All Mixed Up

The reds are mixed with the purples that are mixed with the blacks. “What is this?” The sizes are all mismatched as well and this leads to the resolution that the entire display must be completely redone. “They are not even folded correctly.” The pumped in music plays one of her favorite songs and she lifts her head beyond the fluorescents, the tiled ceiling, the gravelly roof, the heavy grey sky into the depths of the sun and offers gratitude for “It’s Raining Again” by Moby. It is raining again but as she has already clearly demonstrated she can extend herself beyond the rain. It is sunny. Sorry, Moby.

“Do you have this in a small?” “Oh! I LOVE this! Where did you find it?” “There on that middle rack.” It was the lone t-shirt of this style caught in the middle of the ever increasing winter line. “This may be a remnant of what we had out for summer but let me check.” She glides past the rack where the shirt was unearthed and makes a mental note that this area too is in desperate care of re-organizing.

She scours the areas where last season’s clothing could be scattered here and there and no luck. She heads to the back which is something she dreads. The music does not reach into the back. Once those metal doors are closed behind you, it is you, industrial shelving, cardboard boxes, stale air and eerie silence. The light closest is flickering. Mental note, contact maintenance. Not everything has been shipped back to the warehouses. She misses the radio. “Trouble” by Coldplay had just come on and she loves this song. She does not like being back here. It is dark.

She sees a rack that was rolled back in preparation of shipment. As luck would have it, it was the same rack that held the siblings of this pink, cute, t-shirt that exclaimed summer. There was a small and her hands grabbed it like rescuing a kitten from drowning. Summer shirt for summer in autumn and beyond. The customer will be happy.

The path out could not be walked quickly enough. The metal doors were about to rescue her from the cold, dark, fluorescent flickering back room storage that was void of life. She stepped out into “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel. The woman asking about the shirt was gone and strewn across the display she had previously been working on was the medium pink T-Shirt. Sadness. She looked at the small shirt in her hand. It would fit her nicely. She took the other to the back storage area. “Hello darkness my old friend.”

Photo Credit:
Greenwich Market Clothes from Wikimedia Commons

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