The Pharmacy

When I was about six, I went to the downtown pharmacy with my grandfather. It could have been before or after a hair cut, but I do not remember. He was there to pick up medication for him and Grandma like he did every week, waiting in line until the old guy and younger woman in white jackets behind the counter filled the prescription. I wandered off and explored the little store behind the counter.

Short rows of non prescription items filled shelves up to the front of the store. One small register sat on a thin counter in the corner of where the wall met the front windows. A young guy sat motionless on a stool beside the glass. Down further a hole opened up in the wall and a 'bridge,' I called it, led to another part of the store, a place that reminded me of a gift shop. The bridge angled upward from the floor of the store and leveled out through the wall opening. The gift shop floor was lower than the rest of the store, and from my position on the bridge, I looked out over the little store with a good vantage point, I thought. Gift cards lined the back and side walls. Trinkets and colored glass wind chimes hung all around the area to my right, among the rotating magnet and sunglasses holder. The bridge continued for a short way across the store to the gift card wall.

Cars filtered their was through the three way intersection outside. It seemed more people came though the back door, the one Pop Pop and I came in through, than from the sidewalk out front. I though for a minute why the front of the store didn't face the parking lot in the back, where most of the customers came in. That's when I saw it.