Short Story ideas
Shelves, floor to ceiling, squeezed together innumerable titles- big and small. Some worn, some rigid, glossy, pristine. All contrasted against one another, each a veritable world safely stacked between two covers, snugly sandwiched within a row of its peers and finally housed within the sprawling walls of shelves which line the inside of a mid sized independent bookstore. The hum of electricity could be heard from the hanging overhead LED lamps even as the crackling energy from within each and every book waited patiently to be manifested. For good or for evil.
"It fucks me up how they do that... They hide- like, knowingly escape your line of sight as if they understand their situation. Death."
"Yea Ty, its a bug. It'll run away when you try to squish it..."
OK sure, but it CHOSE to hide behind the cup, and then the tupperware when I lifted that away. Its HIDING, not just scurrying away mindlessly."
"Do you want me to kill it?"
"Don't patronize me, I can kill a roach, I just want to complain while I do it."
"..."
"I mean, it's not like we sell pastries or any food. Its just coffee and sugar and shit and we still get all of these bugs. There's a pizza place right next to us you stupid roach, eat a damn calzone instead of coming to a bookshop!"
Ty hurled his abuses at the little thing while spraying a noxious cloud of disinfectant under the counter- knocking the roach from the wall of the cubby and finally smashing it with a napkin in hand. At the front counter, the barcode scanner gave its grindingly familiar *BIP* as Ty moved to dispose of the pest. Bri meanwhile, struck up conversation with a customer.
"Wait, are you done with the first one in this series or have you not read it yet?
"Yea yea yea no I finished the first book like a week ago. That whole polyamorous pirate island thing was so out of left field but I kinda loved it..."
"I KNOW right?! For a fantasy book that went so hard. I think this next one takes things a little more seriously but you'll still like it- its just got more developed characters and higher stakes."
Ty smiled. People could be a pain sometimes but he really loved these interactions with customers.
"OK, have a good one! Happy reading!" Said Bri, sending off the customer.
Ty was about to drop the napkin into the trash- but froze as he did so. The roach was missing from the folds of the tissue...
"EEuuGGHhhh GOD I hate that!"
"What are you talking about, that guy was super nice"
"No, no no the roach just disappeared. I don't know if its on me or if it flew away to prepare some kind of insect assault on me or what- but it just fucked off while I wasn't loo-"
A flit of movement pulled his attention to the ground where the roach was scurrying away, heading out of the register area and into the store. As it rounded the corner, Charles, the co-owner appeared from the same direction.
"Heya guys! didn't mean to bug ya- heh heh. But seriously, lets not mention that so loudly..." sweeping his gaze around uneasily- his hasty footsteps echoed throughout the empty store as he moved to occupy a vacant office computer behind the register. Charles stared intensely forward but seemed to focus on anything but the screen. Ty gave Bri a questioning glance and a chuckle before moving off.
"No problem Charles, alternatively, i'll be over here- scouring the floor for any moving, insect sized objects."
Of course, there was no sign of the roach anywhere in the store, among the myriad crannies and corners to hide in, not to mention the high ceilings and hanging light fixtures, there were too many places for the little bug to slip off to. With Ty preoccupied and meandering about the store, Bri decided to leave Charles alone at the desk to investigate the children's area. Something drew her there and the last time she had this feeling, she found a kid quietly ripping apart the board books and stuffing them behind the shelves. She could feel Charles' eyes on her as she moved, so she grabbed some loose books off the counter to be re-shelved and made her way out from behind the register towards the kids section. Both books were memoirs from someone who made enough money to not have to write their own story themselves. As she drew nearer, her ears perked up at the breathy sound of hurried whispering.
"Hey Bri, I think those two are memoirs! I think they should go to the other side of the store wouldn't ya say?" Charles called after her.
"I know Charles, I just have something to do over here"
Silence.
She stepped around the corner to a dark blue carpet with drink and saliva stains disfiguring a cutsey collage of spaceships and shooting stars. At the far wall was an incredibly average man reshelving the latest copy of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Diaper Overlode"
"Hey! Can I help you find anything today?"
