Gardeners' Question Time

There are magic spells that aren’t magic at all. “Don’t come here, don’t be assholes. Go away go away go away,” I’m whispering to every footstep that goes past the gardening aisle. Pretending to straighten products. No one buys gardening things this time of year. We’d drawn straws this morning, I got it. I’m safe here. As safe as anyone can be in a department store right now. Dave was once written up for turning his regulation shirt inside-out to avoid customers; the rest of us wish we’d thought to do the same.

“Hi?”

I open my eyes. There is a boy in the aisle. He is eleven, and holding a sheet of paper in one hand.

“You can find toys in the toy department, rows C11 and C12,” I rattle off.

“Oh! I’m not looking for toys though. I’m getting gifts for friends and you’re store is almost as big as it thinks it so, so! I bet it has lots of things a Jay can buy!”

“Nothing in gardening. Nothing in gardening. You can find other departments to shop in,” I say. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m probably a 5 on ‘offending the customer’ right now but I can’t stop myself. I can hear people screaming at Denice over returns already. I don’t want to go out there. To be forced to offer cheer to people who won’t do the same back.

“I’m not sure? Because,” he flings out happily, “I’m not sure if plutonium is a kind of flower or not? So I thought I’d ask someone in the gardening department about it.”

“What?” I get out, pulled out of my thoughts.

“I think I need some for a gift I’m getting Honcho,” the boy explains.

I stare at him. The boy stares back up at me with nothing except honest in his face. “.... what do you need plutonium for?” I ask despite myself.

“Well, Charlie says I don’t need unobtanium for any gift even if I found some and I’m better Honcho would like a really good shaver for his face and that would be a really good help in making one!”

“.... you want to use plutonium to make a shaver. For someone’s face. And you expect me to believe this?”

“Huh?”

I crouch down and stare at him. “I’ve been working Christmas overtime without overtime pay for six days this week so far, and I’m sick and fucking tired of –,” I begin, entirely beyond calm now.

The boy just gapes at me and looks so shocked my anger drains away like it never was at all. “But but I’m a Jay, and I’m jaysome and I don’t lie at all,” he says firmly.

“I – sorry. It’s just – I – I hate this job and need it and they don’t –.” I fight back words, not even sure why I’m babbling to him.

“It’s okay. Sometimes bindings are necessary and very tough too.” The boy lets out a heavy sigh.”And I’m not allowed to fix the bindings in your store cuz economics, even if economics is just another kind of astrology you know! Most of the bindings in it aren’t even real, or fake-real that hurts a lot of real and I’m not sure how to fixify all of that at all. But! I can buy gifts and tip people and that helps them a lot too.”

He grins, and his grin is so beyond perfect it almost hurts.

“I’m sorry, Jay,” I find myself saying. “We don’t carry plutonium.”

“Oh.” He pouts. “I know! I can get a normal shaver and modify it I bet!”

And I walk out of the gardening aisle. And brave electronics, unlock the cabinet and get Jay the shaver he asks for. Everyone is – better, around him. People who are yelling stop it as his stare. Smiles appear like withered miracles trying to find the sun. He gives me money for helping him, gives the cashier a tip too. Looks about the store after. And walks through the door into the staff area. The door was locked. He walks through anyway.

For a horrible moment I wonder if this is the new face of mystery shoppers from headquarters. But I follow, unable not to, as he finds the PA system convinced Jin to met him use it.

“Excuse me?” His voice carries through the door, and the staff areas as well. Which I didn’t know the PA system did. “Everyone needs to be a lot more jaysome,” he says, and I swear even from here I feel the mood of the customers change. As if they were an immovable wall that his voice seeps into like sunlight and rain all at once. He looks back at Jin after “Sorry? I kinda got mad about bindings so I should go before Charlie and Honcho maybe find me and I get into trouble!”

He leaves. I’m not sure how. I think my brain just spaces out for a second. Jin is staring at me with an expression I’ve never seen on his face. He’s holding the plug-in to the PA system in one hand.

“It wasn’t plugged in.”

He nods, once. Plugs it back in slowly.

“Let’s not talk about this again.”

He looks almost relieved at that.

I walk back out. I have no idea what happened today. I have no clue how long it can last. I don’t think I ever want to know what Jay was, and that my world might be safer if I never know.

There are magic spells that aren’t magic at all. But sometimes they work anyway. Sometimes they work better than magic ever can.