Billboard Sky

Chapter One, Customer Conversations

February, 2030

He walked into the store, the wind picking at the door behind him, holding it open as a small gust of snow flew in and fell upon the damp store mat.

"Brr, that wind is a bitch today!" he said to Elizabeth, the young woman behind the counter. She nodded her head in agreement as her eyes continued to watch two teenagers in the candy isle, filling their pockets and sleeves with candy bars.

The door opened again and a woman not dressed warm enough for the weather came in with red cheeks and a button down shirt that revealed an even redder upper chest area. Her high heeled shoes had dampened nylons that clung in wrinkles at the edge, some of the wrinkles falling over. "When does this end?" she exclaimed as she headed for the dairy section. Elizabeth listened as the man, who was in the newspaper section walked towards her with a stack of every newspaper the store sold, and yelled to the woman in the dairy section "It will end sometime in March, April, or May. New England weathah, ya know," and slammed his newspapers down on the counter.

He leaned forward to Elizabeth, as if about to tell her a secret, and said "In fifteen more minutes, Gates has his glow in the sky, do you still watch it each time?"

Elizabeth smiled, "I used to go outside each time, but with the snow, I stay inside so my feet stay dry."

"Gates owned January, now he owns the skies of February, too," The man said, and it was hard to detect if he was speaking in awe of Mr. Gates, or if he was speaking with a bit of anger towards the man who had his ad for Microsoft emblazed between the stars and moon.

The woman from the dairy section walked over as Elizabeth was bagging the newspapers, to keep the ink safe from the wet of the snow.

"What do you think of that glow in the sky that's coming in a few minutes?" The man with the newspapers asked the woman from the dairy section, as she held a half gallon of milk in one hand and a carton of a dozen eggs in the other.

"I think it's awful, for anyone to think they have a right to obscure the natural beauty of the sky."

"Didn't you ever watch the Jetsons, back when you were a kid? They had that show in syndication on one of the kid's cable stations all while I was growing up. Remember we were all for space travel, even if it meant putting stop-signs and billboards in the galaxy skies?" the man said as he held his two plastic bags of newspapers.

"I never watched the Jetsons," the woman from the dairy section answered. "And I'd never approve of putting anything up in the sky."

"Not even airplanes?" The man asked, and then chuckled to himself. "The airplanes are up there blinking through the night sky a lot more than ten minutes out of every two hours, where's the problem?"

Elizabeth watched the two boys from the candy section head for the door, with two customers at the counter, they probably thought sure it was the right time to try. "Boys, you want to stop right there and pay for the candy in your jackets before you leave, please?" Elizabeth asked in a polite but firm manner.

"I don't have anything in my jacket," one of them offered up as a blatant lie.

"See the cameras? Everything is taped and also viewed from the main office," Elizabeth said and pointed up.

The boys got in line behind the woman from the dairy, placing most of their hidden goods on the display for Marlboro Cigarettes, while deciding which candy bars they could afford to purchase. Change jingled in their hands, like echos of Christmas bells. Elizabeth gave the boys a wink. "Got to be fair, boys, can't go around stealing, it's not the way the world works."

"We almost got them for free, though," the other boy spoke up.

"At my expense," Elizabeth said flatly.

"They aren't your candy bars," said the boy.

"When I'm at work they are," Elizabeth replied.

"That will be five dollars," Elizabeth said to the woman from the dairy section.

The woman handed her a ten dollar bill. "I can't believe that man with the newspapers. I bet if he had his way, there'd be nothing but billboards covering the entire sky."

"Out of ten, five is your change," Elizabeth said and added "I think he was just trying to explain how we want to have progress in things, but sometimes progress means change, and change is probably a little frightening to some folks sometimes."

"I'm not afraid of change. I've dealt with changes my entire life," the woman said defensively as she headed back out the door, the wind sweeping inside her shirt and the snow falling on her face with casual disregard.

The boys placed their four candy bars on the counter and laughed. "That chick can't even deal with snow," said the boy on the left, as he laid out a pile of nickles, pennies and dimes.

Elizabeth saw the bag of eggs fly up as the woman outside slipped and fell as she headed to her car. "Be right back, boys, behave," Elizabeth said loudly, as she ran to assist the woman in the parking lot.

"We should just sneak out with these now," The boy on the right said to his friend.

The boy on the left pointed up at the security camera.

Posted by nft at May 24, 2004 09:23 PM