“You need to lower your prices!”
Colin smiled at the small boy, who was looking in horror at the cost of a rare gaming card.
“I wish I could.”
“Where are you moving to?”
“Not far. It’s a bit further away from downtown.”
The boy looked past Colin and out the open front of the store. Ruth was opening up the bookstore across the way. The boy clutched a green dinosaur under his arm.
“Is that moving too?”
“The dinosaur?”
“No. The bookstore.”
“Not to the same place. They’re going somewhere different.”
The boy nodded, and put the dinosaur on the counter. “Daaaad!” he yelled.
Behind Colin, boxes covered most of the back wall.
NEW SHOP - FRONT
NEW SHOP - STOCK
STORAGE
DONATE
NEW SHOP - FRAGILE
The last one already had another box stacked on it.
Colin had signed his new lease on Monday. Between a bakery and a pawn shop, just north of Alberta. Two rooms and a dry basement.
Two-year lease, with an option. Not far off three times the rent.
There was only room for one center table. Not room to play.
He’d measured it twice.
More than eight hundred people had paid towards his move.
He could still check the running total on his tablet. It was past target, but there were still new messages.
Thanks for the train set.
My kid still has that rabbit.
Will you still get stuff in from Korea?
Someone had donated a thousand dollars anonymously, just since last night.
The property company’s latest email was next to it.
FINAL OCCUPANCY SCHEDULE - ACTION REQUIRED
He moved it into the same folder as all his other move info.
He watched Ruth drag a cart of books across her sales floor, kicking at a squeaky wheel. The lights were on all the way down to the west wing.
Its entrance was closed off with white construction panels. New ones, printed to look like windows.
A NEW CHAPTER FOR PORTLAND
Someone had drawn a stick figure using the O in Portland for its head.
Colin sold toys. Good ones, generally. From wooden kitchens to dolls that talked. Building sets and board games. Gaming cards and remote-controlled cars. Sometimes used and sometimes new.
No blind boxes.
By noon the record store was pushing music through their shared wall. A pair of teenagers sat on one of the dead escalators, looking through their new purchases from Laney’s stationery shop.
“Morning!” called Dale, walking past in his blue security uniform.
“I think you just missed it,” said Colin.
“Fah. Close enough.”
Dale stopped beside the boxes.
“So when’s the big move?”
“Thursday after close.”
“You need the loading bay?”
“I already spoke to Theo.”
Dale nodded. Kept walking.
The property office had sent up a floor plan with the final schedule. Showed all the occupied units blue, everything else - which was most of the space - beige.
They paid rent to a company in Nevada. Maintenance requests went somewhere. Dale had once had to call the emergency number because water was leaking through the ceiling outside the game shop.
When they’d finally answered, the person on the phone had asked which state he was in.
But they’d also let Colin paint the sign for Good Again himself.
Theo had helped him carry in his glass cabinets the first week, and Ruth helped him get on the patchy wifi. Laney had given him a chair.
It was still there. One leg shorter than the others. A folded catalog under it.
Theo came by with an extra couple of boxes that he set by the register.
“Your new place all signed?”
“Got the keys yesterday.”
Theo tapped the boxes with his boot.
“Laney got a place.”
“She told me.”
“The brothers are taking the game shop virtual only.”
“She told me that too.”
“I think Ruth’s signing something today, too.”
“That’s something. I was worried.”
Theo looked across the corridor.
The café shutters were down. A handwritten sign had been taped over the menu screen.
THANK YOU
“No luck there, though,” he said.
Near the register, Colin was keeping a relocation list on a piece of paper.
Ruth: ?
Laney: Montavilla
Clay House: shared studio ?
Next Turn Games: online / events
Coffee: closing shop
There was a better version on the window over at Ruth’s. Someone had drawn it out on white card. Added the transit stops and listed out how to get from one to the other.
A woman took a picture of it before wandering over to the store. She was carrying a box of magnetic tiles.
“My kids are too old for them.”
Colin counted the shapes.
“Missing a couple of squares, I’m afraid.”
“They might be in the car.”
“I’ll hold the box if you want to check.”
The woman stopped, looked at the moving boxes.
“I thought you’d all be going to the same place.”
“No.”
“Oh.”
The woman looked at the map on her phone.
“Anyone near you?”
“Not really.”
“Pity. That would’ve been nice.”
Colin smiled. “Yeah. I got keys for a new place.”
“My sister says the new area’s nicer.”
Colin stacked the magnetic triangles by color.
“It’s got more natural light.”
“You don’t have windows here.”
He gestured up to the second floor and the ceiling. “Just the ones up there.”
The woman looked toward the corridor. The skylights above the atrium had gone cloudy at the edges. Looked like it was raining outside.
“Bring those squares if you find them. Otherwise I’m happy to put it in the donation pile.”
At the end of the afternoon, the bookstore held its last story hour.
Kids came out wearing paper crowns. Crossed over to the toy store without looking. A couple went to the stationery store.
A girl played with a train set. A boy stuck his nose against the pane of the display case with the rarest game cards. The one from Japan that changed from silver to gold and back every few seconds. Two sisters dressed up a doll.
Their father stood at the entrance drinking coffee.
“Sorry they’re making a mess,” he said.
“It’s no problem. They’re toys.”
The father let his girls bully him into buying the doll. Colin found the price tag.
The father took out his card. The register played the usual holo about connectivity and then accepted the payment.
The girls fought over the bag on the way out.
At six, Dale passed again.
“Five minutes to wrap up.”
Colin nodded toward the children still playing on the escalator.
“Better make it ten.”
Ruth lowered her bookstore gate. Laney pulled her table inside. The music from next door stopped halfway through a song.
Colin moved the chair toward his packing boxes, the catalog slipping out from under its leg. He turned off his own lights and locked up. Went over to take a look at Ruth’s store.
Someone had added another mark to the map stuck to her window. Blue ink.
Outside, the rain was heavier. Colin could see it sliding down the skylights in long, dirty threads.
He lowered his gate.
A story from the Static Drift universe.
Article photo by Albert Stoynov on Unsplash.