Nyctophilia

In my twenty-one years of life, I came to know that there are two types of silence.

There’s a silence that centers and calms me. I first felt it at the age of sixteen and it felt like a drug. Everything - all of my worries, thoughts, fears went into the background and I was left with a state of blissful ease I’ve never felt before. It was relaxing almost to the point of sweet numbness.

As we were standing over Harold’s body – there was nothing but dead cold silence. It was the type of silence that makes your body ring – completely different from the peaceful lack of unnecessary noise. Even though there’s no audible sound, it feels like the entirety of your soul can hear a deafening noise and it becomes overpowering. As I stared at Harold, I felt it rush through me, suddenly I couldn’t breathe and dropped to my knees. The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was Harold’s cold pale face staring at me with his lifeless eyes. Right before it all went black, I thought I saw him laughing at me.

***

6 MONTHS AGO

You take a loaf of bread out of the box, you press the trigger of the price gun, you put it on the shelf. Box, gun, shelf. One, two, three.

This job was extremely boring and monotonous. Weirdly enough – I still enjoyed it. I think working the night shift as a store manager at an all-day open grocery store has its perks. To begin with, they pay you a little bit more for working the night shift. Furthermore, once you get used to the upside-down routine of working at night and sleeping during the day, you start to notice just how much easier the night version of the same job is. A lot of it has to do with the very few clients that the supermarket gets during the night. Because of it, most of my shift is usually spent stocking up the shelves and making sure everything is up to part. Instead, my doppelganger during the day has to listen to endless complaints and queries of the overstressed soccer moms – all in the noisy chaos that is the supermarket during the day. Los Angeles has a lot of the ‘overstressed’. Especially nowadays, since everything has to be organic, low fat or low carb, high protein or vegan, no dairy or plant-based. Thank God, I don’t have to deal with the voluntarily malnourished. Since I work an eight-hour shift starting at midnight, I don’t see too many customers. However, the customers that I witness are usually community college students high on cannabis and hungry for snacks. Sometimes I find them laughing at a misshapen piece of fruit or just staring blankly in a candy aisle, wearing sunglasses, to cover their bloodshot eyes. It’s the ideal customer– already happy, yet hungry.

The dynamic clientele added to the overall joy of the seemingly mundane work. Additionally, it allowed me to stop thinking for a bit. For someone who overthinks everything as I do, the brain-numbing monotony of this work, requiring no thought whatsoever, helped to stop thinking – even if just for a little while. Since I’d started working here about a year and a half ago, it had become my therapy and a weird technique of meditation. I know that calling the pricing of sixty loaves of bread a new type of meditation might seem weird to some. After all, it used to seem weird to me.

- All I have to say is, the blood boiling anger and disappointment disappear after you price thirty loaves and then you either go insane or calm down. – That’s what Jenny told me the first day I started working here and she was showing me around.

My first task was to price the same brand of bread I was pricing that day. That’s what made me remember my first day here as well as think of Jenny. Box, gun, shelf. One, two, three. I would call Jennifer (Jenny) my best friend. She used to work the same job as me, but after a while, she got transferred to work part-time at the store’s bakery. However, she and I would still finish our shifts at the same time and took the same bus route home. Working during the night and sleeping during the day could result in involuntary isolation and lack of social interaction since you operate on an opposite schedule than everyone else. Thus, it would make sense that my closest friend would be someone whom I work with and who has the same weird routine.

I put the last priced loaf of bread on the shelf and was about to open another box when suddenly I was interrupted by Stanley - a bit weird and phlegmatic general manager of the store. He had the habit of appearing right behind you without making any sound, which made his workers (especially females) dislike him by a lot. I gasped as he suddenly started talking since I didn’t hear him approach as per usual.

- Hey Laurie… oh, did I startle you? Sorry, I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to say that your shift is finished and you can go… change. – I looked at him as he started apologizing and when he mentioned the word ‘change’ he seemingly looked me over.

I felt disgusted and without even noticing clenched my teeth. He was bolding, although only in his early thirties and what little brown hair he had was always greasy and pushed to one side in a completely fruitless attempt to hide his boldness. His facial features were nice, however, his creepy, chilling demeanor and a lack of personal hygiene was the main thing that threw women off and made people, in general, feel uncomfortable around him. I nodded and put the pricing gun next to the unpriced boxes of bread. It‘s some other poor soul‘s job now.

The staff room was at the other end of the store. I just remembered the “Creepy Stanley‘s“ face and how he looked me over. I shivered. “He... no – his actions are repulsive.“ – A thought crossed my mind. I closed my eyes for a short moment, still walking through an almost empty supermarket. I could feel a stinging pain between my shoulder plates from being tense through the work shift.

“I need to remember to stretch before going to sleep once I get home and it will go away, otherwise I‘ll wake up with a torn-up back tomorrow.“

I saw the “ONLY STAFF“ sign at the familiar swing door. Just a few more aisles.

“Oh, they have some fresh salmon. That would be nice. Hmm... Tomorrow is... Friday. Hmmm... if it was Saturday I could invite over Jenny for dinner. It would be a nice gesture after she invited me over last week. Cook some nice salmon with lemon juice and a light vinaigrette, some white wine. I could invite Marcos and his boyfriend too. It has been a while since I‘ve seen them. That‘s a good idea... I could make that avocado pudding that Marcos likes for dessert...“

I pushed the swinging staff door in. The storage room. Boxes and dust everywhere. Most of the produce comes in the morning so even though the supermarket was seemingly asleep, these parts were full of action. Men operating lifts and unloading trucks, shouting at each other. I‘ve increased my pace to not be in anyone’s way. I heard a whistle and looked at the side that it came from. Three muscular men were standing at the unloading dock smoking cigarettes and finishing up coffee out of paper cups. Some truck was probably late. As I looked at them, one of them grinned and winked an eye. The middle one. The two men at his sides tried to hold back the laughter. They must‘ve been new because I couldn‘t recognize them. I knew the middle one though.

- A bit early don‘t you think Earl? – I shouted through the noise.

- Not to me, honey. – He yelled back. I shook my head and showed him the middle finger.

- Oh, baby, why you gotta do me like that, huh? – He yelled laughing as I was already climbing up the metal stairs. – I promise you, I gotta real nice package for ya. Ya can‘t put a price on that one, honey. – He kept shouting and the two guys at his sides chuckled along. I couldn‘t say it hurt me or upset me at this point. I was too used to it, I guess. After all, I wasn‘t the only one that seemed to get these reactions. It was common. It used to get me upset at first...

I walked through the corridor whistling “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star“ trying to forget what just happened.

“...general manager‘s office, the HR, gentlemen changing room... ah finally – ladies.“

I pushed the door in.