Howdy Deadly: Chop 'Til You Drop

Today’s story is one of envy and greed. Common afflictions of the human experience, as you are likely aware. Of course, there is little wrong with wanting. But wanting in excess? To the point you might KILL to gain? Hmm, rarely has that ever turned out well in the course of this mortal history.

Our tale of warning takes place in a dying mall. An age-old experience, best recalled by old age. As these long halls grow tired, with more shutter and web than wall, might we bear witness to a slow death of both body and building.

Say howdy to . . .

CHOP ‘TIL YOU DROP

The Magnolia Hills Mall. A real diamond in the rough. The “rough” in this instance being all of Seager, Oklahoma.  At the turn of the century, a wildfire of news dashed its way across the country of a little town with big opportunities. A survey team claimed that Seager’s depths possessed rich veins of minerals normally only found overseas.

Families from all over packed their lives away into torn suitcases and rusty trucks, then surged into Seager, eager to score quick riches and affordable homes. Within months, new businesses sprang up from one edge of town to the other. Clothing stores decorated the sides of streets, exciting new restaurants dotted intersections, and standing as the crown jewel of it all, the Magnolia Hills Mall.

Life in Seager was paradise for the families that took root in its dusty hills, at least for a couple of years. Turns out those rich veins weren’t so rich after all. Seemingly overnight, a wave of decay flashed over Seager, and the town became as desolate as it ever was. The only saving grace for those who dared to stay (or just too poor to pack up and move again) was that famous beacon of prosperity off the highway, good ‘ole Magnolia Hills. Mining had come and gone, but tourism was here to stay. That’s how Pete Thompson saw things anyway.

Pete was something of an entrepreneur. The proud owner of a small shop inside Magnolia Hills, the man quickly seized the chance to keep the town of Seager alive. He had spent his life growing up in this next-to-nothing dot on a map, and he was determined to keep it alive. The mining boom gave Pete a glimpse of a new world. A world ripe with financial success and around-the-clock celebrations. Pete had become a new man in a new world, and he would be damned if the old world tried to reel him back.

🝰

A wave of air mixed with a blended scent of salt and butter greeted Pete as he strolled into the mall. A janitor worked tirelessly at the permanent layer of dust at the entrance’s sliding door. Pete tossed them a nod of acknowledgment and hurried to open his store, buried somewhere in the middle of the mall. A quick turn of a key and a flick of a switch, and Pete’s T’s fluttered to life. The store wasn’t much, and it had seen better days, but Pete knew that this place mattered. He supplied travelers with moments. Small moments that could encapsulate their entire journey through Seager and the Magnolia Hills Mall. He brought the history of Seager to the people – through the form of graphic t-shirts.

To capstone a significant part of one’s journey was pivotal to the journey itself. As far as Pete was concerned, his small store was the backbone of this mall and the most important fixture in the building. Now, his sales and inventory would indicate his importance differently, but how could an honest business like Pete’s honestly compare to one of a thousand coffee chains?

It made Pete sick to his stomach. Apparel and cosmetics, along with several other categories, were all represented by big names that travelers had frequented in a dozen other malls before. Maybe there was some kind of comfort in the familiarity, but it all felt so soulless. These big stores offered experiences that were entirely unremarkable.

Now, a customer’s journey was ultimately their choice, but this wasn’t about the customer’s journey. This was about Seager and being memorable. Repetitive and sterile logos straddled either side of Pete’s business, and it felt like pins in his eyes. He quickly gave up on the food court because the bland burgers and rubbery chicken felt like gravel in his stomach. Masses of people flocked to his competition, while his own shop looked as desolate as Seager itself.

Pete’s work was important, but people simply didn’t see it. They didn’t see him. They were too distracted by their comfortable patterns. Pete was certain that if his neighbors would just get out of the way, then travelers could see how great a thing a shirt from Seager could be.

Pete let out a long breath and clenched the edge of his counter. His eyes darted between his cash register and the first trickles of foot traffic into the mall. The fluorescent light of his store caught something on the register, and he leaned in to inspect. Dust. With a furrowed brow, he quickly brushed the register clean, then looked back out of his store. Had anyone been there in that moment, they would have seen the pained desperation unmask itself in Pete’s eyes for a moment before he blinked and shoved his worries back where they belonged.

