Posthuman Blues

(The following vignette has been languishing on my hard drive for a long time; evidently I wrote it while working a retail job. Enjoy.)

The rasp of plastic-on-metal as salesmen detach from walls, limbs folding into gestures of stiff greeting. Their faces are lean, somehow vapid and predatory. And their limbs move with a certain resistance, as if the muscles beneath have hardened, the joints ossified with fatigue.

A girl enters and studies the merchandise.

Supplicating ceramic smiles. "Can I help you find anything . . . ?"

She moves dismissively, gliding down cluttered aisles with feral confidence. Her skin is tawny, her eyes black and lined with day-old makeup. Her shoulder boasts a small cryptic tattoo.

One of the salesmen follows, knees wheezing pneumatically, arms stiff at its sides as if bound. The head twitches within ferroplastic restraints, lips pulling back in a desperate smile. The arms extend in increments, displaying long bloodless fingers that fumble on a nearby counter like wounded birds.

She glances back, smiling in deprecation and unease. She turns to leave, sandaled feet smacking the tile beneath her threadbare denim dress.

The sound of her necklaces jangling fills the store. Other salesmen, eyes perpetually roaming, fasten onto her as she clutches at her purse, closer to the sliding doors.

The rasp of plastic on metal.

"Can I help you find . . ."