The
Conversation part 2
“Hi, is this all
for you?” she asked as she looked down at the things that Daniel had put on the
counter.
“Yeah, that will
be all, thanks.” Daniel said this as he reached into his back pocket for his
wallet. Just as he was about to get the cash out of his wallet, the cashier
said something that Daniel had never heard in his life.
“Hey, how’s your
soul?”
Daniel froze with his hand in his wallet. He had never
heard such an icebreaker in his life. What was he supposed to say to that? Was
this woman crazy? “How’s your soul?”
What kind of question was that? It was like a freight train had just hit him in
the chest. He stood frozen and wrapped in the words that he had just heard.
After a moment of silence, the clerk spoke again.
“I’m sorry, I know
that is a personal question. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
Daniel was still stiff, but he managed somehow to
answer the store clerk. “Um, it’s okay. No, don’t feel intrusive; it’s just
that I’ve never been asked that question before.”
“Yeah,” she replied. “I know it is, but I get tired of
people just casually walking by each other mumbling a careless ‘Hey, how are
you?’ without really caring how they are.”
“Wow,” Daniel said. “I’ve never thought about it like
that before. I guess you’re right. People always walk by and say stuff like
that without really caring about their fellow man.”
“Yeah, I never like to ask people who come in to the
store that question,” she said. “I actually want to know how people are doing
and what’s going on in their lives. I don’t know, maybe I’m weird, but I just
like to be connected with people who come into my store.”
“Well, it makes sense to me,” Daniel said. At this
point in the conversation, he had started to relax, and, for the first time
since his wife’s and child’s death, he was smiling. No one ever stopped to ask
him how he was doing. It was always a short “I’m
sorry for your loss” and then a quick exit. And if people did ask how he
was doing, he could always tell that they only asked because they felt they had
to and that something else was on their mind. Daniel, for the first time, had
found peace in this store clerk he had only met a few minutes ago. She was
young, maybe in her late twenties, and she was pretty. She had dirty blond hair
and green eyes that pierced Daniel all the way to his heart. He wasn’t
attracted to her as much as he was just enthralled by her kind-heartedness. He thought the days of people actually being
kind to him were over. Daniel had since moved to England to get away from the
pain that he had been through in the States. As he stood there looking into
this woman’s eyes, he somehow knew that this wouldn’t be the last time he looked
into those eyes. He wasn’t thinking that he was going to fall in love with her
because it had only been two years since he had lost his family, but he just
thought that somehow in a weird, unexplainable way that this woman would be
able to help him get back on his feet. He knew this because of her one simple
question about his soul. Daniel thought to himself that she didn’t want to know
about his soul, but, because she was inclined to know about her customers, he
thought he ought to spill the beans.
“So, if you want, you can come back here and sit
behind the counter. Not to be insulting, it just looks like you have a lot on
your mind,” she said in her soft, sweet voice.
Daniel knew those green eyes had seen right through
him. “Yeah, okay, thanks. My name is Daniel Regan, by the way.”
“My name is Emma Raleigh,” she said. “So, Daniel.
What’s your story?”
And as he heard those words reverberate through his
ears he knew that they were both in for a long night. “Well, if you must know…
Here is my story.”
To be continued…
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