Shadows Out of Time

I wasn’t sure where they’d come from either, maybe from behind the large Vampire tapestry at the back of the store, a gaudy, Goth arras I’d imagined as merely decorative. It was creepy, like they’d just manifested or beamed in. Even stranger, as I watched them navigate the clutter of the store, I realized their eyes were closed. They didn’t carry canes, but gently and knowingly touched each object along their path, clearly feeling their way to the cash register. I know you’re not supposed to stare at the unsighted, but I couldn’t help myself. Three blind workers running a place that caters to the graphic arts? Almost odder than what I’d found in the comics themselves. Then again, maybe my whole idea of normal had to go out the window. Tonight wasn’t going to get any more mundane.

All wore jeans and nametags. All had different hair, different neon topknots, but they seemed like siblings, triplets maybe. The first wore a faded t-shirt from the Eighties with poster art for Eddie and the Cruisers on the front. Her name also read Eddie, perhaps ironically, perhaps not. The second sported Bruce Lee on her top, huge and hyper-realistic, as if inked by Drew Friedman. According to her tag, she was Melody. The last was the only one of the three with a comic theme. Over her small breasts the image of Oracle presided, the hero formerly known as Batgirl sitting in her wheelchair and running Gotham from behind the scenes, from behind the screen of her computer. Like any one of the thousands of comics in the place, she too was marked with a little white square. Hers said Mimi.

“Can we help?” she asked.

“Anything in particular you’re looking for?” said Melody.

“Our rates are not unreasonable,” offered Eddie.

“I…um…what is this place?” I couldn’t imagine another question.

“Please,” Melody said. “Ask again. Something real. Something smart.”

“Is this…heaven?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Eddie said. “For this we stayed open?”

By now I’d moved to the front of the store, toward the cash register, still clinging to a couple of comics, a couple of my father’s memories.

The women stood behind the counter, eyes closed. For some reason I wondered if they even had eyes. Yet it felt like they were seeing me, watching my face and hands, sizing me up. One of them, Mimi, fidgeted with a cheap plastic figurine, like something you’d find in a Happy Meal. As it moved back and forth in her hands, I recognized it. Mike, the green-eyed monster from that silly Pixar film.

“Give me that,” Eddie said and took it from her. “So, you stumbled across our little store. It’s not easy to find.” A moment ago, she’d sounded disgusted. Now she seemed impressed.

Melody reached over and stole Mike from her co-worker. She, too, began to worry it like a stress doll. “Were you looking for us?” she asked.

“I don’t know what you…” I stopped before I finished the thought, seeing all three blind brows wrinkle toward disdain. This wasn’t the normal banter one has at a comic shop, even a head shop. And no, I’m not an idiot. I knew there had to be some connection between what had happened yesterday and this store, between the phone call and what was happening now. But none of it seemed real. Everything was like a dream.

I tried again. “I’m not sure who you…” More wrinkles. Even my own. I knew better.

I’d taught drama for more than two decades. I knew the stories, the character types, the tropes. I’d followed the trajectory of all that happened before and behind the curtain from contemporary, minimalist mummery back to when writers first realized the stage was a stand-in for our brains. I’d written a number of plays myself. New stuff, adaptations of Dante. I knew the mystery and the mythology. So the moment these three appeared, I made every connection you could imagine. They were women, but they weren’t. They were expected, but they weren’t. They spoke to my knowledge of the history of theater, but they didn’t. I’ve read Camus. I’ve directed Sartre. I’ve seen every Twilight Zone ever made.

Of course I knew who they were.

“I assume you only find this place if you need it,” I said.

“Well played.” Melody languidly opened and closed Mike’s one big eye with her thumb.

“Do I get to ask for my father back?”

“Your father is beyond us,” Mimi said.

“So you can’t fix sickness. What do you do? Why do you have my dad’s memories if you can’t return them?”

“This isn’t a pawn shop,” Eddie said.

“Helluva head shop then.”

“It is a head shop, though not as you mean.” Mimi grabbed the little monster back from her sister.

“Okay…”

“Did you want to die?” She handed Mike to Eddie.

“No, I…Okay, am I dead?”

“You know the answer to that. Why would you need this…us…if you were?”

“So, fine. Not dead. Can’t get my father back, not like he was. What possible thing could you offer me? You could’ve just let me freeze to death.”

Mimi smiled. “Oh, please, are you really that dense?”