Let me burrow into CVS. Let me reach into endless piles of seasonal candy until my shoulder is pressed to the dulcet surface. I’ll reach a point where my hand reaches an open chamber. Sudden pain and I’ll retract in a panic. I’ll bite open plastic seals on bottles of Aloe vera and cool my burnt skin. The ExtraCare Rewards are enormous. Capricious, lethargic, wrathful. And yet the ExtraCare Rewards are bountiful.

Were I to own this CVS it would be for its contents. I would not sell a single item. I’ll chug all the drinks in the refrigerators for the first few weeks. Then I’ll drink from the sink. My wardrobe is endless: Clown makeup, vampire teeth, a scarred hand that drops chips of dead skin. I’ll weave baskets from $13 earbuds. Just earbuds now. They have no market value if I don’t sell them.

I am the clerk now. My customers are ghosts. Not dead, but phantasmic.

“Can I help you find anything, sir?” Glazed eyes and a grunt. They shamble with an object of no value in their hand. All that is valuable is the water which will never cease to flow and the Aloe vera.

“Do you have an ExtraCare Rewards card?” They slip through broken glass doors with an armload of allergy medication. I put their name in the system anyways. Green ink on a black computer screen.

“~15 Claritins. 30% off all allergy medication. Total is $$$$$”

“Just look at those savings,” I whisper. I wave at their afterimage with my good hand.