Johnny went for a walk. He wandered for some time all around the city. It hadn't used to
bother him but now, for some reason, he felt resentment towards almost all people he saw. He
felt an urge to get away from all of the noise, and decided to head for the bookstore he knew was
a few blocks away.
He had never been inside the store, and had never had any real interest in going inside.
Now, though, it seemed like a haven in the city. It was as though the store existed in its own little
pocket of air in the universe and no other noise could seep in.
Johnny looked through the shelves of endless words, thoughts, punctuations, and
sentences, all bound together onto paper for any person to come along and see them and learn
from them. The part that Johnny found sad was that it was a very empty little shop.
Johnny picked up a book and read the title. "Chicken Soup for Slowly Deteriorating Soul." The tag read "50% off
$6." Cheap enough.
Johnny fished a five and a one out of his pocket, and then another one for tax. Pain in the ass,
taxes were.
He walked up to the counter. The girl at the register did not notice him. She was
sketching on the back of an order form, humming to herself.
"Uhm. . . excuse me, miss. . .?" Johnny coughed to get her attention. She looked up.
"Shit! Sorry about that! Uhh. . . so you want. . ." she trailed off, staring at this strange
guy. He just seemed to command quiet. One of those guys that you had to listen to.
"Uh, yeah. Book." Johnny pointed at the book in his hand. "I give you the money and leave
with said book. You do not call police as I leave store. I have no reason to run from said police.
Fade out to black. The end. Roll credits and call in the janitors to sweep up the popcorn."
The girl laughed. "Sorry. I'm just a little out of it today. My friend was at the police
station last night for, uh, scaring some kids." She coughed. "You mighta seen it on the news. . ."
"She was the one who chased that ice cream truck on Interstate 40? Shit!" exclaimed
Johnny. "And yeah, the news guy did say something about children still being latched to the
truck. . ."
The girl laughed. "Hey, you should come back here sometime. It's nice to meet someone
who can carry on a conversation and not, y'know. . . transplant evil forces bent on taking over
my consciousness into my head, or something."
They both laughed.
Johnny introduced himself. "My name's Johnny."
"So, what should I call you?" she asked.
"Call me?" he repeated, confused. "People always just called me 'Johnny'."
She shrugged. "Isn't that a bit, I dunno. . . hokey?"
"Thank you."
"How 'bout I call you 'John'?" she asked.
Johnny blinked. "'John'? That's so. . . serious."
"Fine. I'll just call you 'Nny' then," she said sarcastically.
Johnny paused. ". . . I. . . like that."
The girl blinked. "Really?"
"Yeah. Call me 'Nny'."
"Alright. And my name's Devi."
Johnny tried the name in his head. "That's a nice name," he said awkwardly. "Uhh. . ." he
looked at his money in his hand without thinking about why it was there.
"So. . ." Devi started, "So I'll see you again sometime?"
Johnny smiled. The action seemed to cost him a great deal of effort. "Yeah. Yeah, I think
you will."