Takumi

At 1AM, corner stores are for drunks, insomniacs, and men who look like they’ve killed someone. I am lucky enough to serve all three.

When I tell people that I am working in a corner store they have one of two reactions. Some people get embarrassed, choking on their words as they scramble for a new topic, desperate to rescue me from their question.

The others gain a sudden interest in the workings and life of a corner store. “Do you get a store discount? That must come in handy.” I suppose this is also trying to help, but it still feels patronising, answering these inane questions.

Actually, I quite like it here. I work the night shift, so it’s never that busy. You get to see quite a lot of the same people, and while I don’t say more than a few cursory words towards them, they feel like familiar faces. I even give some of them nicknames. The man who had just left was called ‘Sire’ who gained his nickname due to his heavy sighing whenever he enters the shop. In the back of the store someone was browsing the ice-cream section. He was big, casting an imposing shadow from the light of the freezer, with dyed blonde hair. He wore a gold wallet chain. I decided to call him ‘Ichiban’ for now, like in the Yakuza games.

The bell chimed. The door opens partially, then swings shut. From where I am sitting, I can only see the top of a head enter the room. I guess it’s not a child, but one of my regulars. She was still yet to be named. For a while I had called her ‘last orders’ for her tendency to slip in around 1AM, but such a name seemed to carry an intimidating element. She was anything but. Besides being quite short, she had almost a mousy face, with hair covering most of it in scruffy bangs. Peeking out from behind the fringe, she would set down the exact change for the items she wanted, then scarper off, hardly leaving me time to count it.

I turned to the window on my left. Normally the streetlights would shine in through the window, and I could watch the passersby outside too, but today the whole place seemed blurry, like it was covered by a film. I had thought that it was just dirt earlier, but if you looked very closely it was ever-so-slightly hazy, like a dust cloud was rising off it. Peering closer, it almost looked like there were some kinds of geometric shapes behind the swirling dust. I squinted.

“Hey.”

An open palm hit down onto the counter. Disturbed, I looked up to see Ichiban, slightly too close for comfort. He looked at me sideways.

“2000 Yen, okay?”

Surely enough, a crisp 2000 Yen note poked out from under the stubby fingers. I scanned the items, feeling uneasy under such a watchful eye. They came to 1700 Yen, I gave him his change in coins, and he turned away. I closed my eyes for a second of rest. Hearing his footsteps go towards the door, I realised just how tired I was tonight.

“Hey! Why is your door locked?”

Ichiban was pulling on the door handle, but to no use. The handle bent under his strength, the last screws remaining stubbornly immobile.

Fearing the door would break, I rushed over.

“It can’t be locked; it is a little stiff sometimes...”

A shattering sound came from the middle isle. I looked at Ichiban, then to the isle. What now? He had heard it too and began walking towards the source of the noise. The girl was lying on the floor, a jar of some kind of sauce broken next to her. Ichiban ran over towards her but pulled up short. His surefooted running became a casual stroll, then a drunk’s stagger. A heavy hand crashed into the shelf. Bottles toppled, then stopped, motionless at impossible angles. Wrappers floated upwards, hung in suspension. His body followed the hand, careening into the side of the wall.

The products kept swimming off the shelf like water from a tap. They would float upwards, slowly filling the room in a multicoloured spiral. My vision swam. The man, the girl, the shelves. Everything began to swirl into one smear among the waves of packaging. I tasted bile. I couldn’t see anything. Then suddenly everything loosened. Before losing consciousness completely I felt myself drift downwards.

My throat was dry. It ached. Swallowing was fruitless, I couldn’t even muster the spit for that. With no other options, I opened my eyes. A floor greeted me; bark and leaf debris clung to my face. It was still twilight, but I had no idea where I was. Were there even any forests in the city? I shook out my arms. They felt like they’d been frozen in place for hours. Next to me, another groan joined mine. The girl from the store was there, lying flat on her back, and in front of her, Ichiban was rising up. A shower of dirt fell from him as he stood, shaking like a dog.

“What the hell...” He saw me, then scowled. “You. From the store, right?” It wasn’t a question so much as an accusation. He pressed on, stepping forwards, as if to punctuate his words. “Where the hell are we? Why’d you lock me in?”

I had always hated confrontation, but not answering here wasn’t an option. He already looked liable to tear me into two pieces just for finding me there.

“No... I was just. I just woke up too. I don’t know”

He furrowed his brows, still groggy from before.

“Guys...” A small voice came from the girl. She was still on her back. I don’t think I had ever seen her eyes before, they were normally hidden beneath her hair. But lying like this, they were wide enough to reflect the tops of the trees, noble silhouettes against a dark sky.

Her voice cracked, barely more than a whisper. “I… I can’t” She turned her head, eyes wide, fixed on the sky. “Where’s the moon?”