More and more, Pete had to shove dark feelings back inside of himself. The frustration had to be tucked away between his organs, the jealousy and anger drowned in the bile of his stomach. The guilt, however, was much harder to stow away. It sat on his shoulders and bore down on him with the full weight of the mall itself. It was his mission alone to bring Seager to the world, but the world simply wasn’t interested. He felt like he was letting his home down. And a few more weeks with this kind of barrenness, he’d have to close for good, and any mote of personality would be strangled out of the mall.

Pete caught himself spiraling inside his own head, which was only made noticeable by the sudden trill of the shop’s bell, announcing the arrival of a customer. “Hello!” Pete called loudly from his post behind the counter. The person who entered paused in their tracks for a moment, clearly taken aback by the sudden animation of the shop owner and the jovial boom of his voice.  

“Um, hi,” they replied quietly, a long beat drawn between each word.

Before Pete could interject with any follow-up, they darted away from his gaze and disappeared behind a rack of clearance shirts. Which was not to be construed with the numerous other racks of discounted items of the struggling Pete’s T’s.

Ignoring the solitary customer’s clear attempt to peruse the store unbothered, Pete chimed in, “So great to see the face of a newcomer! You know, Seager was founded by accident by newcomers. About a hundred and thirty years ago, some travelers had a run-in with a native tribe in the area. One thing led to another. Fights were almost had. Almost. But! They ultimately found that there were trades to be made, and those travelers kept coming back and kept trading and eventually decided to stay. That’s it! The birth of Seager.”

“Uh huh.”

“So, every time I see a newcomer here, I just think, wow, this might be the next coming of Seager. Like the travelers before, you come to buy and trade and find, well, hell, maybe you’ll just stay!” Pete exclaimed, with an awkward chuckle, forcing his way past the customer’s desperate endeavors to avoid him. It wasn’t enough just to build a relationship with these new people. They had to see themselves as part of the town! They had to see ----

“I think I’ll just be going now,” they called to Pete hurriedly as they made their way out of the store, “have a nice day, sir!”

With pursed lips of disappointment, Pete followed them to the door and gave a half attempt at a wave as they dissolved into the crowd as fast as possible. He turned on his heels and felt a sudden shock in his chest and a violent thud as he nearly plowed into another body.

After registering that there was another person in the store at all, Pete eyed the figure that caught him off guard. It took a few beats for his mind to catch up to the present moment, to fully realize the man before him. Terrance? Pete slowed to a halt as his mind processed that his greatest rival had the gall to stand in front of him.

“I see that things are going so swimmingly that you can leave that big store of yours unattended and spend time among us regular folk,” Pete said, hardy keeping the edge off his words.

“Actually, quite the opposite,” Terrance replied. “We’re shutting down, Pete. Much to your surprise. You’ve always been so caught up in this world of yours that you had little mind for what really happened outside of it.”

Pete scoffed and pushed past him toward the counter, muttering, “You expect me to believe that the giant, across America, is suddenly in a bad spot to the point of vanishing while I still struggle on? No. Clearly, you’re fucking with me, Terrance.”

“Not fucking with you. Not at all.” Terrance seemed stunned, unwilling to say what came next, his eyes searching the floor for a semblance of pride to bring his ego back from the brink of embarrassment. “I’m actually here to buy a shirt from you,” he conceded at last.

“Now I know you’re fucking with me.”

Terrance growled with irritation, “Honestly, Pete. I lose, you win, now sell me a damn shirt. I’m going to be stuck here in this damn town, so I might as well look the part.”

Pete’s first instinct was to prattle on with the usual combative dance that he and Terrance engaged in daily. Before that flame could be rekindled, he snatched the words off his tongue and held them at bay, instead relishing in his triumph. It was inevitable. He just had to hold out, as he did, and the good nature of the world would sort things out in his favor, and he would come out on top. If there was any doubt in his destiny a few moments ago, they now felt miles away as Pete’s vision for himself and his place in Saeger had been given a breath of new life. He was a phoenix, spreading its wings from the ashes of Terrance and any other fools who pretended that big corporations could even pretend to measure up to the work he was doing.

The front of Pete’s store chimed again with the arrival of more customers. A young couple, if Pete had to guess. “Good morning, folks! Please, take a look around, and I will be right with you in just a moment,” he trilled, the pride almost spilling out of him at this point. He turned back to Terrance with a smug sneer stapled across his face, “Let’s find you a shirt, shall we?”

