Other Locations
Richard stumbled through the desert. He would be dead soon. His skin felt like paper and the veins and bones were visible through the parchment. He thought of oranges and chocolate cake and conjured forth no saliva.
Ahead was a building, two stories breaking the vast and desolate landscape, a survivor of whatever god chose to burn this place clean and forgot to start over. Richard summoned reserves of strength he knew would kill him when this turned out to be a mirage. It was likely he was hallucinating, but if he had cracked, he no longer cared. He crested a dune and slid down the other side and was closer, ever closer to the building.
The sign made little sense, but the door was open and Richard walked into Peter’s Western Fish Market. The air inside was cool. Chalkboards cluttered the area just inside the doorway listing the specials for the day. Pacific salmon was on sale. King crab was four a pound, steamed while you wait.
Beyond the signs were displays. Chipped ice on tables and fresh fish in red and white and silver and brown and black as far as the back wall. In the back were tanks with live mullet, crab and lobsters. Rubber bands kept the lobsters’ claws in check, and the mullet floated almost motionless until one of them twitched and the whole school emulated the movement.
“Help you?” The clerk was behind one of the tables. He wore a white smock, which always seemed counter-intuitive to working in a place where you diced up animals all day long, and had on a red baseball cap that read “PETER’S – WE KNOW FRESH FISH”.
“Kahhh,” Richard replied, his throat coated in a fine layer of sand.
“Water?”
Richard nodded. The clerk scooped up some of the ice on the table and tossed it into a plastic cup. He turned to a sink and filled the cup before handing it to Richard.
Richard drank greedily and the clerk grabbed his arm.
“Slowly now. You’ll get sick and throw it all back up,” the clerk said.
Richard nodded again. He sipped slowly, small bits that seemed to evaporate in his mouth before reaching his throat. The clerk took a wet cloth and placed it on his neck, soothing a burn Richard had not even realized was there.
“Now, help you?”
“I’m sorry?” Richard eyebrows bunched together and he turned his head the way puppies do when confused.
“Now, help you?” The clerk seemed genuinely helpful, despite the annoyance of having to repeat himself.
“Oh, I just…” Richard trailed off and stared down at his cup. He had no money on him.
“Pacific salmon’s on sale. I don’t know if you saw the board,” the clerk offered.
“Yeah,” replied Richard, “I was reading it as I came in.”
“King crab live in the tanks. Pick out what you want and take it home as is, or we can steam it here for you, no trouble, no extra charge.”
Richard fiddled with the empty cup. The water had tasted of fish, presumably because of the ice from the table.
“I’m… just browsing, thanks,” Richard said. His eyes refused to leave the cup.
“Take your time!” The clerk’s good nature was beginning to take its toll on Richard. “Let me know if you need any help.”
Richard wandered around the displays. The fish was impossibly fresh. The tanks were powered with lights and filters. There had been no power lines outside, and he strained to hear a generator. The smell of gasoline eluded him.
His hand crushed the cup slowly. He gripped it tight, like a stress ball. As if letting go of it meant falling off the world. He circled past the tanks and back towards the front door.
“Finding everything okay?”
Richard froze.
“Oh, yes, just forgot what the Missus wanted,” Richard said, and looked up from the cup at the clerk.
“You’ve got to write those things down,” the clerk replied. “I started doing that, and it’s saved me getting yelled at a hundred times already.”
“Not a bad plan. I should grab a notebook for these things.” Richard edged toward the door. “Best go back and ask her.”
“Sounds good, see you later on, then!” The clerk stood behind his counter smiling a smile of iron teeth.
Richard ran across the sands. It would be night soon. The sun was sinking behind the mountains of sand in front of him, and if he followed it, he could be someplace else. Anyplace but Peter’s Western Fish Shop.
Rivka Jacobs
Another great story, Matt. Really good.
The idea of the man in the desert and the hallucination has been used, but you rework the theme in a new way. Now the man is self-aware, and just how solid is his “hallucination,” and how threatening. Is this a something that occurs in the mind, or is the fish shop something more horrible.
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