Yet another Ficly.com short.

I’m standing in aisle four in a Staples in Suburbia, Virginia, trying to figure out why I’m going back to school for a fifth year, and leaving my girlfriend behind. It’s September again. September. I can’t stop seeing that name in my head. September ©, like someone could sell it by the crate. Back-to-school month, another year of plastic rulers and waxy pencils and cheap shit no one really needs.

Outside, the trees are gold and red with leaves like would-be royalty, if they weren’t just dying. I’ve got twenty minutes to catch a bus and take it up north so that I don’t get into town too late. The store is empty. No one shops at eight in the morning on a Monday. The woman behind the register can’t be younger than eighty. I consider going over to her and asking what kind of Wite-Out I should be buying.

A cardboard bin filled with multi-colored lighters sits in the area between me and three hundred varieties of highlighters. Next time I need a neon purple marker, I’ll come here and buy it in bulk. Thirty-pack? Sure.

Originally on Fickly.com: http://ficly.com/stories/15643