The kid inside

A man is looking at his reflection in the window of a store. He sees himself, good-looking in his suit and tie, with his hair perfect. “Alpha”, he says. The people on the street are going about their business. Some notice him staring at his reflection and how contempt he is of what it shows him. They know better than that, they have somewhere to get to, something better to do. The man notices them briefly in the background. The bad and the ugly, the assholes, he thinks. His eyes return but something else captures his attention. His heart starts beating fast as if he’s seen a ghost. He puts his hands against the window to block the sun and get a better look inside. He spots a small boy on the other side. The boy, although vaguely familiar, looks weak and ugly. Out of nowhere fear fills the man outside. “Who is that in there?” he asks himself. Some bum kid, he thinks. Inside, the room looks more like a prison than a place of business, with just a dirty counter and some dusty shelfs full only with dust and darkness that covered everything as if the sun didn’t belong in there.  

                Frightened, he takes a step back and looks up at the sign above. He’s surprised to see his own name is up there – Sammy’s LTD. Panic sets in paralyzing his mind, he starts shaking uncontrollably and runs away, but only to face the hard boardwalk after just a few feet as if someone or something tripped him over. He gets up, cleans himself while wondering what the hell is going on. Looking down at his feet he sees a thick chain around his right foot. He follows the chain with his eyes only to find out that it leads back to the store he was trying to run from. He stops for split-second without a thought in mind, yet his instinct decides he has no other choice but to investigate this mysterious place. He walks back and with his hands shaking takes another look inside almost certain of where the chain ends. His face turns pale and he feels a cold chill running down his spine. He spots it and sees that it leads to the boy’s ankle. He takes another look at the sign. His name is still there, in big capital letters. Bringing his eyes down he spots his reflection again and it calms him down a little. It gives him confidence. He tries the door but no luck there. It’s locked. He’s thinking that this must be a joke of some sort. He looks down and there’s no chain. “I must be losing it. It must be the sun.” he says.  

                His second attempt to put some distance between himself and the store ends in the same place as it did the first time. He starts to feel the chain’s weight and the metal sound brigs him to a halt. This time he’s no longer scared, just irritated that the joke’s not over. “What the hell is going on? Oh, someone’s going to get hurt when I get to the bottom of this!”

Once again he rushes back to the store. He tries the door again, finding it as it was the last time, but now he notices the CLOSED sign. He figures that if his name is on the sign, he must be the owner. He checks his pockets but doesn’t find a key. Then he knocks on the window, but the boy seems be ignoring him. “He’s breathing so probably he’s just sleeping in there, he thinks. Who is that boy, he wonders. He must have gotten in there somehow, right? I’ll just wait for whoever has the key and I’ll get some answers from him. Especially about this god damn chain!” He took a seat on the doorstep. He’s thinking how lucky he is, most likely the proud owner of a store and he didn’t even knew it. The gods are good after all and they finally came through for him. 

Half an hour later a tall beautiful redhead stops in front of the store and looking at the window. Out of her tight red skirt he sees her long legs and the high heels that make her look like a goddess among mortals. He scans her from top to bottom as if going through a checklist. He notices her sunglasses. He figures she can’t really see inside. That’s to his advantage, of course. He gets up and approaches her.

“Hello there!” he says smiling.

“Oh! Hello, are you the owner?” she asks smiling back.

“Well, it has my name on it. I must be, right?” he replies.  She laughs.

“I didn’t notice the sign. The sun must have distracted me. What are you selling in this store of yours?” she asks.

“What are you looking to buy? I’m sure there’s something to your liking inside.”

“Oh, I have quite a list: something for dinner, maybe a book and some red wine, of course and flowers for my lovely vase” she replies laughing.

“Not sure about the flowers, but the rest I think I can help you with, he tells her even if he has no clue of what’s inside his store. What do you enjoy reading?” he asks.

“Usually, I read Sci-Fi, but now I’m looking for something romantic. I always had a soft spot for romance”, she replied with confidence.

“Why does a beautiful woman like you need to read about love? You get plenty of that every day, I’m sure. Just look at yourself. You’re gorgeous and men must be lining up at your door” he tells her while portraying something that resembled confidence.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. A man who never reads lives only one. Don’t you agree?”

“I must agree to such powerful words”, he replied while looking straight in her brown. He brings his eyes down for a second and notices the chain was still there. She didn’t see it, he thinks and it was true. Why wasn’t she seeing it? How was he going to explain it to her when she would? That’s something to deal with later, he tells himself while staring at her. He’s hooked on her.

“Indeed! That’s George R. R. Martin.”

“Isn’t he the guy that wrote the Game of Thrones books?”

“And others”, she replied.

