We went shopping after work tonight, clothes, toys, anything
We were in a store that is popular with the teenage girls. We were leaving and out of the corner of my eye I noticed the security guard. A very old man, thin, balding, sort of lost looking, smiling even though he looked broken inside.
I didn’t think about it until we got outside, and I realized I knew him.
He used to run a convience store down the street from where we used to live
A really great store, the kind of corner store that always comes through in the clutch when you just realized you need flour, or batteries, or ice cream, and no place else is open.
He was a really great guy, he had operated the store by himself every day for decades.
Then one day he got sick, and the store never opened up again. And the town was coming through every property in the street with eminent domain anyway
Gentrification
what it is like for him, so old, who used to run his own independant store, and now has to be a mall security guard.
The girls in the store probably think he is creepy. in a fake whisper so he can hear. but he is a really sweet, excellent man.
I feel absolutely alone tonite,
even worse than normal.
The wind sounded much hollower than it should have on my way home tonite
and I was sure at least 10 people were following me home