poemtry and prose

Seven o'clock could not come fast enough for Autumn. She was tired when closing time arrived and stretched and gave a big yawn. It had already grown dark outside and all was quiet. It is way, too quiet," Autumn thought to herself. And the quietness unsettled her. She was not sure why but it made her skin crawl and sent goose bumps down her arms.

She went to the front door and locked it before she started working on the closing duties. Then she walked back behind the counter and set the electronic register to manager and quickly clicked in her key code. The register whooshed and beeped and whirled to life as it started going through its closing ritual. Soon, it was spitting out all sorts of numerical data on the ticker tape.

Autumn was glad the little machine helped to break the silence. Grabbing the green, paper money from each little slot of the till, she began counting it all. Despite the fact that most transactions she performed during the day were made with credit cards, it was a ritual habit she still did. Years of retail would probably not be able to beat it out of her.

"One, two, three," she thumbed through the stack of ones and moved onto the fives. Counting money sort of became like an evening meditation to Autumn. Thanks to credit and debit card technology it also did not take her long to count the individual pieces of money. When she was finished, she found that she had twenty dollars more cash than she started with.

The overage, Autumn pushed to the side, to be turned into the bank on her way home and then started focusing on the receipts from the cards. She slid her hand under the till and pulled out a small pile of receipts. First, she licked her finger and quickly counted up the total of receipts the day had. There were 15 total receipts. Now, to a small-time, local bookstore, this meant that she had a good day. To a larger chain, however, it was not a whole lot and they would have been ashamed at Autumn and her inability to sell books. She was glad she was in business for herself and not one of those large chains.

Autumn then thumbed through the stack once more, this time adding the totals of the receipts. While she did so, she started at each person's signature on the white slips of paper. It was a strange pleasure, almost voyeuristic, that she had when she looked at each signature. She wondered who each patron was, where they went every night after they left her store and what was going through their head as they signed the slips. She always vowed to herself to buy one of the books on handwriting analysis, almost monthly but she never really got around to it. There was always something else to do at the store or read or books to buy. While Autumn loved owning her own bookstore and being surrounded by a vast, almost personal library, the little store took up a lot of her reading time. It had been awhile since she last got to read and really enjoy a good book.

And when she was done totaling the receipts and making sure those numbers matched up with the totals the register spit out, all in all it was a pretty good day for Autumn. The money made that day was pretty much on the even keel and adding up some totals in her head told her that she would possibly break even this month with all her bills. Which definitely helped make it a good night for Autumn.

She went into the back-room and thought once more about how silence the store seemed. There, she grabbed her little vacuum and started vacuuming the store floor. The noise the small hand-push mower made did nothing to help the silence. Then it hit her, the reason it was so quiet was because she had never turned on the c.d. player that day. Her mind and been so focused on work and patrons and the books that she had not once bothered to turn on the classical music she sometimes played during store hours.

Not only that but she also found it odd that many of the regulars in her store did not bother to give her grief for not having music while they browsed the books sitting on the shelves waiting patiently for someone to pick them up and take them to a good home. She muttered to herself, "Must make sign for myself that reads 'Turn music on' every morning when I arrive to the store. Just cannot deal with the silence at the end of every night, like this. It is way to creepy."

Autumn quickly and haphazardly pushed the vacuum around the floor, she was hurrying, trying to get the closing duties finished so all she had to do was turn off the lights and set the security system and then leave for home. She was sure Bubba Gadget was hungry and patiently waiting for her to get home so they could spend some quality time snuggling and sleeping. Finally, the store was mostly clean and it was time for her to head home. Autumn walked back behind the front counter and clicked the cash register off. She then grabbed a plastic, blue bank folder from underneath the register and set it on the counter. Bold, white words reading "For Deposit Only, property of US BANK local commerce division." read clearly on the top.

She grabbed the twenty dollar bill and the small stack of receipts and jammed them into the bag. Her fingers reached out for the small, cold metal zipper on top of the bag and pulled it closed, sealing her hard earned day's payment somewhat safely inside. Then she grabbed her jacket, went to the back to set the lights on nighttime mode and headed back to the front door. Autumn was definitely ready to head home.

The security system beeped happily as it accepted Autumn's command code. She quickly unlocked the door and let herself out, only to re-locked the door behind her. She never really liked those security systems, they had always made her feel really rushed, like she was never going to be able to arm the system and get to the door with everything she brought with her before it would go off, alerting everyone in a five block radius that she was a moron and could not figure out how to use on of those systems. Of course, that scenario never happened but the possibility for it to happen was always there, nagging in the back of Autumn's head.

It was dark outside, which was not unusual for Portland at this time of day. Autumn was used to it being so dark all the time. The street lamps and their soft, blueish glow reminded Autumn of the fantastical will-o-wisp creatures that filled many of her fantasy books that she liked to read. The air was cold and Autumn inhaled the dampness deep into her lungs. She pulled her jacket closed and looked around herself once more, to make sure everything was safe. The coast was clear and Autumn briskly started to make her way up the hill to her train stop.