🝰

Terrance was but the first rung in Pete’s ladder to assuming the crown of Magnolia Hills. In the preceding weeks, store after store shut down, following Terrance in a long line of rivals to give in to the pressures of failure and shuffle their way to Pete’s shop as a symbolic waving of a t-shirt-shaped flag. Pete was riding sky high, his tenacity finally proving true every thought that blotted their ink into his mind. He moved with a jovial bounce under his step as he strode into the mall for a new week, taking his present victory and turning it over and over in his head. No matter how you looked at it, Pete was a winner. He was going to do it. He was going to save Seager and be the hero that proved everyone wrong.

Pete rounded the corner to his store and planted his feet hard, coming to a sudden stop, just inches away from plowing into the back of someone. Was there some event or something today that he missed? What could all these people be lining up for? Pete’s face dropped into a cartoonish expression as realization hit him at the same sudden pace as his stop. All these people were lined up for his store. He stared mindlessly for a few beats, trying to wrestle with this new reality of sudden popularity. One of the people in line, a younger gentleman with well-kept hair but tired eyes, gently nudged Pete with his elbow, “Better get in there, eh?”

“R-right,” he replied curtly.

He made his way past the long line and fastened his key into the door, just barely catching the customer at the front of the line. Terrance? He rotated the key in a counterclockwise motion and just narrowly got his door open before the line pushed its way in after him and dispersed among the racks of clothes. A moment later, the line had reformed at his counter, leaving him frozen in place at the front door, feeling dumbfounded. He took a moment, drawing in a deep breath, then ran over behind the counter, assuming his usual persona. “Say, Terrance, finding that you can’t get enough of these shirts?”

“Seems that way, Pete, seems that way.”

Pete stared at him for a moment, reluctantly taking the shirt and ringing it up in his register. “Well, your patronage is always welcome here.” He flashed Terrance a wide smile, “That will be six-fifty. We hope to see you again, friend.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will, Pete. I’m sure you will.”

As quickly as he arrived, Terrance faded away back into the crowded line as the next customer stepped up to the counter. This went on for about two hours before Pete finally found the space to come up for some air. He felt his back unwind itself as his shoulders loosened, and he placed both palms on top of the counter. He finally made it. This was good, right? This had to be good. He wasn’t used to this kind of attention, but it felt good. It felt vindicating. He took a glance around his storefront, doing a quick mental inventory, and realized that he’d have to start printing more shirts if he was going to keep up with traffic like this. An unholy smirk clawed its way deviously from his lips, fastening his face into something devilish. A face of pride, ignorant of its lurking doom.

A roar of chatter echoed cacophonously around every inch of Magnolia Hills. The racket of voices sprinted through the food court, swept across the fluorescent lights, and caressed every dying plant in the building before returning to the source, a massive line of people snaking from the entrance of Pete’s T’s. The line stretched across a series of businesses, each with shuttered doors and dusty impressions of where signs used to hang, before coming to an end a short distance from the main foyer of the mall itself. At the front of the line, patrons squeezed in through the store’s narrow door as a security guard tried to paint an impression of order over the chaos.

Pete was almost unrecognizable behind the counter, now more of a blur than a man, as he hurriedly moved between the register, greeting guests, managing inventory, and administering orders to a couple of teenagers he recently took on as employees. It had been nearly three weeks since his store saw its first surge in popularity, and Terrance conceded defeat. What was once a scene of dimly lit dust was now a torrent of flying t-shirts and dirty shoe prints.

“Mr. Thompson! The new print is out of larges,” called out one of the teens, the taller of the two.

“Check the dryer in the back!” Pete yelled in reply as he counted out change for a customer. “I printed some early this morning. The bin should have larges. Sort what’s there, then bring all the larges right here to the counter!”

Without a word, the valiant employee bolted behind the counter and through the back office. He was a good kid, but Pete really needed him to get with the program and pick up the pace. This ocean of Seager fans was hungry for shirts.

Pete pushed on, ushering one customer after another to the register, before quickly finding agitation pecking at his skin. Without much thought, he bellowed out, “Where are those shirts?! We can’t keep these wonderful people waiting!”

“Sir?”

“What?!” Pete quickly contorted himself to the right to find himself eye level with his employee.

“Mr. Thompson. I brought the shirts up here to the counter just like you said. I mean, they’re getting pretty low again already, but I brought them up maybe twenty minutes ago.”

“Twenty minutes? The hell you mean, twenty minutes?” He cast his eyes down to his watch, and sure enough, the kid wasn’t lying. In what felt like a passing moment in his own thoughts, Pete had skipped ahead a whole twenty minutes. This was happening more often, losing time like this. A byproduct of not sleeping enough, no doubt. He took a second to recollect the last time he got a proper night’s rest and couldn’t come up with an answer. “Right, well, keep up the good work.”

