The Store Room

Earlier today, when I walked down to the store room to do requisition, I noticed the store room manager, Enrique, wasn't there. He left the door to the store room unlocked so I figured he would be back soon. I let myself in and began to load up items per my manager's request. Roughly ten minutes later, I heard a voice shout in my direction.

"Hey girl! What do you think you're doing?!", the voice questioned. It was Enrique. "You trying to get me fired?!" he jokingly asked me.
"No, no, no!" I replied, "I'm sorry, I'm just doing what my manager told me I had to do, NOW."
"I gotcha, I gotcha. I just don't want either of us to get in trouble", he explained, "or anyone thinking that you're in here stealing or whatever."
"Oh yeah, there's so much awesome shit in here to steal!" I laughed, "Even though I'm like, totally poor, my parents taught me never to steal."
Enrique looked at me like he missed a key part of the conversation, and he scratched his head, "You used to be poor?" "
"Umm...yeah. It' not like I'm super rich today either", I explained, as I continued to load boxes onto a push cart. "Most of my money in the past six months has been spent on my son and the cost to relocate."
"Relocate?" he asked.
I laughed, "Yeah, I thought I told you this already, I'm not originally from here."
"Well where are you from then?" he asked me.
"Oklahoma." I said, and I began to walk down one of the aisles in the store room, in search of espresso beans.
At the opposite end of the aisle, I heard him shout,  "Why did you move?"

My spine began to freeze instantly, starting from the small of my back, up to my cerebellum. The sub-zero reaction forced me to stop, dead in my tracks. I hate when people ask me this question because I hate explaining the reasons I had to move and I hate anticipating people's reactions when I tell them. I struggled to take a deep breath and took solace in the fact that no one had asked me this question in a while. I let the breath out and began to defrost.

Muscle memory returned to my legs and I turned around and blurted out, "MyDadDiedLastYearAndILostAFamilyMemberToHomicideI'vePrettyMuchBeenOnTheRunSince."

Enrique's face froze for a moment and I waited for him to retreat back to his office. Instead of being startled he asked even more questions. "So did you kill your dad?" he asked. We both looked at each other and laughed, half nervously and half facetiously.

"Of course not", I explained, still laughing slightly.
"That doesn't explain why you think you're poor though", he said.
"I'm just not rich, that's all", I told him.
"What, your man don't take care of you?" he asked.
I was appalled at his question. "No way! I don't want anyone to take care of me!"
"Why", he asked.
I was still in search of the espresso beans as I explained to him, "Because I don't want to owe anyone anything."
I finally found the beans, picked up the box on my own, and loaded it onto the push cart. I grabbed the requisition list and handed it to Enrique.
He shrugged his shoulders, "I guess that makes sense", and he signed the list and placed the carbon copy on top of the boxes on the push cart. I could tell he wasn't going to let me leave the store room without asking one more question. "Hey, why don't you let me help you?"
"I'll make it", I said, and I smiled at him.

I began to push the huge load of boxes on the cart, past him, by myself. I got out into the hallway and out of no where, I felt tears begin to form in my eyes. It's been a while since I've cried. I wish I knew why I cried, but I honestly can't explain it. It could have been a mixture of things. The mention of relocation...or death...

The only thing I felt sure about as I wiped the tears off of my cheeks and continued to push the heavy cart full of things that didn't belong to me, was that I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life.

Especially alone.


Divine intervention
Always my intention
I've been looking for something
I've always wanted
But was never mine
Now I've seen that something
Just out of reach
Glowing
Very Holy grail
Mother of Pearl
I wouldn't trade you
For the whole world.
--Mother of Pearl/ROXY MUSIC