There was a bookshop run by a woman who was almost never in it, on a street that had once been on maps before paper fell out of fashion.
Strictly speaking, this was not a problem, because the sign in the window, handwritten, uppercase, in blue sharpie, always reassured passers-by:
BACK IN 7 MINUTES
Occasionally the number changed. Sometimes it was 3. Once it was 11½, which caused a minor philosophical incident involving a man from the council and a sandwich. But the essential promise remained: she would be back. Shortly.
She was not.
The woman (whose name varied depending on which invoice she was ignoring), was, at any given moment, elsewhere. Whether this “elsewhere” existed in the physical sense or was merely a well-furnished annex of her own mind was difficult to determine and, for tax purposes, inadvisable to pursue.
What could be confirmed is that she had a number of jobs.
Not jobs in the traditional sense, where one goes somewhere and does a thing and receives money that corresponds vaguely to the thing. These were gig economy jobs, which meant they were:
- Temporary
- Poorly explained
- Slightly insulting to the concept of labour
For instance, on Tuesdays (or what she referred to as Tuesdays, though the calendar had long since stopped agreeing), she worked as a mixologist, crafting elaborate mocktails for people who wished to feel decadent without the administrative burden of actual intoxication. Except they added alcohol.
Her most popular creation was called The Absent Proprietor: crushed ice, lime, something floral, and a garnish of mild regret.
On Wednesdays she was paid to be a Bad Conversationalist, a role in which she would attend corporate events and respond to everything with phrases such as:
“Hmm,”
“That’s interesting,”
and
“I suppose it depends what you mean by ‘meaning.’”
Demand for this was inexplicably high.
On alternate Thursdays she was employed as a Person Who Plugs Things In, which involved arriving at offices where nothing worked, plugging in several obvious cables, and leaving before anyone could ask deeper questions about existence or IT support.
Fridays were reserved for Therapist to Out-of-Work Actors, where she would sit in a room with individuals who had once been teachers, policemen, or the concept of longing in fringe productions, and gently reassure them that their greatest role was yet to come, ideally in a context that provided snacks.
Other engagements included:
- Ashtray Emptier (Ceremonial)
- Barrel Roller (Non-Union)
- Polystyrene Picker Upper (Advanced Level)
The last required certification.
Meanwhile, back at the bookshop (which may or may not have been real, but certainly paid bills), the sign continued its quiet, persistent lie.
BACK IN 5 MINUTES
Inside, the books waited with the patient disappointment of objects that had been promised purpose. They had been arranged once, possibly alphabetically, though over time the system had evolved into something more expressive:
- Conspiracy under non-fiction
- Non-fiction under esoteric
- Esoteric under “Miscellaneous Feelings”
Customers came.
They knocked.
They peered.
They left notes.
The notes were slipped under the door, polite at first:
“Hello, I’m looking for a copy of something by… I can’t quite remember but it has a blue cover…”
“Do you stock non-linear local history?”
“Are you… open?”
These enquiries were always answered.
Not directly, of course. That would be absurd.
Several days later, each customer would receive a reply—sometimes by email, sometimes by post, once via a small, determined pigeon—containing a carefully formatted recipe for a mocktail.
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your enquiry.
Have you considered the following?
The Bitter Index
- 50ml something citrus and strong
- 10ml syrup (optional optimism)
- 50ml something random
- Shake until resolved
Best wishes.
No further explanation was provided.
Over time, a small community formed around the shop. Not all readers, but people who had received these recipes and felt, somehow, answered.
They began to gather outside.
They compared notes.
They debated whether the woman existed, or whether the shop itself was simply a manifestation of deferred intention or perhaps a place where things almost happened, perpetually.
One man insisted he had seen her once, rushing past with a crate of limes and a look of profound distraction.
Another claimed she had been inside all along, just slightly out of phase with the rest of reality.
This was considered plausible.
The sign, meanwhile, had settled into a comfortable rhythm:
BACK IN 2 MINUTES
It had said this for three weeks.
No one removed it. It had achieved a kind of authority.
Inside the shop, a single book lay open on the counter. Its pages fluttered occasionally, as if in response to a breeze that could not be sourced.
If one looked closely (though no one could, as the door remained locked) one might have noticed a small handwritten note in the margin:
“Must come back. Nearly sorted.”
The books slipped through time and space into another dimension, and the bookshop promptly became a pharmacy.