The strangeness didn’t end there. As Pete returned to his post, his knuckles quickly sought out his eyes to rub out any confusion. No amount of rubbing changed the picture in front of Pete. Terrance was once again standing in front of him at the register. Ever since that first day, Terrance had made an appearance in his store at least once daily, always buying something. At first, Pete thought this was some sick prank, that Terrance really hadn’t gone out of business but got some big promotion somewhere and was just rubbing the fact in his face. But no, Terrance really went out of business, and he really was standing here and buying yet another shirt. The same was true for all of Pete’s supposed rivals. Sandra, who ran the shoe outlet around the corner from his t-shirt shop. Matt, who operated one of several coffee and tea chains in the mall. Robert, who managed the sporting goods place near the entrance. All these people and more had closed up shop and started making daily appearances at Pete’s T’s. That last one, Robert, was an especially weird case to see back in the store.

Because Robert was dead.

Dead? No, that’s not right. Who could be dead when they are just in front of you, ready to buy a shirt? Why was Robert standing here now? Pete sought his watch again; its snappy ticking arms promising certainty and consistency. Damn, another twenty minutes had passed in what felt to Pete like the blink of an eye. Perspiration began to bead on Pete’s face, pooling above his thick brows that dammed his eyes from any risk of stinging salt. The pool of sweat welled deeper as Pete’s face pulled into a tight expression, utterly emotionless and in full concentration. If he could stay completely objective and reasonable, then he would be fine. Pete measured exactly what was in front of him. He sequenced an optical inventory to keep his brain from wandering and losing any more time. There was the register. There was the messy pile of extra shirt sizes. There was the line of happy, Seager-loving customers. There was Robert. The dam broke, and Pete’s eyes quivered with the sting of salt as sweat metastasized into streams down his face. With a fresh grimace, Pete whispered, “Oh, Robert, where has your head gone?”

Pete slammed his eyelids together. Somehow, they seemed to generate enough force that he noticed the audible crashing of his lashes and the exodus of sweat from his eyes as his vision came to a close. Pete’s attention was a mile away, and the typical burning sensation of sweat dripping in one’s eye went completely unnoticed. What burned in Pete’s vision with far greater intensity was the split-second horror he had just witnessed with a front row view. Even with his eyes shut, all he could see was Robert standing there, body intact from the ground up to his shoulders, where there was a sudden divergence from the expected human anatomy. Robert’s neck resembled a tree trunk, with bark made of loose flesh folding down in jagged flaps and sap the color of crimson, pooling around a tree ring made from his protruding spine. The trunk of his neck squeezed in on itself with a pulsating movement around the throat, blood rushing up from Robert’s severed aorta and launching semi-gracefully into the air like a rhythmic fountain. The hanging skin seemed springy, like gelatin jiggling about, the bloodied edges pointed and ripped into different lengths. Whatever lobbed Robert’s head from his body certainly wasn’t careful.

But then Pete opened his eyes, blinking the last of the sweat away, and Robert smiled at him. His fully intact head bobbed forward into a nod before he pivoted around and made his way past the store’s infinite line and out the door. Pete could do little more than stare at Robert as he passed behind the glass windows and disappeared from view. Once Robert was gone, Pete tried to recenter himself. Businesses were dropping left and right, yet here he stood. He should be proud, and he should be focused. He had a job to do, and everyone finally saw his worth.

The day had finally come to an end. It had been grueling from start to finish. Pete was certain that he worked an hour or even two past the time he was supposed to close the shop, but it was impossible for him to keep track of time now. Every place of business around him had boarded up, so he couldn’t even glance at any neighbors to gauge how he was doing. He felt his jaw stretch into a yawn, and he blinked slowly, letting his eyes adjust to the now darkened store. He was exhausted, so to restock, he’d need to get an early start tomorrow. Three hours early at least to run a new design through the printer and dryer before preparing the storefront. He could feel the heaviness of the bags under his eyes, threatening to brush the floor, it felt like. With a crack of his joints, Pete stooped down and pulled out a foldable cot from beneath the counter and set himself up a serviceable station to sleep. It wasn’t restful to sleep this way, but it was the bare minimum, and that was all Pete could hope for at this point. He had been sleeping like this for a few days, mere inches from the floor of his store. He’d get used to it eventually.

