Cleake woke up and immediately began sneezing. No idea where his sickness came from, but his hatred of pets made him assume it was the animals he worked with. He called in sick to work to find that many coworkers had already called in sick and he was needed at work. This meant work was mandatory. Cleake knew he should have called earlier, but procrastinated the awkward conversation with his boss. On his out of his apartment, 107, he found that he had no tylenol to get him through the day. He left early for work so he could stop at the clinic to get some. He took two immediately and put the rest of the container in his pocket for later. On his way out, a blind man yelled, seemingly directed at Cleake, "What will come will come. Even if I shroud it in silence." Frightened, Cleake scurried off to work without passing the man any of his spare change. On his way to Alfonso's Pets, Cleake pondered how the blind man sensed that he hadn't helped him and eventually concluded that the man wasn't actually blind, but was scamming people for money.
Despite settling the issue, the man haunted Cleake all day. Ever customer Cleake saw seem to have it out for him as they'd give him a hard time for anything. This set Cleake off edge and made him miss things as he pondered what on Earth the man could have done to cause this. "What will come will come," came out to Cleake the most. At the time, Cleake thought of it as if it was alright. The man would make his money either way, but then Cleake realized that the man could have been referring to his sickness. That his sickness would be his end, it would come. All of the possibilites that it could mean drove Cleake crazy. He decided that he needed to pay this man his money as soon as work ended.
After freaking out on a ton of customers, work finally ended. Cleake awkwardly rushed to the clinic to pay this man. Cleake dropped the contents of his wallet in there. The blind man, hearing the money hit the copper bowl, replied, "True, it is not your fate to fall at my hands." Cleake backed away and ran home to fall asleep. He needed to rest. As he was finishing his day he realized his wrongs. He had ignored the needy when he had so much and then accused the man of scams so quickly. Cleake could rest peacefully knowing this.
My route remained uneventful until I got to the coffee shop. I had an envelope to deliver. Apparently, 24-hour just doesn't mean anything anymore, since several people were waiting outside the closed building. The group was mostly adult men, but there were a couple of teenage girls, too. Most of them looked pretty reserved and sullen, but a couple of people were talking. They stopped and stared at me. "Uh, hi," I said. "Is the shop closed?"
ReplyDeleteOne of the girls finally responded, "Yeah. Why?"
"I've got mail for the people who run the place. Could one of you possibly give it to them when they finally open up?"
No one said anything. They all just stared at me. Me with my obnoxious shopping cart full of mail.
Cool, guys.
"Well, alright then," I said, and pushed through to stuff the envelope under the door.
The staring was getting to me now; it was just a tad too much like my nightmare.
I started walking away down the street, and broke into a run after just a few yards.