A Sandman Thing, part 2

[odditycollector]

 
 



Tuesday



He’s been standing there for twenty minutes, staring at the stationary.

“Can I help you?” you ask.

“Hmm… probably not,” he says. “I’m just looking.”

“I’ve noticed,” you say. “But usually people in here look with purpose. Look for something, you might say.”

He stares at you for a moment and then starts laughing. It’s more a bellow than a laugh, deep and rumbling like an earthquake.

It isn’t like you’d said anything funny.

“Aye, lass,” he says. “I’m going to write poetry this afternoon. I’m deciding on the most inspirational paper.”

You glance at the stationary. Pale pink flowers and bright orange ducks. “It’s always seemed to me that inspiration comes from the inside,” you say.

He laughs again, and you find yourself grinning along. “I suppose it would,” he agrees. He goes back to studying the paper. You start to walk away, but he pulls a pack off the shelf and shows it to you. “Look at this,” he says. “They’ve cut down a tree, ground it into paper, and painted a forest on every page. Two sides to everything.”

You look at the package. “I think those are one-sided, actually,” you say. “But that sounded pretty, er, poetic, what you said just then.”

“Do you think so?” He’s grinning, and you’re worried he’s going to start laughing again. “Then I’m afraid you have helped me.”

Mandy rings him through, and then complains at you because he didn’t even notice she was flirting with him. You watch through the glass door as he takes the paper out of the bag and shows it to a dog, which manages an expression of horror.

“I mean,” Mandy’s saying. “A man that big, you have to wonder…”

“How bad his poetry is?” you say.