The Working World

There was nothing abnormal about that Thursday afternoon. The sun was shining, the air was cold and everyone who came through the door of the shop had asked about the fire down the road.

"Oh, the old bakery," she smiled sadly. "Turns out an electrical shortage was what made the Chrismas tree go up in flame and well-" she listened to everyone carry on about how they didn't know where they would get their bread from now. Typical, she thought while scanning their items through; nevermind the people in the apartments above the bakery who lost their homes, or the family that lost their business. Nah, buying one's bread is far more important.

"Have a nice day," she smiled, pulling her hair over one shoulder as she organized the debit slips to all face the same way. For the most part, it was slow and when things got slow up front, time decided to linger for as long as it could.

The door swung open and a blast of cold air hit the cashier. "Hello," she smiled warmly at the rather strange-looking man. He wore no coat and no sweater, just a rather dirty looking teal t-shirt. His beard wasn't much of a beard, more like tiny curls that looked glued on to his face. In his hands he held a small square of white paper.

"Can I help you find something?" the cashier jumped at the opportunity to do something other than organize slips that no one really cared about anyway.

The man looked over his shoulder, as if expecting someone behind him and slowly made his way to the counter. He lay what she thought was his shopping list in front of her and began to mumble quietly under his stale breath. She turned her head and noticed that it wasn't just one piece of paper, but many; stapled together in a kindergarten-fashion of a book, with thick, kindergarten-esque pencil scribbles all over the 'cover'.

"Very nice," she nodded nervously, her usual 'customer service' smile plastered on to her face.

He flipped the cover back and on the first page of his book, was a hand-drawn picture of a girl. A faceless girl with long flowing hair. And the caption read: 'I like girls with pretty hair'.

"Oh," her smiled fell and she knew that this wasn't going to be some sweet project done by this overly-proud-of-his-son's-drawing-ability's kid.

The verbal response must have been enough for the man, as he flipped to the second page and leaned in closer. The picture was of the same faceless long haired girl, but now a man accompanied her. 'I like to brush their pretty hair'.

What felt like a punch to the gut slowly filled the cashier's body.

'I like to cut their pretty hair'.

Now, by this time, the girl knew that calling a supervisor would be the intelligent thing to do. "I'm," her voice significantly higher than usual, "I'm just, uh, gonna call a supervisor and-"

"No supervisor," he growled, his eyes wide with anger.

Her feet frozen on the pressure mat, she watched as he flipped the page again. Pictures, photographs, of the man in front of her, with these girls, no older than herself. Him grinning into the camera as he pulled their hair and thrust inside them; the photographs perfectly capturing the peak of their horror. His yellowing grin bright and cheery as the girls' faces showed nothing but terror.

"You have very pretty hair," he mumbled, his head turning as his hand caressed her arm. "Very pretty hair."

"Supervisor," her shrill voice tried to escape her mouth, her eyes still glued to the paper in front of her. "Supervisor, please. Someone."

"Such pretty hair," his finger twirled a strand of her dark hair. "Can I have your pretty hair?"

She shook her head in disapproval. "No. No, you cannot."

He narrowed his dark eyes and flipped to the last page and what she saw made her gag so hard she nearly vomited.

It was another photograph, but instead of those poor girls being raped, she saw the man. Standing proudly with one hand on his hip, the other hand holding up a disembodied head of a blonde girl that looked vaguely familiar. Her mouth seemed to be cut up and blood trickled from the corners. He had sheered her hair off, like a sheep, on one side of her scalp, the rest all bunched up in his fist. There he stood, as if holding a prize winning trout at a harmless lakeside cottaging competition.

With one swift motion, the cashier moved back and grabbed the speaker. "Supervisor to the front. Emergency. Supervisor, please hurry."

He grabbed his book and with the same speed the cashier had for the phone, the man ran out the door, back into the cold afternoon.

Her eyes filled with tears as she tried to erase the last ten minutes from her memory. What had that even been? Where did he come from? And why her? If she hadn't taken that shift, it wouldn't've happened to her. Why couldn't she say no to shifts or helping people who clearly just needed help being redirected out of the shop.

With a slow stride, her rather overweight supervisor (who smelled of fresh cigarette smoke) finally walked up to the cash.

"What is it?"

"A man- he just- and he-"

"... Where is he?"

"He left and-"

"Then what's the problem?" she asked, shaking her head.

"He... he had these pictures and-"

"That's nice," the supervisor rolled her eyes. "Get back to work."