When Pete’s joints finally managed to mimic a semblance of peace, his mind receded into a heavy sleep. That night, like several nights before, he witnessed horrible dreams. Something heavy pressed firmly against Pete’s back, forcing the curve out of his spine. His attempts to find comfort were unsuccessful, his wrists bound to metal beams. Whatever was happening, he was a prisoner with no hope for escape. The dream itself desired to force Pete to bear witness to whatever horrible plans it had for the night.

Pete was walking. His feet tapped the ground’s white tile with a subtle echo. He craned his neck up to the ceiling to look at a large banner dangling in front of a skylight, “The Magnolia Hills Mall. Celebrating Ten Amazing Years!” Day or night, it seemed he was stuck here in the mall. Were it not for the skylight, he could almost convince himself that there was no world beyond this menagerie of storefronts. The last of the day’s light submerged beyond the anniversary banner and opened the door for dusk. A few running maintenance lights flickered on automatically, very nearly resembling an airport’s runway. Pete followed the dim lights like he was positioning himself for a brisk takeoff. He rounded a corner to a single column of light, spilling across the floor and highlighting the toes of his shoes. The hall’s runway lights became a red blur. Without thinking, Pete entered a full sprint. He ran past a dozen abandoned stores and lifted off, soaring directly into the source of light, the sporting goods store that imposed itself like a bulwark at the end of the hall. Most of the store had been cleared of its inventory, save for a few select items behind the counter and the man sorting through it all.

“Hey, Robert.”

In that same moment, Pete watched as Robert hit the floor with a sudden smack. The man rolled onto his side, without any real opportunity to react, clutching at his neck, which was rapidly bruising. “What the h-” and before Robert could say anything, there was a sickening slap as his neck was struck a second time. Thin shards of wood cast into the air and over the top of the counter. Pete glanced down, noticing the hockey stick in his hand. The improvised weapon now shattered at the head after two brisk swings. “Damn,” he muttered. He looked up and carefully stepped over Robert, ignoring his coughing and writhing. Pete wrapped his fingers around a tall metal cage full of extra hockey sticks and pulled it to the ground, spilling its contents into a wooden halo above Robert’s head. “That’s better,” Pete said with an edge of cold finality in his voice, before grabbing one of the sticks from the floor and getting back to work, swinging against Robert’s neck again. One stick after the next, Pete fetched them from the floor as they shattered into splinters. His swings got faster and more feral as the bloody scene played on, well past the point of solid thuds transforming into wet splashes and past the point of those splashes transforming into hard cracks as Pete continued breaking sticks on the blood-soaked tile where Robert’s head had been mere moments ago.

Pete cocked his head to one side and observed the scene at his feet with diligence. His eyes rolled over every inch of blood and flesh with the precision of a painter who teetered on the precarious edge of perfection and obsession, their paintbrush twitching in their hand with the internal debate to let the bristles rest or to raise them against the canvas again. Pete’s lips cracked as they spread into a thin smile, a small whine of air whistled between them as he wound up from silence and eased into a steady, monotone laugh. The laugh was hollow and almost robotic, relishing in the shadow of actions entirely inhumane. The last hockey stick clattered to the ground, and Pete’s laughs came to a halt. He let his paintbrush rest.

🝰

Pete’s head hung down in a permanent decline. Sleep had its hands wrapped around him at all times. It stroked the sides of his face, poked at the corners of his eyes, and tugged the corners of his mouth. The line outside his store blurred into a mob. All of Oklahoma seemed to crowd in front of him, ready for their piece of Seager. Dark circles ringed around Pete’s eyes, giving the impression of burrowed holes in his face. He paused for a moment at a glimpse of his reflection in the storefront. His face seemed to sag and grow discolored by the second, like a carnival artist warping his features into an undead caricature. As he looked mindlessly into his own dead eyes, the sound of chattering customers dulled into nothingness, where he sat quietly with his thoughts. He wobbled to the ground, resting on his palms and knees, finding his body incapable of supporting its weight. He couldn’t recall the last time he actually slept. He couldn’t even remember leaving his store. But all those horrible dreams? The ones where he played witness to the murder of the competition he hated so dearly, when did he dream them? Reality had grown quite confusing to Pete. Reality itself had darkened as much as the rings of his eyes.

