I woke up to Rolling Thunder, got out of bed and drove to the store in torrential rain. It was Christmas Eve and I had work, which meant that I would spend most of the day selling stuff. This was neither a good or a bad thing. It was just a thing. Christmas music would play all day through treble heavy speakers, which sufficiently gave the store the ultra-capitalistic vibe that it (and pretty much any other store that relies on selling stuff) really seems to dig.

As I walked into the store I was greeted by a man with hollow, beady eyes. They shifted around his sockets. His pupils were invisible yet significant, made him look apathetic to the human condition. I knew this man, worked with him. An impatient alcoholic, puts a magnifying glass on your failures and forgets his own, can’t comprehend imperfection being attributed to his name.

The day moved slowly because beady eye man was in a sullen mood. Instead of the usual mix of cheer and anger mixed with a heavy dose of superficiality- today was all melancholy. I tried to make small talk, ask him about Christmas plans, but he refused to play his role in the conversation- everything was a dead end response. The previous week he had told me he planned to spend Christmas with his Father, but today he said those plans had fallen through. I asked him specifically, he said one word. No.

I sincerely hoped he was lying.

Aside from my feeble attempts at conversation the day was nice, plenty of happy customers and excited kids. The water eventually cleared up and the heat came which made everything more accessible for everyone. Murky grey turned dead blue. The sun burnt through the clouds until there was no more cloud left, hot and thick air, nearby gum trees shivered and simmered, did a waltz in the wind.

I continued attempting conversation as time entered early afternoon. I offered him chocolate several times throughout the day, as if it would fill some kind of void, build a bridge in our relationship. I was wrong, presumably out of pride he refused.

The day eventually ended, it was time for me to leave. Christmas was approaching.

As I turned off lights around the store I looked across at the counter. He was packing up the registers, the glow and hum of the vending machine filled the room. This time I saw someone different- maybe it was the light. I didn’t see a man standing there counting money, instead I saw a small man confronting loneliness, not an ordinary loneliness, not a fear of missing out,  it was something much deeper, much sadder. I couldn’t put my finger on it but I could understand- he was facing something I fear the most. It was as if in some point in time he chose to consciously forget someone, something, some moment in his own history that was once important. Something he should have remembered. Maybe not. Maybe he never had these things to begin with. Didn’t have the memories to clutch to. Didn’t win the raffle to run the race. Got unlucky.

I went to shake this mans hands, I half smiled and genuinely wished him a merry Christmas, he wouldn’t make eye contact, didn’t look at me, he half grumbled ‘you too’ out of obligation. If Chocolate didn’t work I was pretty sure a handshake wouldn’t cut the mustard. For the first time ever I thought about him in a way that would have hurt him the most -I pitied him, not in condescension, I genuinely felt bad.

I walked out into the Sun and looked out at the SUV’s speeding down main road. The heat beat against my face, the wind was hot. I squinted unconsciously at the traffic until my eyes watered. A thought had hit me, I just didn’t know what it was, it was ethereal, intangible, ever so close. I continued walking towards my car, looked up at a swaying gum tree and then down at a fluorescent portable bin, it was overflowing with broken cardboard and giant plastic wrap. Under the Sun I walked; through the Candy Cane fields and under the mistletoe, next to an Elf with Rudolph by my side, through a mist of sugar and in a Pine Forrest littered with Coca Cola signs. Before too long I had reached my car. The thought blew back to me, I got lucky, opened my car door and stood silent in a moment of a grace. I understood that everyone, in their own quiet way, is trying.

I took comfort in this.