Bonnie and Clyde

/, Literature, Blesok no. 56/Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie and Clyde

M. entered the store, all those colors twisted her mind and she felt dizzy, everything was а strange carousel, just like that portrait of Felix Fenelon, he was a friend of Signac and a loudspeaker. Here, amongst all those different sized products, you can hear the screaming of yellow circles and stars, the red semicircular streaks are creating nice enamel with its own peculiar rhythm.
M carried around a huge, heavy cloud, the worst kind of all, the one you can’t dissolve in coffee and cigarettes, Signac only delayed the time and it wasn’t of any use. Does she have to be indifferent towards this job? She felt inferior, her own voice blustering in her head, sending her to penitentiary, there she would understand that she is worthless and her pretty face brought nothing but an illusion that she could become everything she dreamt of as a little girl. Brand promoter. Toilet paper promoter. She was laughing at herself while waiting for her coordinator to tell her how to approach the customers of this small store. She was imagining what her line would be: “Good afternoon! We are promoting a new kind of toilet paper, with this paper your ass will be soft and clean and your hemorrhoids will be gone forever. Here! Just try it! The toilet is there, wipe your ass and see it yourself, the magnificent feeling you will have!”
But, none of this happened. These were only her fantasies. The coordinator gave her a simple approach: “Hallo, today we are making a toilet paper promotion, if you buy two packages of this toilet paper, you get one package of napkins for free.”
Bollocks.
If only she could get a job in one of those huge supermarkets, there she would act like working, but actually her only task would be staring at the big supermarket lights. Here, in this little store everybody is watching her. The cashier was curious and she followed every word she said, clerks were calling out to regular customers to buy this toilet paper because the discount ends today, tomorrow the price will rise. Robots, slaves, all the same, people feel better this way; they fall asleep at night easily, like small babies. They forget about their boring little lives, all the problems are gone when they watch the CSI series, their imagination shines for a while, they thank God for avoiding the possibility to receive a bullet in the head, or be burned in some sharks’ fireplace because of gambling depts. M. felt sick babbling in her head, she didn’t want her voice to become too strong and then become scared like a little bunny in the lion’s den. The owner of this shop took a day off; the clerks let her have her coffee in the owner’s office. “The owner sits here” – she thought: “She sits here and counts her money, thousands of denars, hundreds of euros… and what about me…”
She would snap out of it and then kindly smile to all the people, happy or frowning, and repeat the same sentence over and over again. She made her own statistics, grandfathers liked her most, men in their 20s and 30s, and middle-aged women. Young girls hated her, pregnant women too; they must envy her figure, as well as grannies and middle-aged men. Yet nothing felt good enough to make her feel fulfilled, she would like to do something else, either creative or useful for the society. Maybe she should have studied medicine instead of history of art. But standing next to a shelf full of toilet paper and promoting it! She found it difficult, it ached. The customers ignored her, they ignored her humiliating bow to the ‘the customer is always right’ rule. One of them even shouted at her that he didn’t use toilet paper any more and that because of firms like hers he got an anus inflammation and preferred to wash his ass off after going to the bathroom. Even though everyone was watching her, she wasn’t embarrassed. She wanted to tell him so badly that one can get an anus inflammation from practicing diverse sexual life, but she held the thought to herself and turned towards the chocolate bar shelves.
Boxes of chocolates took her to another world, a romantic one, warmed her heart, and made her remember she was alive. She took the biggest one, just to see it, turned it around, and its price was equal to her daily wages. Her eyes uncontrollably filled with tears, but somebody’s hand on her shoulder stopped them. She turned around, and there he was, standing in front of her as if materializing her fantasy, not that well dressed yet gorgeous.
“Hey…how’s it going?” he asked her, and she couldn’t stop staring at him. She startled and forgot to tell him about the promotion! Toilet paper promotion! But his hat, his blouse and his hand at the back of his trousers told her of his plan, told her that this is where her career as a promoter ended. She was something else, she always was. He knows her, he would just let her rejoice at the bar of chocolates for a while, and she was saved by the price stuck at the back, she was saved of all those lies. M. smirked like a little girl that just stopped crying and proudly sniffs because she gets a gift for her bruised knee. He held her head and kissed her wet lips. Something upset her about him, his existence; he destroyed her harmless meditation, and no doubt tore the artificial skin she put on that morning. She quickly took her clothes off and they made love, here in the middle of the store! No, of course they didn’t! He went to the owner’s office, took the key and walked off the customer that was leaving. Without having thoughts he locked the front door, he pulled one of the guns out and passed it to M. He pointed his gun at the clerk. M. felt that her inspiration was too big, too persistant to be held at the boxes of chocolates, so she stuck the cold barrel at the head of the man with the anus inflammation. He peed his pants and started to cry. Hey, hey, no harm done! She just wanted his wallet! The cashier didn’t hesitate a minute and emptied the register straight away. I should probably mention that there will be no police because this isn’t a Hollywood movie!
M. went to open the back door. It was in the toilet. He wanted to show mercy to the customers, so he took a banknote and chucked it into an older man’s hand, one that could barely move and held a piece of bred in the other. The clerk eyed him sharply and forced a cough. He looked at her in amazement with his clear innocent eyes. She knew he wanted to be the modern Robin Hood, and she hated such noble deeds herself as she knew no such thing existed in the world. He pushed her with the gun:
“Problem?” he asked her with an insulting tone.
“No problem… it’s just that your girlfriend is going to die.” she answered voluptuously.
His complexion turned pale yellowish. He started to run madly towards the toilet and kept calling M. with her real name, she didn’t answer back. He entered the toilet. Her lifeless body was hanging on a rope, tied to an outward drain pipe.

AuthorIrena Jordanova
2018-08-21T17:23:06+00:00 October 17th, 2007|Categories: Prose, Literature, Blesok no. 56|0 Comments