The conversation went on for some time between the two and they seemed to hit it off, joking and flirting. She had the looks and was absorbed his charming wit, but had no clue of what had happened earlier. He was thrilled and couldn’t believe that such a specimen was captivated by him. He played along and kept checking her perfect red lips, couldn’t take his eyes off of those magical, full and moist lips like they had just dripped with honey. His mind wandered off, imagining that with her as a regular customer more would soon to follow. She would tell her friends about him and his shop. He even considered marrying her and the two of them running the store together. With a woman like that, he would be king. He owned the store and her looks would attract the customers like flies, both men and women. The possibilities would be endless. A good day indeed, he thought. Just then, she took off her glasses and she looked down. He noticed how her expression turned  from sweet to bitter. He had anticipated this moment would come and the fear he hid so well was surfacing. She had seen the chain, she would discover everything and he couldn’t explain anything even if he wanted to. He did not care to make something up in advance.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her while obviously trying to get a grip on his emotions.

“Why are your clothes so dirty and wrinkled?! You look more like a bum rather than a store owner. What is this?!” she said raising her voice shocked at what she was looking at.

“What do you mean? I’m looking good. My suit probably got a bit wrinkled while I sat here talking to you. Nothing to it.”

“I’m not buying that! What… What’s with that chain on your leg?! Is that a chain?! Why is it going inside the shop?” she asked. You could see she didn’t expect that image.  

“I’m somehow tied to the shop and…”

She stopped hearing him. She took a look through the window and this time she really saw what lied behind the glass. She saw the dirt on the shelfs and the old broken counter that seemed out of this world. Her eyes fell down on the skinny boy and he was looking at her with tears in his eyes, frightened as if he had been locked in there for a very long time without seeing daylight since birth. He looked like a scared animal trapped in a cage, receiving beatings three times a day instead of food. She was horrified at the sight and then she looked back at the man next to her and saw that his face was an older version of the kid inside, but he was smug and was great at talking her up.

                “Who are you?! You know what? Don’t answer that. I know who you are and what you did to that boy in there. You’re probably clueless, aren’t you?” she told him with watering eyes. She had realized she was being played.

                “Baby, what are you talking about? This is my store! It has my name on it and I’m chained to it so that no one would steal it from me. Just look around at all these fucking people. Each and every one of them is shit and thinks they can have my store. It’s mine and ain’t going to let anyone get close to it. They can look at it but it’s mine. All mine and it has my name on it!”

                ”Forget it! I know what you are and I’m taking my shopping list someplace else. And you better believe it that I’m gonna tell everyone about you and your store! That poor boy…”

                That last remark came out as she started walking furiously away from the scene shaking and crying thinking about the weary kid inside. In the last few seconds his fear and anger had built up real good and he started running after her but the chain had him pinned to the boardwalk one more time and he only saw her walking away. She had escaped by a miracle. He got up and went back to his store.

“It’s only your god damn fault you stupid fucking cripple! You ruined everything and because of you nothing good is going to happen to me or my store! You have damned piece of shit. You deserve the chain, not me!” he shouted at him with spit at the corners of his mouth.

He was kicking the window, trying to break it, but with each hit the window seemed to get thicker and more resistant to his abuse as if it was trying to shield the kid from his wrath. But the boy could see him and hear each word that came out of his mouth is if he was in there with him, and when the man had finished his verbal rampage the boy looked even worst that he did the first time they had met that day. He crawled back into hi corner and was shaking like a wet dog in the winter, his power drained even more. In the corner of his eye, the man saw something on one of the shelfs. It was covered with dust and he could barely decipher it was a key; he realized the kid had no chance in hell to reach it, nor did he wanted him to get it. He couldn’t care less. He had the store, it was his and all that he needed was the name on the sign. It made him feel real and more of a man than he had ever been.

“You better not reach that fucking key! I’ll kill you if you open this door! You’ll wish you never existed, you fucking waste of my time!” he started again. “Look at what I’m suffering because of you! She left me! I had her eating from the palm of my hands and her goddess lips were mine! You ruined everything!” He turned at the people on the street and started whining at them, but when the passers understood what was going on, they stepped up their pace and avoided him. He told them off, like they were inferior, just like the boy inside the store. No one was like him, all a bunch of frauds and freaks, he told them, but they knew who the fraud was.

When he couldn’t shout anymore, he sat down in the chair again, not moving and holding his head in his hands. It got dark, the sun had set and the broken streetlights were the only things that moved. The man wasn’t a man anymore. He resembled more to a bum fortunate enough to be wearing a suit. What he did to deserve this, especially now when the gods had blessed him with this store that everyone wanted, it’s the kid’s fault, he told himself. He had done nothing wrong and yet he was in hell and it that devil inside had brought him to his knees. Then a different thought crossed his mind.

“Chain or no chain, this is still my store and my name is still up there. There are lots of people in this town and more and more women walk up and down this street each day. To hell with that redhead! She probably does that to every shop owner in town. It’s not my fault that she didn’t see who I am and didn’t appreciate what I gave her! To hell with her! She had small tits and I didn’t like her voice that much anyway. I’ll try again tomorrow. But this time I’ll be in control. The next one won’t see the chain, or that fucking kid inside. I’ll just show her the sign and talk my way up her skirt...”

The boy had heard him and sighed. What was will be again…