#eyeshock

I felt insulted.  Day to day, I wiped down counters, swept, dusted, even mopped when I stayed late enough. Let me tell you- in a sit down place like ours, on a busy street like this, we always had hundreds of people come in. Retro guys with long hair, vapor wave girls with clear long boards, even a priest in unnaturally dirty sneakers. Of course things were constantly messy and everything was always being used. Though, I for one never knew a holy man could leave behind so many used napkins behind in just one sitting. Things insulted me, of course, but this was my job. To clean and make sure everything was in its place and usable. It cleared my guilty conscience. Then, after a month of small talk with my coworkers I never cared to look at much and a month of looking at the walls I didn’t care are enough to talk to, insulted didn’t fit the shape I had become. 

Mocked. Played with. Suddenly, I was on a stage with the restaurant taunting me from the crowd. 

Surprisingly, the blinding lights were the faces of the customers and the laughing was coming from the objects. 

The heater? It giggled whenever I tried washing off the melted crayons from its warm surface. The Bar that stretched the length of the room would give me judgmental signs when I brought the sanitized water bucket out to clean it off. Why would a bar be judgmental? The ceiling fans snickered every time I stared up at them with a duster in my hand. That I could understand. I’d be laughing at a hopeless man too if I was that high up.

Their taunts only got louder and unavoidable at night. The customers would filter out, the crowd getting thinner and thinner and my patients with it. Jacob would clock out, then the cooks, so it was me locking up 4 out of the 7 nights we were open. It was my job, but it had suddenly become unbearable. 

After two months I caved and informed my manager I wouldn't stay late anymore, telling him I had to babysit nights for my sister that I may or may not have. Who was he to turn my request down? He was so soft towards Amy, the 24 year old cashier. Yes, she wore colorful beads around her neck and never buttoned her uniform, so she was always treated softly. Myself included. I tried to get his sympathy anyways.

“What kind of 30 year old guys babysits kids?” was his response. 

The kind who hears objects talk, I thought. That prompted the table we sat at to laugh. Whether it was at my thoughts or my manager's underlying suggestion, I couldn’t tell.

“A compassionate, helpful guy?” I had answered with a tone just as trying as his initial question. 

Jacob frowned. He did that whenever I clocked in, so I was unfazed until the lamp that illuminated our booth giggled. I frowned back. I told him it would hopefully be for a short month, but really I knew it would be until the lifeless shapes stopped judging me. Until they cut the judgmental noises. 

Once I stopped closing, my wallet became a little lighter, but Amy started talking to me more. She really was a nice girl, I could see why Jacob was easy going with her. It really just made me think he shouldn’t be pointing a finger at me when he asked why I would willingly babysit kids. Jacob was older than me and Amy would’ve been my kid if I had sex in my teen years. 

Scratch that. I’d need to be 12. He was the creep between the two of us.

“You’re just so good and quick at your job,” Amy fussed after the third night I had been ‘babysitting’, “I never knew I could miss a man who wore the same murky green jumpsuit everyday,”

I blinked.

“This is my uniform? Your’s is just black because you represent the restaurant and need to be the first thing people see when they come in. You’re better at your job than I could ever be at mine, mine is just fueled by anxiety.” I rambled. After a few moments, I looked back to her to find her staring at me.

“Um, too much?”

Her smooth lips formed a smile while her sweet voice gave an effortless chuckle.

“No no! That was just, very open of you. I almost laughed!” and she did anyways. 

Amy continued to have her flawless smile on the rest of her shift and Jacob gave me extra jobs and things to clean. I didn’t mind, because for once, it was a person laughing for me instead of the soulless things laughing at me. 

Quickly, it was a daily goal of mine to make her laugh. My mind recorded it every time, playing it to drown out the laughs of the objects around us. I assumed she caught on thanks to how much more I started to chat with her, and amusingly, she played along. She’d more giggles and quiet laughs. I’d go into work expecting to see her colorful beads every time. The vibrant necklaces matched her laughter. Her whole person was composed and fitting, something I never found in anyone else. Never found in myself.

‘You know,’ the door spoke one night as me and Jacob closed wordlessly, ‘you cannot keep her forever. She has a life that isn’t you.’

“So?” I questioned just as quietly as it did. “I want her to have a life, to share her happiness with everyone like she did with me,”

‘That would’ve been fine, but she’s your life. Very unbalanced, don’t you think? You cannot bring the painting home from the museum, nor can it admire you back.’ 

The waxen windows started to snicker among themselves at the door's bold words. I pinched my eyebrows together.  

“You have obviously never been to a museum,” I looked away to resume my methodical sweeping, “that's the point. To come and appreciate beauty. Even when the display changes, or the building is torn down, or I die, the appreciation is there. It stays with me.”