Within the loneliness of his mind, void of all his customers, he looked around to his mind’s companions. This is what I always asked for, isn’t it? The bodies circled him. Robert, Terrance, Sandra, and the half dozen others he had despised for years. Their lacerated bodies. Their shattered bones. Their molten faces. Their grotesque, dead forms had become victims of Pete’s personified envy. His jealousy and hate erupted out of his soul, calcified into bone, and became his hands. Carefully, those hands constructed this prison of death that circled Pete in his mind. Was I not right? Is this not what Seager deserved? He scoffed and scrambled over to one of the bodies, clawing at it and grasping for its face.

All of you are so content in your meaninglessness. You never wanted to matter, so long as you were getting paid. Yet now I must be the one to suffer?! I wanted to do something special. Something unique. Something that mattered. The rest of you were so happy to dance along to the tunes of the same songs heard in every town anyone has ever been to. You let big companies rub your face in the ground, and you smiled as they did it, never thinking once to look up and see the hands holding you down. They dug you straight down into the dirt until you saw the little grubs like me beneath all the dust and kept staring at us with the same damn smile.

Pete pressed his palm to his face and wiped away a blend of perspiration and tears. He stared down at the evidence of his brutality, paying no attention to the heaving of his chest as his lungs hunted for air. The body before him finally stopped moving, and he inched closer for one last look at the steel basin that it was bent over. Uneven waves bubbled and rocked between either side of the basin, sloshing rust-colored waterfalls onto the floor. The odor was strange, but ultimately pleasant, Pete decided. He had no idea that coffee and faces could boil so hot. Part of him wondered what the bloody brew before him might taste like. He shook his head, giggling at the dark thought that wormed its way into his head. He let go of the body that he was still holding down in the searing liquid and watched as it collapsed backwards into a heap on the floor. Pete didn’t bother looking into the smoldering skull that was now exposed to the world. He just fetched the small nametag from the body’s green apron and read the name aloud to himself, clear relaxation making his voice sound slick, like someone fresh out of one of those massage chairs near the escalators.

“Terrance.”

The name slipped out like butter.

You had no idea how tiring it was to bear all this weight. I had to be the face of everything good. As I fought the good fight for Seager, I had to put up with all your nasty judgment. I heard all the hushed snickering. I saw you turn away as I passed. You saw me as some kind of pathetic outsider. Well, look who is outside now.

Pete held Sanda in his hands, who looked up at him in a clear daze. She had only started to wake back up and clearly had no idea what was going on. The best part for Pete was seeing the realization trickle its way into her eyes. The panic flooded her veins as she discovered the gag in her mouth and the impressive engineering of shoelaces strung together, binding her body in a colorful cocoon. She managed one muffled cry, looking to Pete for some explanation. Any reasons he had weren’t divulged to her. He looked away, as she had done to him countless times. He allowed himself a calm, deep breath, enjoying the cool breeze up on the mall’s roof. Then, he released his grip. He felt the laces unthread from his fingers and fall away, trailing behind Sandra as she plummeted over the edge to the parking lot below.

Enough! This is all so meaningless to you when it matters so much to me. I’m doing you a favor.

A hand twitches as its wrist is compressed with a sickening crunch underneath a service elevator.

This town used to mean nothing. Then suddenly, it mattered a great deal. The overnight, back to nothing. But I can’t go back to that. I can’t go back to nothing.

A quiet cough sputters out as blood gushes from a throat and runs down the back of Pete’s hand.

Please. You must know how this feels. To stand on the edge of self-actualization, only to watch it be carried away by those with the privilege to never know a life without it.

Pete ran as fast as he could. His shoes squeaked the sounds of the mall’s final pleas as he led a trail of blood from every store back to his own. He was almost there when he finally collapsed onto his knees and buried his face in his lap, crying out a pathetic whimper.

Please. It all just meant so much to me. And it meant nothing to you. Please.

A hand rested on Pete’s shoulder, encouraging him to calm down and look up, which he did. He sniffled and rubbed his eyes, his tears dampening his knuckles. His chest shuddered as he gasped in a gulp of air and looked up to the hand that helped steady him. “Come on,” Terrance’s familiar voice offered. “Time to get on your feet, old friend.” Pete allowed himself to be propped back up into a standing position. He stared at Terrance as he stepped forward, settling into the back of the line at Pete’s T’s. Pete hesitated, unsure of what to do. He looked at Terrance once more and saw that he was offering his hand. All the other customers froze in place, allowing Pete to join them in line. He stifled the involuntary urge to begin weeping and took Terrance’s hand, settling into his place in line.