratch-offs and watched the clock tick past nine thirty. The wind outside shook the windows and the doors like cardboard in the pitch black of the moonless night. Only two and a half more hours. 

“Are you allowed to change the radio?” a voice said. Obi’s heart skipped a beat as he looked up for the source. Standing at the counter was a girl, smiling, holding a bottled drink and a packet of gum. He had completely missed her coming in. 

“No, I can’t change it. My dad has it locked on this station.” 

The girl nodded, and then, after a moment of silence, said “Uhmm, just these two for me.”

“Oh! Of course. I’m sorry.” Obi said, moving from his post in front of the scratch-offs. 

“No worries,” she responded. Her voice was delicately balanced between sweetness and disinterest, never straying too far in either direction. “I don’t need a bag.” 

“That’ll be $4.18. Do you need a bag-no, you just said you didn’t. Nevermind.” Obi said, still flustered by her sudden appearance. “Sorry, I just didn’t notice you come in, so you kind of startled me.” 

She plugged her card into the machine and smiled at him, but didn’t say anything. 

“Do you need a receipt?” 

“No, I’m okay. Have a good night.” 

“You too. It’s windy out there.” 

The girl pulled her hood up and pushed open the door, disappearing into the night. 

“It’s windy out there?” Obi said out loud to himself. He slumped down on the hard leather stool in front of the register and sipped his warm soda. His father fancied him the successor to the business, but he could think of nothing less interesting than owning a convenience store. When he was a boy, he would sit on the floor beneath the counter and bang on dome lids with straws, creating the vaguest of beats. When he was twelve, the CD player in the backroom of the store started skipping and slowing. Obi collected as many CDs as he could find, just to hear them distorted. After a month or two, his father threw it out. The bell above the door rang and he stood up to greet the customer. 

“Hey Obi,” A man in his late forties walked by the counter towards the coffee. He worked the overnight shift as a machinist at the robotics plant down the street and stopped in for coffee on his way. 

“Hey, Mr. Micah.” 

“Just Micah’s fine, I’m no mister,” he said as he poured his coffee, and then reached over the counter to the backup sleeves of cups and pulled a sleeve of the small size to restock. 

“Oh, I can do that,” Obi said, moving over to help. 

“I don’t mind. Hey, how’s your music remixing going? You planning on posting anything soon?” 

Obi rested an arm on the case of warm sandwiches, appreciating the heat.  

“It’s alright,” he said. “I think my laptop is about to go though. It keeps shutting off on me. I don’t think I’ve made anything I should post yet.” 

“My offer is still on the table if you ever want to come down to the plant and record some sounds,” Micah said. “It’s just me and a couple of other guys, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind. We’ve got a whole room full of rejected voice boxes and malfunctioning speech drives.” 

“That sounds great,” Obi said. “I just need to save up for a recorder that’s a little more portable than the rig I’ve got at home.” 

“Sure, just let me know,” Micah said. He moved over to the counter and dropped exact change down before walking out the door with a hand waving. “Take care, Obi.” 

“You too!” Obi called after him. 

Nine fifty-five. 

He slowly collected the change and dropped it into the register. The sound of it was particularly grating tonight. Each coin screeched against its peers. Obi winced, and gently slid the last few along the curved wall of the coin repositories. He slid the drawer closed and walked around the counter to the wall of fridges. He patrolled along them, rotating some bottles to face outward, and some to face inward. Some to face each other. He took a can of diet soda and shook it up, then placed it back in the fridge. Anything to pass the time. As he was straightening up a few of the price tags, he peered through the gap in shelves into the cold room behind the fridges. One of the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling was flickering again. Shadows popped in and out of existence, and next to a rack of flavored waters, Obi thought he saw a silhouette. It was tall and wriggling slowly like a worm, but it had all the makings of a human. Arms, legs, a head with long flowing hair. The bell above the door rang and a man in a tattered jean jacket stepped up to the counter, tapping his wallet impatiently. 

Obi glanced back through the fridge and the silhouette was gone. He rubbed his eyes and walked back to the counter. 

“Hello,” he said. 

“Newports,” The man responded. 

Obi scanned the cigarettes and placed them on the counter. 

“$9.75 please.” 

“And a lighter.” 

“$11.74 sir.” 

Before the receipt had been printed, the man was swinging the door open, a cold draft sweeping through the building. Obi hurried back to the fridges and looked through the shelves once more. The light was still flickering, but there was no shadow. No mysterious figure. He considered going back to check the room but decided against it.

Ten oh one. A bag of chips fell from the display in the back of the store and the sound made Obi jump. He sighed and slammed the fridge door closed. He walked down the aisle to the back of the store and rounded the corner only to find the girl from earlier, leaning down to pick up the chips on the floor. 

“Holy shit,” he said, and then immediately covered his mouth. “I’m sorry. When did you come in?”

