Behind the counter stood a girl not entirely present. Chewing on the blunt stub of her thumbnail, she stole a sentence at a time from the book discretely tucked between the registers. A lone sojourner emerged from the aisles laden with the spoils of their journeys amongst the florescent-lit jungles where trees hang low, branches bowed with the weight of pencils, sheet protectors, post its. The sudden movement caught the eye of the girl, who snapped back into the present, where she hurriedly tucked the book still further into the shadows and engaged an easy smile she kept near at hand for the benefit of those who came from the depths, bearing bar codes by the armload for her to liberate, transforming them from mere merchandise to items to use and own and eventually settle in to their places on a desk, shedding their soft glow of newness and becoming what they were along-a stapler, a printer, a paper clip. Grasping the laser gun, finger on the trigger, she smiled graciously as she stepped aside and let the robot, programmed through repetition, take charge of her hands and words, with strict instructions to wake her should she be needed. With that she retreated back into the fantastic realms of daydreams, and an instant later, the store faded into the background as new images rose out of the haze of reality to take its place.
