𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙎𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙇𝙖𝙙𝙮

Crisp air stung my face like needles, and snow fell endlessly on my nose. I shivered as my friends and I walked across the bustling street from our hotel to get to the brightly-lit row of convenience stores, shown by a myriad of neon-illuminated signs across the street. We quickly scanned the street and chose a small corner store to enter. A rough-looking man with a bristly beard stood beside the door, smoking a lit cigar.

The sweetshop bell hanging upon the door jingled as I pushed it open; my friends raided the snack aisle swiping the shelves and were practically drooling as they filled their shopping baskets with glee.

I made my way over to the counter area at the front of the store chuckling lightly.

Compared to the rest of the dimly-lit store, the counter isle with its arrangement of messy knick-knacks had a small amount of warm yellow light illuminating the surface by the light-bulbs swaying loosely from the ceiling. Standing behind the counter was a woman that, I assumed, owned the store.

The woman was wiping down some products with disinfectants. I felt a curious stare as I browsed through the selection of candies at the shelves opposite the counter.

"Young lady," she said.

The woman called me over, I gulped and suspected she was going to lecture me -

A loud crashing sound coming from the snack aisle, followed by laughter; we were being quite rowdy, after all.

I whirled around to face her.

Her face had a strange illusion of floating in the air among the relatively dim surroundings. Though not clear, I could tell that she was about forty, indicated by the wrinkles and smile lines on her face.

She asked where my friends and I came from, and what we were doing out so late. I explained we came for a short vacation, and that we had some late-night cravings to fulfil.

The woman emitted kind energy, and strangely, I felt as if I was talking to an old friend. I could feel the warm atmosphere in the small vicinity around her.

My friend put her hand on my shoulder and spoke to me. "Hey, we’re almost done, have you gotten your stuff yet?"

As I told her to wait, the woman interrupted me answering and spoke to her: "Hello there, sweetie!"

Now both of us were talking to her. Naturally, the others came over curiously.

All of us conversed under the warm light. The woman was energetic and brought life to the conversation.

Seemingly out of nowhere, she halted. Silence came over, the warm light flickered, and a painful expression appeared on her face for a split second. Then she reached under the counter and scooped up some candy for us, smiling.

We talked and joked around as my friends paid for their items, and I realized I had not picked anything up yet. I ran to the aisles telling my friends to wait up.

However, when I returned, I noticed my friends were outside. The woman waved me over. She scanned my items and put them in a crinkly plastic bag. She handed it to me and smiled.

A flurry hit my face once again as I pushed open the door. As my friends and I pulled some snacks out of our bags, the rough-looking man stood where he was before, coughing and wheezing; he was smoking yet another cigar, with what looked like a whole packs worth on the ground.

"You, girls, sure took a long time in there," he said.

We didn’t know how to respond.

"You, young ladies, just remind her of someone she knew," he said with a raspy, hoarse voice.

A frozen wisp blew once again. I pulled my coat up to my nose and breathed out. A sudden chill came over me.