All She Ever Said Was Hi

A very short story

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It was another day in the same universe. Another morning under the same sun, in the same lunar month. It was the same front door, at least from the inside and it was the same street with the same houses on the outside. Sophie was the same person only a day older, if she was counting from the time she left the house yesterday.

The local Co op was two streets away and that was where she was heading for the early shift. It was light and the streets were quiet apart from the odd car passing and the bus going into town, 3 minutes late according to her watch. The guy in the round spectacles said hi as he passed, as he usually did. They only knew each other by sight and he’d only begun greeting her 2 months ago though any bystander would assume they were good friends. Of course she said hi back, with a smile, because that’s what she would expect of herself.

As she got near to the shop it became apparent that it was locked up with no one inside. She expected the customer doors to be locked but the lights should have been on with the assistant manager inside. She immediately began thinking of reasons why there was no one there. Had the assistant manager overslepped? She waited outside the shop for a few minutes expecting other staff to turn up but nobody came. With the logical reasons exhausted she began questioning her own…