The Force Love

December 2nd

That morning, it was said on TV that it was the coldest day in ten years. This was indeed so. It had snowed since morning, and by noon the snow turned thicker.. The wind, not to be outdone, whistled constantly. People at the bus stop outside the supermarket couldn’t help running inside to get some warmth for a couple of minutes if they reckoned the bus was not coming immediately.

Thanks to the bad weather, there were few serious customers in the supermarket, and the two cashiers were playing games on their phones to kill time. Adele, who was both cashier and staff supervisor, caught sight of the snow at the entrance, tracked in by people from the bus stop.

Adele called Kate to disassemble a couple of used cartons and put them on the floor of the entrance to avoid melted snow, causing a slippery and stained floor. But she shouted a few times to the back from her cashier stand without receiving a response from Kate.

Adele had to ask another coworker to cover for her as she walked back inside to the shelves. Kate was standing between two rows of shelves, meditating. She heard footsteps and turned to Adele:

“Adele, my eyelid keeps twitching all the time.”

“Left or right?”

Kate, clearly distressed, took a second to figure out left from right and pointed: “Right one.”

Adele was speechless at her state and replied carelessly, “Bad luck. My grandma said it left for fortune and right for misery.”

“Seriously?” Kate opened her eyes wide.

Adele laughed at her, being so easily shocked. “Don’t take it seriously. My uncle said it left for career and right for romance. Don’t be superstitious. It will probably go away soon.” And then Adele instructed Kate to put the flattened cartons on the floor with adhesive tapes. “Make sure the floor is dry. Otherwise, if some elderly person slips and breaks his bones, he will sue us.”

Kate nodded and ran to carry out Adele’s instructions.

After she finished, Kate came back to continue arranging items on the shelves and checking stock, a tedious job. They used to have three employees. One of the other two was the boss’s niece, and the other one was the nephew of the boss’s wife. To make things worse, these two fell in love and spent most of their time whispering and giggling together, leaving Kate to work alone.

She didn’t want to complain because it was not easy to keep a stable job. She got paid on time every month in this stagnant economic situation. Besides, she preferred to deal with merchandise rather than people. Whenever customers asked her where a certain product was, she could always give the precise location. This made her feel good. So even though Kate was busy as a bee every day, she enjoyed the job.

But today, she was a little absent-minded.

Kate took her cell phone out of her pocket from time to time. She was expecting a call, a very important one. The way her eyelid had been twitching since this morning gave her a bad feeling.