Kevin wanted something different for breakfast. He was sick of all the Eggo waffles and their freezer burn. He'd had barely anything other than the mass-produced waffles for breakfast since moving into this hellhole. Tossing them aside, he strode out of his apartment, locking it behind him, and descended the stairs.
Stepping out onto the street in the pouring rain, Kevin headed for the bakery, wishing he had thought to grab his raincoat. In the empty lot next to Washington Heights, Kevin noticed a bright yellow stand out of the corner of his eye. Staffing it was a small woman who looked about his age, perhaps a little younger. When it finally dawned on him that the stand was that of a taxidermist, Kevin felt somewhat disgusted. Cutting open animals to fill them with foam or whatever didn't seem like Kevin's idea of a good time. Oh, wait, Kevin realized, my work with Patrick isn't all that different...
Putting the taxidermy stand out of his mind, Kevin crossed the street and entered the bakery. Approaching the counter, he was surprised to see Maria, his neighbor from across the hall, standing behind it. He had no idea that she worked there. Overcoming his surprise, he asked for a croissant, preferably with raspberry and cream cheese filling.
"No croissants. Sorry," came the reply.
"How about a blueberry muffin?"
"Nope."
At this point, Kevin didn't even bother asking for a scone.
"How about a bagel?"
"We do have those. Here you go."
Kevin accepted the bagel from Maria, handing over a few crumpled bills in exchange. Flashing a faint smile to show his thanks, Kevin turned to leave. Sinking his teeth into the bagel, he realized that it was a little stale, but he didn't care at all. Despite it being an ordinary bagel, stale and all, it was still better than freezer burned Eggo waffles.
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Brone Barnheart Apt. 223
It was dark. I lit up my watch, 6:20 A.M. Wait, that can't be right…oh I must have slept all day yesterday, sweet. I got up and took a shower, the first one in a long time. I grabbed my stuff and headed out. As I passed the ominous steel door of 226 I heard the light tapping of a keyboard, working as always. It’s truly scary the things he comes up with when he’s bored. I took the stairs one at a time, letting my fingertips slowly glide over the cool black handrail, until I touched something sticky. I quickly wiped my hand on my pants in disgust. Just then, some college kid flew past me taking the steps 3 at a time with an eggo waffle hanging from his mouth. I grinned, “Never again.” My feet lead me to the graveyard. Upon entering I froze. I had never seen it up close but this was the exact graveyard from my dreams. I was standing exactly where I had always been standing. “That means she would be,” I looked for her…no one. I breathed a sigh of relief. I sat on the lawn and spaced out. I felt a cold wind cut across my face but I ignored it. I yawned, “man, I slept to much, it’s time for a nap.” And with that I laid back and passed out.
----------------------------------
I was to soon awoken by my growling stomach. I grimaced and got back up. I looked around and saw a bakery. “That’s convenient,” I said to no one in particular. Upon entering I was greeted by a smile. The woman behind the counter had very, very clean dark hair. “Interesting,” I though. I walked up to the counter, put my hand down, and then raised it again in thought. She stared at the counter. I looked down. There was a smudge where my palm had been. I looked back up. She twitched. I pulled my long sleeve down and tried to wipe it away, but that only made it bigger. She twitched more. I got nervous. Finally, she produced a bottle of hand sanitizer and a napkin, the smudge was gone in milliseconds. “No worries,” she sighed. I put my hands in my pockets. There was something off about her, I liked it. “Got any baguettes?”
“no,” she replied not turning around to look.
“Muffins?”
“no.”
“Vienna bread?”
“nope”
“…what do you suggest?” I finally asked.
“Bagels,” she said instantly.
“Ok, I'll take two.”
She grabbed the two closest and placed them neatly in a bag. I looked in my wallet. There was a crumpled 5 and a crisp ten, so I gave her the ten. She handed me my change and I let the coins fall into the tip jar.
“See you around,” I said turning to leave.
I left the quant little bakery and went past a warehouse. Then I froze, mid bite. Way across the way there were two eyes, in a tree, watching me. “Creepy,” I thought and wandered on.
The clouds shifted, and I looked up from my work in one of the flower beds on the rooftop garden of the Washington-Heights apartment building. I surveyed my surroundings and decided that "garden" wasn't exactly an apt description for the grimy walkways that surrounded a few attention-deprived and depressing rectangles of dirt. Was it even dirt anymore? For some reason I was attempting to bring some life back to this place that overlooked the whole of Washington-Heights. "Remeber that this used to calm you down when you were upset, Maria, even if this isn't exactly what you are accustomed too." Right, calming down, that's what I'm doing up here in the wind and cold. In the wind and cold, above the penthouse, as far as I could be from that bakery, its crazy German owner, the mysterious bits of dough on the floor, the man who asked for two bagels with alterior motives on his mind, the fingerprints, the stale bagels, the hand sanitizer...
"Maria," I muttered. "You're being stupid, just remember what your mother said." I grimaced. "Yeah, so maybe I'm not cut out for a job with so many social aspects, but I can't let her know that she was right about it all." All those customers at the bakery made me shake, and I had to steady myself on the counter when they finally left, the little bell on the door jingling menacingly behind them.
I had wanted to calm down. I had needed to calm down. I remembered how the candles in my bedroom as a child used to lull me to sleep as their flickering flames created shadows on the walls. "Candles." So I had gone to the little occult shop that stood hunched up beside the apartment building in search of candles. The girl behind the counter was quiet and shy; she didn't seem completely comfortable in the little shop front, only seeming to tolerate it because of the silent dog presence at her feet. I walked up to the counter, and the girl eyed me warily for a moment before asking if she could help me. "Candles," I said slowly. Pause. "Do you have candles?" I clarified. "White tapers?" She looked at me intently for a moment and then reached under the counter, searching for something. She then placed a box in front of me, saying, "You want green ones, for growth." I bought the box, six candles in all, and left the store rather quickly. It wasn't that I didn't like the girl, she just seemed to know alot more than she let on. It was disconcerting.
It was only after stepping outside into the windy day that I realized what I should actually be doing to calm myself down. And that is why I am up on the roof, planting sickly and slightly wilted daisies that I uprooted from the park while no one was watching. "But hey, who cares where the flowers were before because, now, they are actually serving a purpose. They are helping me prove her wrong."
The dirt was cool and natural under my fingertips. The recent rain had left it moist, and I enjoyed the feeling of earth against my skin. Unlike everything else around me, the dirt...wasn't sticky. "This is nice." A burt of chilly air breazed past me, making me shiver.
"Nice as in a cold day without sun working on the dirty rooftop of my sticky apartment building in dirt that is probably commonly doused in acidic and poisonous rain from the huge city nearby but not close enough to allow and escape from this upper level of hell. That kind of nice." But for all my complaining, the daisies really were quite nice. They seemed to look happier the moment I put them back in the ground. Maybe soon they would be pretty enough to pick and put in a little vase in my apartment. Maybe I could even give some to Kevin. "Stop blushing, Maria," I muttered, embarassed at my own thought.
Maybe I'll take some to the bakery to lighten the mood.
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