SGS: Nøglen til Ord - Novelle

Everything was some mysterious stuff for me. The sunset wasn’t quite up yet, but it would be in a few minutes. I always sensed the sunrise, before any else. It is just like Odd Thomas, who had an internal clock that was always fifteen minutes backward.

My life has always been normal with normal parents, normal school, normal friends, and normal interests. There was nothing Odd Thomas about me. I couldn’t see dead people or prevent anything from happened like the clairvoyants around the world. I was just a normal kid, who had a normal life.

But as you can sense and if you can read between lines, something did happen to me.

I couldn’t believe myself, when it did happen. It couldn’t be that obvious, that it really would happen to me, because I was just a normal kid. But it did happen.

And everything changed.

It was a dark and cold night. Damn, it sounds like a thriller, when I tell it like that. But really, it actually was a dark and cold night. It was like mid-November, so the change between fall and winter were beginning to show.

I had worked late in the grocery shop, which my uncle owned. That’s the only reason I got the job in the first place. Not that I wasn’t a smart kid, I definitely was, but I was just too lazy to use my brain for the greater good. So the job at the grocery shop was a great thing to get my parents of my back. Not that they pushed me into anything, or something, they just don’t like that people lying around all day long.

But anyway, it was a dark and cold night, and I had the late work shift that day, like I always had on Wednesdays. I had just served Mrs. Callum, who always buys the usual two packets of cigarettes and a bottle of Ballantine’s. It was a sure thing, that she will buy exactly these two things every Wednesday at 8 o’clock, at every goddamn week. Sometimes I wish, she would surprise herself and me, and buy something else. But nope, false hope every Wednesday at 8 o’clock.

Except that it was this cold and dark weather outside, everything in the shop went as it always went. Nice and quiet like every Wednesday. A little over eight, just a few minutes after I served Mrs. Callum, I saw a flash in the back corner of the shop. I wondered about it, because there weren’t normal any in the shop around this time. Well, except Mrs. Callum and myself. My uncle was upstairs in his apartment above the shop, so technically, he wasn’t in the shop.

But I didn’t wonder that long about it. Maybe it could just be Mrs. Mayham’s children, who have been let outside to buy some candy, because their daddy has come home from the seas. Then Mr. Mayham had a schilling or two for them, so they could buy some sweets, when Mr. and Mrs. Mayham could have some private time.

I saw the flash again, and once again I wondered. This time because I remembered, that it wasn’t the first Wednesday in the month, and that was the time where Mr. Mayham would come home. So I lifted my arse a bit from the office chair. Yes, so privileged are we actually behind the cash tape.

Well, once my butt was lifted from the warm seat, I saw the flash right again. This time I thought that I probably should go and check it out. Maybe it could be the ceiling lamps that was flashing, and for that, I needed my uncle. I wasn’t definitely an electrician, but my uncle could fix a thing or two after all those years working in the shop. He is so stingy, that he will not pay for a professional electrician.

I hopped the little hop down on the floor and heard my shoes slapping against the floor. I moved away from the cash tape, and began the walk down in the back of the grocery shop. Of course on the way down the aisles, there was a few thing stacked wrong, so I stopped and put them back in order. No one should come and tell me I didn’t do my job. I was lazy with the use of my brain, but I still had a job to do, and no one should have a chance to put a finger on my doings in my job.

When I reached the back aisle, I saw, that the flash was just a ceiling lamp out of order. It was the third time in a month the exact same ceiling lamp was out of order. And my uncle was, as I told you, too stingy to buy a new one, and kept repairing it. I was sick of it. Maybe I should request him, that he could take money of my salary, so that he could buy a damn new lamp.

I heard the chime at the doors go, so I started to walk back to the front of the shop, and hoping that is wasn’t Jimmy, the self-proclaimed bad ass of the town, coming in for some flirting. He thought he was so though and bad ass, but that was just an attitude. He couldn’t handle a large rat as if his life was at stake.

And I was right. It was the one and only Jimmy. His worn leather jacket was as always open and with his hands in the pockets of the jacket. It reminded me of the character Jake in the TV series The Secret Circle. Same bad ass type, instead that the TV character was way more bad ass than Jimmy was in the real world. I nodded my head at him, when I sat down behind the cash tape again. He nodded back and gave me, what he thought would be a though look in the eyes. But he just looked like a puppy that had done something wrong, which amused me. He could practice all he wants in front of the mirror, but he could never get the facial expressions right, so all the bad ass attitude just dropped hard to the ground.

At some point there was something weird about Jimmy tonight that I couldn’t put my finger on. And it kind irritated me. My grandma always said that I was a person, who could see right through people. I could always tell when they lied to me or what emotion they were in. Okay, maybe I was a bit odd, but definitely still nothing like Odd Thomas. To me it was normal, and I didn’t brag about it, because I really didn’t care that much about it. It was just how life was for me, not a big deal at all.

I heard Jimmy muffled around in the aisle with the breakfast. It sounded like he was looking at some cornflakes by the sound there was, which was very odd, because Jimmy always eats eggs and bacon and a big glass of juice as breakfast. Again I lifted my arse a little bit, just to see what he was doing, but I couldn’t see anything. I shrugged my shoulders and sat down again. Maybe it was that one time, where my Wednesday evening would change and something new would happen. I would just wish it had been Mrs. Callum instead of Jimmy. That would have been more exciting in a weird way.

Finally, Jimmy dragged himself to the cash tape with his shopping. It was a bag of cornflakes – waw, something new was happening – and a bag of chips. I looked at ham and smiled. He looked at bit nervous for this quiet evening. I could ask him if he was alright, but I didn’t know how to start. His eyes flickered around and he couldn’t hold his eyes on me. I saw some water droplets on his forehead, like was he running a marathon. I gave him a strange look, just like to say “Hey, what’s wrong with you tonight”.

All out of sudden I was lying on the floor and my side hurts. Everything was kind of blurred for me, and I might think I hit my head, when I fall of the chair. Maybe I didn’t eat enough today, since I could pass out that suddenly. I looked up to ask Jimmy to help me up, because that side really was pissing me off with pains.  But the only thing I could see was that blurred lines of the cash container in the cash register and that is extended. Over the cash tape was Jimmy standing and getting a good grip on all the money in the cash register. I think he looked at me, and he might have looked a bit scared. Did he really hit me out for money? I would totally have helped him out and lend him some, if he had asked politely.

Jimmy ran out of the shop, before I could do anything. I was trying to sit up, but the pain was unbearable. When I put my hand on to my side to squeeze the cramps together, I noticed, I was wet on my side. I took my hand right in front of my eyes, and they widened as they saw the colour on my hand. I would have screamed if I was that kind of girl, but the only thing that went through my mind was something weird.

Holy moly! I did not expect that to happen on a Wednesday!