Occasional Sputterings

Matthew Mews crawled out of his car and headed in to work; the crisp, autumn air served to boost Matt's mood. As Matt stepped across the threshold, the store's sliding doors opened to reveal a garishly-lit store. The sense of abandonment leaked from the lobby as Greeter Marcus nodded to Matt; smiling in response, Matt went to buy his mid-work snack. Fixings for sandwiches were purchased and left in the break-room fridge and Matt proceeded to check-in; the standard notice about break-times and a few comments about station cleaning perused, Matt headed outside. Midnight cart-pushing was a kind of art; at first, the near-abandonment of the parking lot gave Matt ridiculously-long periods of time in which to aggregate the shopping carts. Pushing them as singletons, in groups of ten, and variations in-between, were quickly abandoned to two-fisted swings, and a small host of more complicated cart-pushing techniques. Matt worked his art alone, building small state-machines with

Holly Mews dropped the brochure on the desk and looked across the small, empty room. Remnants of children, friends, parties, and fights lay strewn across the floor; bits of toys, books, silverware, and furniture sat solemnly. The quiet, vertical aquarium stood humming, a reminder that some things did not change. Aspects of the brochure's contents came to mind; unbidden, the well-known musical numbers filled Holly's head and she felt her attention spliced as she planned her tomorrow. In her mind's eye, she could vaguely sense the frustration, hope, dread, and intensity of training for a live stage performance. Seeing an angry stage hands interrupt one minor catastrophe after another helped tear hear away from washing one more load of clothing, mending one more pair of pants, scrub one more unrepentant bathroom tile. It was the middle of the second act when Holly realized her phone was ringing; remembering she had placed it atop the bookcase two rooms away, she dashe