WINDOW VIEWS - Another Quiet Day

From the shop counter there was a clear view through the shop window out onto the street and down the hill in the direction of the central bus hub. You could tell when the buses arrived from the town suburbs and surrounding villages, because people would spill out, heading towards the main street like a particularly virulent plague. But 'towards the main street' meant that they would be heading away from the shop Restorative Moments. Aiming for the new retail park, with its tiny multi-plex cinema and studio theatre. This was part of the recently re-named Arts Quarter. 'I mean, what half arsed tiny market town has an Arts Quarter!' Gregory would mutter under his breath. Well, this one did, but why they didn't imagine including his shop was a frequent burning question. He blamed the town planners and the Councillors for a lack of vision. But it was the sheep like nature of human beings as shoppers, that angered him most. Allowing themselves to be herded and funneled towards an intended market without a second thought. Lemmings!

Gregory had been at work barely an hour, and was already working himself up into being cheesed off. No one had actually come into the store yet. He felt extremely uncomfortable with even the thought that this was going to be yet another quiet day. There had been a brief gaggle of people wandering passed the window. Just as quickly, and just as noisily, they moved on in cackles and fits of giggles at some in joke or other. If they stopped to view any of his stock on the outside tables it was with self-evident disinterest. Items were picked up, then discarded as if they were an exceptionally smelly sock. Another chap examined a piece of stock in such close forensic detail, as if to ascertain exactly how it had come into existence. Took photos of it on his phone. Now satisfied that he had found out enough to either make it for himself, or buy something identical or better online, he put the further shop soiled item back down. It was as if the whole purpose of Gregory's shop was as a three dimensional interactive catalogue display. Making it easier for folk to purchase with confidence online, having seen the thing you wanted and handled them in real life. 'Did no one buy on impulse any more?'

On quiet days Gregory didn't find it hard not to conjure semi- reasonable justifications for cultivating a resentful attitude. Resentfulness he understood perfectly well, but how easily that soured into disinterest he tended to miss. That disinterest made manifest in his demeanour, further deterred custom. It could, and was, becoming a vicious self perpetuating cycle. He was already referred to as Gregory the Grump, even by his own regular and devoted customers. There had come a point when his disinterest became endemic, he'd ceased acknowledging that it might be there. And once it became ensconced like a truly bad tempered and overweight pig, all was lost. A shop like his, could then enter its own death spiral so slowly and gently, that by the time an owner woke up to the now precipitous speedy nature of its decline, it was generally too late to avert catastrophe. 

Gregory's disinterest now lay like the dust on its shelves and stock had done - for quite some time. Potential customers could smell the neglect, the decay, the lack of interest, a mile off. In fact down the end of the road as you came out of the central bus hub. Understandably, rather than walk towards a rather unpleasant fetid atmosphere, most folk chose to walk away from it. Toawards the flashy vulgarity and artificial bon homie of the new retail park. Where people inhaled a pumped in perfume creating within them feelings of being loved and valued. With a complimentary squirt of cream and dusting of cinnamon on your cappuccino and piped muzak to boot, What was there not to like?