“Just now. Are you okay?” she responded. “I’ve scared you twice now.”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” He said, straightening up the bag she had placed back on the shelf. “Just...yeah.” 

She stared at him, unconvinced, then held up a container of salsa and a bag of chips. 

“I forgot these. That’s why I’m back.” 

Obi smiled bigger than he should have in an attempt to make the interaction more normal and only succeeded in making it more awkward. 

“Gotta have the chips and dip,” he said, then audibly groaned. “I’ll just be up at the counter.” 

The girl remained expressionless. 

“Me too,” she said. 

They turned to walk up the aisle but quickly realized it was too small for both of them and Obi stepped around the other side and walked along the fridges, muttering ‘sorry’ as he went. He quickly glanced in the fridges and saw the silhouette again, moving along with him, closer this time. It was moving, but not walking. The shadows of legs remained still as it floated along through the cold room, and the shadowy head turned towards Obi. For a moment, he thought he saw two eyes staring back at him, then the fridges ended, and he was staring at the cold case of salads. 

“Something wrong with the salads?” The girl said, waiting at the counter. 

“Oh...no,” Obi responded, turning towards her. “Other than the fact that they’re...no they’re fine.” He thought of a snide comment about convenience store food, but an overwhelming feeling of familial guilt pressed down upon him before he could finish the sentence. He could see the look on his father’s face. The look he had seen so many times since his mother died. One of a man trying his best, and still feeling inadequate. 

As Obi scanned the chips and salsa, he could feel the girl staring at him. He looked up and they locked eyes. 

“You let me in, Obi,” she said quietly. 

“We’re open twenty-four hours,” he responded. “Wait, how do you know my name?” 

She laughed. 

“I don’t mean into the store,” she said. “And I know a lot about you, that’s why I picked you of course.” 

“You...you picked me? I don’t understand.” 

The counter between them began to shake and crack. Suddenly, it split in two and crumbled. Obi stepped back and slammed into the cigarette display, only it wasn’t the cigarette display. He turned, and behind him was a massive monitor. On it, he could see himself, looking back. He swung back around to face the girl. She hadn’t moved, but behind her, the convenience store was gone. In its place was a mass of people. Thousands, crammed shoulder to shoulder, arms raised, jumping up and down in ecstasy. Brilliant multicolored lights flashed across them and landed on Obi. Where the counter had been, now stood a table covered in DJ equipment. He moved towards it and gently pushed the fader up. Music poured into the space around him, and the crowd erupted. 

“I can give you this,” The girl said. Her voice somehow cut through the staggering sound of the crowd. Obi could hear her perfectly. “The Menagerie can provide for you, and your father.” 

The crowd melted away, and Obi was back in the convenience store, only he wasn’t behind the counter, he was in the cold room peering through the shelves. The sun was shining through the doors, and the store was packed with people. His father was behind the counter singing as he counted out a woman’s change and then handed her a flyer for a show.

“Tonight! Tickets are sold out, but you can see my boy on the television! Don’t miss it!” 

Then, Obi was back behind the counter, staring at the girl. 

“What...how did you do that? What are you?” he stammered. 

“I am just a piece of something much greater,” She said. “When dreams fade in the waking hours, it is because the Menagerie is breathing them into the lungs of beings like myself. Fantasies are nothing but grapes on a vine. When left to sweeten, the harvest will be even greater, but never should they be abandoned to shrivel and die. The time for your harvest is now, Obi.” 

“I don’t understand why you would do this for nothing,” Obi said. “I am nobody, and yet you’re promising me things beyond my imagination.” 

The girl laughed again. 

“I am not doing this for nothing!” She said. “I am doing this for the visions I just shared with you. There is a well inside of me, and every day it is slowly drained. Seeing you living the dream you’ve had since you were a boy, and seeing your father smile like he did years ago is enough to replace what has been taken from me.” 

The girl reached into her pocket and pulled out a translucent green stone in the shape of a diamond. Suspended inside the diamond was a tiny golden bell, etched with delicate silver writing. She placed it on the counter in front of Obi. 

“If you trust me, ring the bell. It doesn’t need to be now. I have all the time in the world.” She smiled once more at him, and then, in an instant, was gone. 

Obi stood motionless, staring at the diamond. The radio continued to drone on, but it sounded like static to him. He carefully picked up the diamond and sat down. It was warm to the touch and as soft as wool. For the next hour, not a single customer came through, and Obi did nothing but stare at the bell. There was a part of him that was suspicious, but more than anything, he felt excitement. The first vision was wonderful, but the second was the one that had his heart fluttering. Perhaps his dreams and his father’s weren’t as at odds as he once thought. Perhaps this was all an elaborate prank played on him, but perhaps it wasn’t. As the clock struck eleven, he smiled. It was a bright, big smile, like the one on his father’s face when he came home and told his family he was a store owner. Obi shook the diamond, and the bell rang out.