Display Case

A man stands in front of a display of a store. The glass is foggy, and he can barely make out the mannequins, nor their purpose. He rubs the glass with a hand, to no avail.

“You’re also curious?”

He turns his head, there is a woman in a large sweater that sags on her body, obscuring whether her posture was the same. Her arms hang at her sides, undecided as to their purpose, but her eyes settled on him with the weight of a creaking house.

“Guess so.” The man rubs the condensation his hand had gathered onto his coat, trying not to scowl at its watery cold.

She shifts, turning back to the display, “I wish I knew what they were selling. I pass this shop every day, but it’s always closed when I come by,” The woman remarks as do leaves rasp in the wind.

She taps a foot, “I’ll catch it one day.”

He scoffs, “It’s stupid. What is a store that doesn’t let paying customers in? I think I deserve more than just the hope I get to see something.” The man tries again to rub at the window, with a vigor that makes the glass squeak under his palm.

The woman watches.

She looks back again to the glass.

She imagines the people behind the walls.

Who owns this store? She doesn’t like to assume people are mean. Perhaps they have a busy, unpredictable schedule. It would make sense then that the store is closed at such strange times. Though, it could also be that she is never out and about when others are. It is a beautiful day. The sun glints off snow. No one is outside. On such a day the cold slows time, it beckons you to your home, to your family and friends. Maybe that’s why she is outside.

“Where is your family?” She asks absentmindedly.

“…What?” He is hunched over the spot of the window he is obsessively trying to clean.

With more purpose, she asserts, “Your family.”

The man straightens his back with his arms and a heave, “Somewhere where they don’t have to care about me anymore.” His smile is cracked by wrinkles born from bitterness. His hands, now clasped, dig into each other.

He ground his teeth, “I don’t have anything better to do, if that’s what you’re so politely skirting around.”

The woman knows this is hostility, she can recognize it as such, but she is more interested in conversation.

“My family is far away too, that’s why I go for walks,” she says, “At least I think so. The days blend together, you know.” The woman interlocks her fingers as a demonstration.

“And the memories follow.” The man completes the phrase under his breath, with a certain detest that would make you think he was scolded with it as a child.

He finally turns his whole body to her, a daring show of vulnerability to leave his stomach exposed. If she wants, she can gut him, who is he to care? Who is he to get anything else except what he deserves? He raises his arms.

“Okay, seriously, what is it? What do you want from me? What is there that a guy like me could possibly give you?”

The woman is quite plain in her decision, “I think you are like me.” She pauses, looking at her feet, then back up again, completely, solemnly, certain, “I think I am like you.”

His arms drop as his brow gathers, “The store will never be open, will it?” The man, set alight by fury, now sputters in despair.

“No… I-“ Words are buckets, they only carry a liter of a river of a lake of a sea of an ocean.

“I don’t think so.” She spills over.

People are buckets.

He wrings his shirt, “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Me neither.” Her legs feel like stone.

The two stand in a silent street in a silent city.

“Can I walk with you?”

“Anywhere that isn’t the window.” She sighs in relief.