Cold nights, like this, sometimes made her wish she was a car owner. But she liked the spending time on the public transit system. She enjoyed watching people and the city as they went by, making up stories about their lives and personalities. Before she reached the first stop, Autumn dropped the nightly money off at the bank. It made a unceremonious ploofing sound as it hit the hard metal floor of the night drop box. She often hoped that it would be on her commute, some night, where a handsome man, someone intellectual and interesting, would grab the seat next to her and actually introduce himself to her and begin talking to her; right there on the Max system, where he might even ask her out to dinner or for a drink sometime. It did not matter that Autumn did not drink, she would politely accept his offer and then drink a soda or something to keep herself alert. But the fantasy man never showed up. Instead she usually had to fight her way onto the light rail cabins and past the mobs of people looking only to get home. She hated how no one really saw her on the trains, always jostling for that last open seat.

Luckily, the trip going back down to Goose Hollow that evening was uneventful. Both her starting stop and the transfer stop were free and clear of people. Autumn did not see Andrews on the street as she left the Northwest area of town and wondered where he took off for sleep every night. How such a well-read, intelligent man could have succumbed to such a life on the streets was a mystery to Autumn and she hoped that it was a life she never experienced herself. Which was probably a reason she worked so hard with her store. It was the only thing she knew and did not want it taken away from her because she could not afford to keep it open.

It made her sad to think that people were becoming less and less interested in books and more and more interested in games and computers and vegg'ing out in front of the television set watching tireless re-runs of old shows. She was proud to not have a television set in her apartment. However, not having one did not make her ignorant of what was going on around her. She did keep up with local and global news by reading the local newspaper and occasionally reading CNN online. And the rest of her evenings were always spent looking at the plethora of catalogs the publishers sent her, marking the inventory and making orders for new books to stock up her shelves with at the Page Turner and snuggling with Bubba Gadget.

An hour passed by the time she got to her apartment building tucked up back near the West Hills. She aimlessly meandered back to the building from her stop almost as if her mind was turned off. It was about nine o'clock and Autumn was tired. She was looking forward to making herself a quick dinner, maybe taking a bath and going to bed early that night so she could get an earlier start at work tomorrow. She often thought about hiring an assistant so that she could take some time off, but was afraid to do so. She really did not know anyone that well enough to trust her store with and most of the people she meet did not give off the right impression of one who could place the passion in the store like she could.

Autumn pushed open the glass door to her apartment complex. The entrance way smelled strongly of fruit and flower and Autumn noticed that the managers had changed out the potpourri bowl that was decoratively sitting on a side table next to a plush, checkered chair. Supposedly the scent made the building seem more like a home and not just another office complex that contained cold, uncaring homes for people to live in. Management even used fancy fonts for their names on their mailboxes. Autumn's name looked particularly harlequin printed across the gold metal box. She fidgeted with the keys on her keychain as she looked for the tiny key that would open the box and reveal all the assorted bills and catalogs and spam that people sent her.

Every year Autumn wrote to the postal office asking them to remove her name and business (she used her home address as the mailing address for the Page Turner) off the no soliciting mail list. And every year she still found her mail box to constantly be overrun with mail from credit card companies, mail order services and politicians. It was a vicious cycle that seemed to never end for her and always resulted in Autumn throwing the unwanted mail out with the weekly recycling. Fortunately, today was a light mail day and there was nothing too spectacular in her box. No bills, no spam.

Autumn quietly closed the mail box and headed towards the stairs. Even though her building had an elevator, Autumn never really trusted them. They scared her; so instead she climbed the three flights of steps to her cozy apartment.

She opened the door and was immediately greeted by Bubba Gadget. "Well, hello there Bubba," Autumn said as she bent down and scooped the siamese cat into her arms. "Did you miss me?"

She shut the door behind her, locked it and slid the privacy chain to its locked position. The cat purred in her arms, happy to see her. She placed Bubba Gadget on the counter and went to one of the cupboards. Inside were three rows of cat food, tuna flavored, chicken flavored and one called original flavored.

"So what will it be tonight, Bubba?" the red haired girl asked the cat. "I think I fed you tuna last night, so how about your favorite, the original flavor, tonight?"

She reached in and took out the pink can from the stacks and opened it with a can opener. Bubba Gadget purred and meowed as the smell of wet cat food wafted into the air. Autumn drained the excess preservatives from the can and emptied the food into Bubba's once empty bowl. He ate voraciously. Autumn bent down and gently pet the cat once more. Bubba Gadget arched his back in response. She tossed her keys on her wooden kitchen table and plopped down in one of the chairs. She pulled her leg up to her chest and started untying her boots.

Her mind drifted in and out of random thoughts before settling once again on the strange encounter with the boy that morning. She could not help but think about how odd it was. She wondered who that boy was and what he could possibly be searching for in her store. Autumn shook her head and stretched, "I should not think about it so often," she thought to herself. "It was probably just a weird kid who entered the wrong store and did not know what to say."

