Shopkeep

Following an incident at a kebab shop, I wrote this on the tram:

"All these horrible stores and their angry shopkeeps, complaining they don't get enough trade throughout the day, or that the trade is insufficient and inadequate or just that the people they service are fallible and rude and despicable. These shopkeeps latch onto you and impress their misfortune upon you, the unsuspected and innocent visitor to their premises. You, of course, are just the clientele they desire; you possess their every desired quality you are a paragon of virtue, you represent a beacon of light and hope to them, tethered to their wave-washed rock in the storming sea of pitiful insignificance. They must be so glad to have your ear on these matters, you who are so very sympathetic and understanding of their plight and can recognise their many great strains as they battle this non-present tide of awful customers, none of whom are privy to such information. You are amongst their limited rollcall, a select few who are lucky enough to be bombarded by their travails and insufferable, intolerable pain.

The shopkeep rants on and on, indebting you with their knowledge, requesting in a subtle manner that you acquiesce to what they are saying, nod your approval to their claims, validate their temper and entire existence. But when they talk, it is at you, not to you, as you fulfil your dutiful role as a willing audience member who has dragged on stage for some macabre act, and for the delight of the sadistic performer, that ineffable shopkeep. You feel shrunken in their presence, in their clutches; merely a puppet to dance to their angry tune, the melody sombre and irascible, the speed increasing with every poison-barb word uttered and thrown with sheer aggression at the corrupted multitudes of other patrons who plague their business. Your silence begs them to proceed, unleashing another stream of vitriol directed at the world in general. They are miserable, and they love company that doesn't visibly get upset and walk away with impunity.

As you begin the gradual process of collecting your purchase, they increase the pace, in the vain hope you will stick around to listen. But they do not think, "You must have a life to go to!" They are far too internalised and narrow-sighted - mistaking blunt selfishness for introspective wisdom - and want tot have their unreasonable demands heard.

Yet, you recall the inevitable drift towards separation that is a necessary component of your engagement with this individual (not to mention, your sanity hastens this breakaway). You edge toward the door, having paid your dues and therefore officially terminated this economic relationship, turn your head longingly towards the exit door, and shorten your replies to monosyllabic murmurs. This shopkeep, reading the signals of their defeat, accepts your non-committal responses as rallying to their cause, and leaves you be.

You depart, not a moment too soon. You wonder at your staying power amidst the tirade you've just encountered. Your purchases lays in your hands, somewhere between a victor's spoils and an apologist's oblation. Was it really worth it? You hope so, and with a flickering thought to the shopkeep, that irrational being who unavoidably consumed your time, you stride forward, adding distance between you and them."

-J