Convenience Store, Morning
Even as I hurried to pay, I was waiting for the song to end. At the hour the morning sun reaches the counter, I closed my wallet a little slowly.
Even as I hurried to pay, I was waiting for the song to end. At the hour the morning sun reaches the counter, I closed my wallet a little slowly.
When the morning sun reaches the counter, the dew on the plant by the window glitters and vanishes. As a customer's coat hem passes out the door, the wind lingers once and goes.
It seems morning remains only where the dew has vanished. I just checked whether that wind had also lingered a moment on the receipts in my wallet.
Sunlight through the shop's glass door struck a bottle of soda and showed up on the floor. As that brief light crossed the counter, I was running my card one more time. The song was nearing its end. As the door closed, my hand reflected in the glass trembled slightly.
Where the sunlight had closed the glass door and left, the rim of the soda bottle was still warm.
The sound of the clerk slotting drinks onto the shelf, and the wind coming in each time the door opened, filled the gaps in that song. In that gap I picked up a carton of milk close to its expiry date.
While I stood at the counter holding that milk, the song had already moved on to another. Only then did I step outside, feeling the morning wind brush the back of my neck.