Dream: 3/17/08

Returning to an old job is not like returning to a childhood home. It’s more like a childhood trauma, a force that’s triumphed over your evasive efforts. That’s why I shielded myself from what I thought were awestruck stares of my former co-workers. A vainglorious perception on my part; if I was noticed, it was for my unfamiliarity, since there’d been a shift in the staff. Instead of the faces I knew--Garet, Liz, John, Chris, Jen, Melissa, etc.--I saw young bodies, cherries intact and never popped by the predator known as mall retail.

FYE looked the same. Still cozy in it’s prime spot in the center of the first floor, still sitting unfashionably on the fringe of cool, still polluted with ratty packs of teens. It might’ve blew up in size to house more shit, but it still incorporated the same feng shui. Even the head manager, Steve, held his old post. Luckily I danced out of his sight when I headed for the back room.

I returned sporting the gray shirt and black slacks. No name tag dangling around my neck though. I stepped my way to the register and noticed Stephen, a former co-worker from my stint at Blockbuster Video. He managed to cut loose and flee Florida, like I did. Good for him, I thought, accompanying me on my return to Emerald Square Mall. But the strike of shame proved too great for me to greet him; he’d notice that all I did was swap one trauma for another.

Customer service: that’s what FYE thrives on. At least that’s what I thrived on, being simultaneously assertive, friendly, and neutral, making sure everybody’s helped, always spreading a smile, and never commenting on the consumer’s tastes. Didn’t work on commission, so my title seemed like an abstraction. Yet it felt like the only source of meaning that I could achieve from an otherwise trivial position.

I straddled the demarcating section that segregated CDs from DVDs. A middle aged woman approached me with her baby carriage and ostensible friend. A little girl skipped up behind her.

“Hi, I was wondering if you could help me for a second,” she asked. Her voice hinted at exhaustion and embarrassment, and I could immediately sense that she was a savvy city dweller, not part of the usual dumb-townie clientele.

“Sure thing,” I responded. I smiled wider. “What is it?”

“High school diploma,” she answered back.

“Uh, what?”

“’High School Diploma,’” she repeated.

“Do you mean ‘High School Musical?’”

“That’s it,” she said, nodding her head. “It’s for my daughter,” she added, as if I wasn’t keen enough to infer her intentions.

We walked over to the children’s DVDs and I plucked the title from the shelf. She murmured something appreciative and I absentmindedly assured her that it wasn’t a problem.

“Would you like to watch it with us?” she asked me.

I found myself in a modest house outside of Harvard. My scenery switch assumed the guise of teleportation, but I took the sudden gap in time to be a result from some sort of stroke. I can’t remember how I got there, but I have a faint memory of ditching work, taking the train, making faces at the woman’s daughter. Though all of it got sort of muddled up, I could celebrate the success that accumulated from the series of phantom events.

The mother peeled the stickers that bordered the DVD case. “Are you ready to watch the movie?” she asked, though she didn’t even need to.