"Mmmm-mmm."
"..."
"..."
"Alright then... hope you find what you need!"
"Mmm-hmm"
Ty, in the middle of the store, overheard the exchange and walked over to meet the man as he moved stiffly back from the children's area.
Signing as he spoke, Ty offered a "Hey how are you." but his bilingual attempts were shrugged off with yet another blank
"Mmm-hm."
The front door creaked open. The front door creaked shut. The man was gone.
"Welp... You can't say we don't try, Charles- I don't even get paid for busting out a second language every now and again." A fact that Ty brought up at every available moment, in hopes that he would actually get a raise.
"Yea, some people are just like that. it's no piggie biggie heh..." He neither looked up from the computer nor touched a key.
"Alright... no customers, nothin' to do... I think I'll take a fifteen then. Will you be able to handle the isolation and loneliness I am imparting unto you, Bri?
Bri gave a dramatic narrow eyed glare
"Leave me to my suffering, child."
Ty held an equally dramatic glare on Bri as he backed toward the office which served as a break room, utility cabinet, receiving room and storage locker all in one cavernous ten foot by twelve foot space. Luckily the bookshelf, computer and minifridge were there to take up some of that extra breathing room. Ty settled into the same old office chair, kicked his feet up on to the same old scratched and scored counter top and settled peacefully into a blissful twelve minute rest draped in the ceaseless rattling and whining of the exposed HVAC system overhead. He grabbed a book from his bag- The Alchemist. The most re-readable book ever, in Ty's mind. The simple fable always helped quiet his nerves and recenter his life when things got weird. He gingerly lay the paperback on the counter and pulled out his phone for the next ten minutes.
An uncharacteristic hustle and bustle was heard through the break room door which reached a sharp crescendo before quieting down as quickly as it had started, punctuated with the same squealing creak of the front door. Ty took this as his cue to get up and rejoin his coworker- who was already closing in on his position with a question wrinkling her brow.
"What the hell is going on with Diary of a wimpy kid today? There isn't an event for it right? Did Kinney die or something?"
"Well hold on, how many did we sell? You aren't telling me that all of that noise was just wimpy kid fans are you?
"Ty... " Bri sighed with a chuckle. "I think you're gonna want to see this"
and lo, just around the corner in the middle grade books section where once there were wimpy kids, now there were naught. The entire wimpy saga, representing a decade and a half of middle school's most profitable humor was entirely missing from the shelves.
"Woah"
"And dude, I swear to god that guy from earlier was straight up whispering into the loaded diaper book."
"This is...w-
The door opened, squealing shut.
Weird... So anyway you should probably-"
Yeah I'm taking my break now."
"yup. Good stuff. Nice..."
Bri shook her head and walked off as Ty split away towards the front desk. He looked around, looked towards the window seating along the front of the store, back to the nonfiction wall at the other end, even stole a nervous glance behind himself but there were no customers around. Just full shelves and an empty building. What he did notice was a small scurrying movement by the front door.
"Oh, absolutely no way"
the little roach stopped to turn back to the front desk, then crawled under the door and left, leaving Ty a little perplexed. Then, like a shiny black ooze, each shelf began to spill forth with roaches- one for each and every title. Bri screamed from the back and came sprinting down the aisle to the front desk as the floor was swallowed up behind her. A buzzing, chittering mass blanketing the cold stone flooring. They plugged their noses as the earthy musk of the insects rose to meet them atop the granite counter, desperate to avoid the tickling itch of thousands of bugs skittering up their legs. But the swarm flowed on, glistening and orderly towards the front door where they took off in flight to god knows where outside of the store.
Bri and Ty looked at each other as the last of the roaches scurried beneath the door, shaken beyond words. They let out a sigh and bent down to slowly make their way down from the counter top.
The door squeaked open
"Hello- and welcome to..." Ty cleared his throat, a little amazed that his customer service skills were still intact. It was Charles.