But she just could not convince herself that the words were true. "No matter, tomorrow is another day, and now, I must take a bath and then get ready for bed," she announced to her furniture and Bubba Gadget, who was still eating his dinner.

Autumn strolled into her bathroom and sat on the cold hard tan porcelain. She grabbed the faucet and soon a long, hot stream of water was pouring down into her bathtub. She left the tub to fill and wandered into her bedroom, stripping. Thinking it a good idea, she grabbed a few tea candles and a box of matches from a drawer in her night-stand. While she was there, she also set her alarm clock for two hours earlier, "At this rate, I hope I can finally get to store on time to be able to get more than the lights and coffee done. Like inventory and comparative sales. I need to know more about what attracts customers into the store and what they want to buy."

She went back into the bathroom and stopped the water from flooding over onto the floor. Autumn stuck her finger in the water, testing it. It was a bit on the warm side but it felt good. "This is just what I needed to try and rest and forget about the day."

She dropped two tea light candles on the flat side of the bathtub and light them. She then turned off the lights in the room. A soft yellow glow light up the corners of the tub. Autumn was rather pleased and she slipped into the tub, allowing the tension racked up during the day pass back down into the water. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, thinking about what it would be like to close the store for a week or two and take a nice relaxing vacation. She would probably stay in Portland but attempt to catch up on all the reading she wanted to do. "Maybe I would even go out to the clubs and try and be social," she thought.

She allowed her mind to take her into a small bathtub retreat, pretending that she was at the ocean and in a hot tub. The sounds of the waves rushed into her ears and the smell of salt filled her sinuses. And just as she was ready to insert the mental image of Mister Right, reality jolted her back to the little apartment and the bath tub with two candles lit. The phone rang.

"Damn it, who the hell could that be, calling this time of night," Autumn said aloud. She never got calls, unless they were from creditors. Luckily, the Page Turner had done well lately that she was almost caught up with payments.

Against her better judgement, Autumn scrambled out of the bath tub and back into the bedroom where she her old and crappy cordless phone sat. Her skin prickled bumps as the cold air threatened to remove the heat from her body. Water dripped onto the floor, leaving a shadowy foot print of feet her size on the carpet. She dove for the phone and quickly pressed the speak button. But it was too late. The phone stopped ringing.

Autumn sighed and muttered, "Cripes," and sat there holding the phone. She waited a few minutes more, giving the caller some time to leave a message or call back. But neither of them came; the steady beep beep beep tone of the phone signaling a message never came.

"I guess my bath is over," she said. Bubba Gadget sauntered into the room and hopped on the bed, as if on cue. "Okay, okay, Bubba, I get the hint. It is time for bed, no?"

She ruffled the cat behind the ears and put the phone back down on its cradle. Then she checked the time once more. Her alarm clock displayed ten-thirty. She stepped off the bed, and went to her dresser to get a shirt. Once her body was covered and warm in the gray and green flannel night shirt, she went back into the bathroom and pushed in the drain pipe. Water began gurgling down the drain as the image of the relaxing vacation went down with the hot water in the tub. Autumn carefully blew out the candles, making sure hot wax did not get all over the walls or the porcelain. The last thing she wanted to worry about before going to bed that night was how she desperately needed time to clean her apartment and hot wax off the porcelain.

Autumn looked in the bathroom mirror once more. Her green eyes looked dull next to her pale skin. Her hair, on the other hand, continued to look just as mousey and weather warn as it did every day. She never attempted to style it, for the curly red hair refused to hold any shape. Instead, it hung down her face, with the ends flaring out in every direction than the one she wanted them to go in. Autumn brushed her teeth, grabbed a container of face oil remover and wiped her face down. She smiled at the reflection in the mirror before brushing the light switch off again and leaving the room.

She grabbed the pillows off the Queen sized bed and smacked them around a few times. It never made sense to her, how hitting pillows could always make them seem fluffier. But it worked. Bubba Gadget, once curled up in a circle at the foot of the bed, sat upright, his ears and eyes strangely alert as the sound of the pillows being beat filled the air.

"Sorry Bubba, did not mean to wake you kitty. I hope you will forgive mommy and stay on the bed and snuggle with her tonight," Autumn said as she finished getting the bed ready for her weary body. She walked over to the other side of the room and switched the lights off. Wearily she walked over to the bed again, her night eyes adjusting to the darkness that consumed her apartment. Reaching down with her fingers she sought out her night stand and the alarm clock resting on the bottom shelf. Feeling the smooth plastic under her grip, she pushed a small sliding button to the on position.

Autumn yawned and crawled into bed. "Good night Bubba Gadget," she started as she straightened out the covers and blankets so that the entire bed was covered once more with their warmth. Autumn hated nothing more than to be woken up by the cold night time air. Before she laid down to let the dream world consume her, she reached out for the small, siamese cat.

"Time to cuddle mom and help purr her into sleep," she said, pulling the cat up to snuggling position. And with that, Autumn placed her head squarely in the middle of her favorite fluffy pillow and closed her eyes.