There’s a tall, imposing man; a living, breathing brick wall with a moustache.
He barks the word “hello” at me with such a lack of humility that it always feels more like a threat than a greeting.
There’s an older man with unkempt pale yellow hair like a small pile of wilted straw.
He told me that he once bought a gun with the intention of shooting his wife’s lover, but he didn’t go through with it.
I’m not sure how it came up.
There’s a man who tells me about the time all the cats in his neighbourhood started going missing. He says the local butcher was killing them and selling the meat as rabbit.
“He was a foreigner though, that’s what they do” he says.
“Not all of them” he adds.
But most of them, he implies.
I snatch a glance at the clock. It’s only quarter to ten.
There’s a lady who would come in several times a day and ask for “twenty Marlboro Reds”.
After a week she shortened the request to “twenty Reds”.
And then just “Reds”.
In time the routine of this transaction caused us to bypass speech altogether and at the sight of her in the doorway I’d reach for twenty Marlboro reds in Pavlovian response. Until one day she stopped coming in.
There’s a homeless man who once held a boxset of “The Mummy” films up to his face with an intense glare and whispered violent threats to it for over ten minutes.
Then he spat the contents of his lungs onto Brendan Fraser’s face and I had to ask him to leave
There’s an intimidating man who asks if he can have a jacket on sale at £20 for £15. I tell him he cannot.
He flies into a rage and complains that he only has £20 on him and if he spends it all he won’t have enough money for his lunch like this is the first adult decision he’s ever had to make.
I consider saying something snippy but he looks like he could crush my skull into dust with one hand.
He eventually pays the full price and I go for my lunch break.
There’s a child who assails me with Doctor Who trivia.
I feign interest and surreptitiously drive a sharpened pencil into the flesh of my palm under the counter while his mother deconstructs our window displays.
There’s a suspicious man with tiny, glassy eyes like black olives.
He asks me if I can change a tenner for his bus fare.
The note is a poor forgery printed on lined manilla paper.
The Queen looks cross-eyed and distracted.
I don’t oblige his request.
There’s a towering, silent man with near-translucent skin and gnarled fingers like the branches of an ancient, haunted tree.
As I give him his change I brush against his frigid hand and I become very aware of my mortality.
There’s a woman in a puffy jacket who comes in almost every morning. She’s a shoplifter. I’ve never caught her in the act but I’m ninety seven percent sure.
My eyes follow her as she zigzags around the shop picking up items at random and staring straight through them, doing a poor impression of a customer, before checking her hair in the mirror and leaving.
Sometimes she says “Morning, love” but most times she doesn’t.
On rare occasions she actually buys something but never spends more than fifty pence.
Keeping up appearances, I guess.
There’s an elderly lady who breezes around the aisles without ever perusing our wares, a blur of wool and mint humbug wrappers.
She opens the door to make her exit. I thank her for coming in and she tells me what nice manners I have.
He barks the word “hello” at me with such a lack of humility that it always feels more like a threat than a greeting.
There’s an older man with unkempt pale yellow hair like a small pile of wilted straw.
He told me that he once bought a gun with the intention of shooting his wife’s lover, but he didn’t go through with it.
I’m not sure how it came up.
There’s a man who tells me about the time all the cats in his neighbourhood started going missing. He says the local butcher was killing them and selling the meat as rabbit.
“He was a foreigner though, that’s what they do” he says.
“Not all of them” he adds.
But most of them, he implies.
I snatch a glance at the clock. It’s only quarter to ten.
There’s a lady who would come in several times a day and ask for “twenty Marlboro Reds”.
After a week she shortened the request to “twenty Reds”.
And then just “Reds”.
In time the routine of this transaction caused us to bypass speech altogether and at the sight of her in the doorway I’d reach for twenty Marlboro reds in Pavlovian response. Until one day she stopped coming in.
There’s a homeless man who once held a boxset of “The Mummy” films up to his face with an intense glare and whispered violent threats to it for over ten minutes.
Then he spat the contents of his lungs onto Brendan Fraser’s face and I had to ask him to leave
There’s an intimidating man who asks if he can have a jacket on sale at £20 for £15. I tell him he cannot.
He flies into a rage and complains that he only has £20 on him and if he spends it all he won’t have enough money for his lunch like this is the first adult decision he’s ever had to make.
I consider saying something snippy but he looks like he could crush my skull into dust with one hand.
He eventually pays the full price and I go for my lunch break.
There’s a child who assails me with Doctor Who trivia.
I feign interest and surreptitiously drive a sharpened pencil into the flesh of my palm under the counter while his mother deconstructs our window displays.
There’s a suspicious man with tiny, glassy eyes like black olives.
He asks me if I can change a tenner for his bus fare.
The note is a poor forgery printed on lined manilla paper.
The Queen looks cross-eyed and distracted.
I don’t oblige his request.
There’s a towering, silent man with near-translucent skin and gnarled fingers like the branches of an ancient, haunted tree.
As I hand him his change I brush against his frigid hand and I become very aware of my mortality.
There’s a woman in a puffy jacket who comes in almost every morning. She’s a shoplifter. I’ve never caught her in the act but I’m ninety seven percent sure.
My eyes follow her as she zigzags around the shop picking up items at random and staring straight through them, doing a poor impression of a customer, before checking her hair in the mirror and leaving.
Sometimes she says “Morning, love” but most times she doesn’t.
On rare occasions she actually buys something but never spends more than fifty pence.
Keeping up appearances, I guess.
There’s an elderly lady who breezes around the aisles without ever perusing our wares, a blur of wool and mint humbug wrappers.
She opens the door to make her exit. I thank her for coming in and she tells me what nice manners I have.
Thom Hammersley lives in a house in Manchester with lots of animals. Sometimes he sings his stories in his band Rocketship Forest but if they don’t rhyme he just writes them in a little book. He read The Regulars at The Real Story’s joint Christmas event with the First Draft cabaret group in The Castle Hotel, Manchester on December 21st 2015.