"Hey gang! busy day huh?"
he bent down to prop the door open with a cinderblock.
"Charles, Jesus Christ what is going on here?"
"I guess the jig is up right? I mean, no sense hiding it anymore. What's done is done and- what's done is... well, business. heh..."
distant eyewatering screams of rage-terror ripped through the atmospheric slow jazz playing over the speakers.
"Charles you're scaring us. What the hell did you do. HOW?!
A young woman in a dead sprint bounced off of the plate glass storefront windows. Clawing desperately at her nose.
"The hard part of course is getting that many roaches all together. You can't step on 'em, having them sit still is a whole thing and, and don't even get me started on the shapeshifting-"
More screams now. They were getting louder. Bri and Ty stole a glance at one another, then the open door.
"I mean its a nightmare really! Whoever told you that magic solves all of your problems conveniently-CONVENIENTLY left out how many damned MAGICAL PROBLEMS there are, heh-
Ty jumped the front desk and Bri followed, running behind after chucking the nearest hardcover at Charles' head.
The door slammed shut-
erupting in a spray of thick spiked shards. Bri shielded her eyes, crouching to the floor against a maelstrom of cuts. The cinder block went careening wildly across the room, catching Ty on the shin and sending him flying to the ground. They looked up at Charles, standing unfazed with his back to the door. A hand outstretched in the unmistakable "I just magic'd the fuck out of that shit" pose.
Bri scrambled to her feet and dragged Ty back toward the front desk, away from Charles as he turned to leave. Between screams of agony while clutching his broken shin, Ty yelled:
"Fuck you Charles! What do you even get out of this anyway? a bunch of bugs in your store?
Charles' eyes were far too wide for comfort now. A growing mass of gasping, wailing people was building up and reaching through the broken door. Rattling it on its hinges
"OOOOHOHHOHO, this is the fun part Tyler! Bridgette, you listen closely too. Now, gang- one of the first lessons of business is "demand." Demand is all about want, NEED, it's how we convince our customers- those lovely simpletons out there, to give us their money. SO, gang- all we need to do is tap into our customers' needs and feed them a solution. When you have a handy dandy hand-me-down spell book from... oh I don't know, your great great grandfather, you can just transfer a need- ANY emotional need onto a given solution. Say for instance... We take the desperate need to stop a cockroach from crawling farther up your nose- and we transfer that need on to spending as much money as possible at this store. I mean just look at them! They are literally ITCHING to buy something from us now! I'll save the rest of the explanation for later. It's all spellcasting, blood sacrifices, you know- management stuff. Anyway, this leaves you with some options of your own. Either, you can join the huddled masses and see firsthand what all the fuss is about... OR you can take all of their fucking money and leave it in a nice little stack on my desk- where my associate will pick it up and deliver it to me."
"You asshole, this is all just a plot to steal people's money?" Bri clenches her teeth
"Oh it's not stealing if we run out of products by the end of this. just think of it as being a successful community centered small business!"
"Yea? Remind me again where you live in DC?"
"Out of town, of course"
And with that, Charles turned on his heel, whistling of course, and tore the door off its hinges, slipping right past the crowd. Bri pulled Ty over the counter- the throngs of desperate consumers, with manic intent and dead eyes pushed and pulled, groaned and yelled with confusion until they found what they were looking for. some filtered out, many more poured in and eventually gave up all pretext of civility and simply threw their money, wallets, even some car keys and a pair of sneakers before grabbing a book off of the selves and immediately sneezing out a roach with shuddering relief. Ty and Bri hid behind the counter, occasionally slamming the cash register drawer shut as customers reached over the desk and rang themselves out. Mostly they dodged shoes, keys and wads of money while trying to take care of their wounds.
[the myriad hardcover and paperback books which used to line every shelf of the store. All of them now gone. The front door , the cash register drawer crashed open, $4.92 in cash was due to some poor soul who left too hastily.]
and then momo gets eaten the end