A small Christmas present up on Noble Cobra Magazine: a quick story that came to me last night and which I whipped up on the spot.

Pushing, shoving, shouting. So many people! Last minute shoppers, making their rush on Christmas Eve. The clutched their shirts, video games, expensive toys, and groceries as if they were precious heirlooms being rescued from an occupied city, eying one another with sharp, suspicious glares as they struggled on to the check out counters or wrestled with the self-scanners.

“Merry Christmas!” John offered to the stout, middle-aged woman as he finished ringing up her large pile of disposable junk.

She fixed him with a righteously unamused eye.

“Who says I celebrate Christmas? Don’t assume!”

Then what the hell are you doing here tonight? John thought behind his glazed smile.

He shrugged and handed her the receipt. She took it, but didn’t move.

“I don’t hear an apology.”

“Sorry, ma’am, but we have a lot of people waiting,” he said.

She snorted, grabbed her bags and waddled off.

He briefly wondered whether she’d seek the manager, but doubted it. No sane person would want to stay here one second longer than they had to, even for the sake of having their self-righteous sanctimony vindicated. Even if she did, it wasn’t like Ray had the time tonight to do anything about it. And what were they going to do? Fire him on Christmas Eve, when they were short handed as it was? He probably could spit in a customer’s pie and not get fired until at least after New Years.

Jack’d been told a dozen times to say “happy holidays,” but he’d ‘forgotten’ each time. Most of the customers didn’t hear him. Some said ‘thank you,’ a very few praised him for saying it, and a tiny minority reacted like she had done. It was his one small act of rebellion against the materialistic goliath that he served.

John snuck a glance at the clock as he waved the next person forward. Fifteen more minutes of this nightmare; then his shift was over. He felt like he wanted to die. Or go crazy. Or both.

His manager, Ray, was helping people at the self-scanners. He wouldn’t like John taking off, shift or no shift. He’d argued with him to stay until closing at one am, but John had insisted that he couldn’t. Religious obligations, he’d said.

The clock ticked closer to eleven. Still so many people! Two minutes…can get through maybe three more, if they don’t make a fuss…one minute…sign up: ‘no more customers’…time!

But customers were ignoring his sign. He still had a half-dozen people in line, and more joining in.

Read the rest here.

Merry Christmas!