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am…” he sighed,
pushing himself up off of his desk and taking a step around it, the floorboards
moaning loudly.
    “I have to leave, it
wouldn’t be right for me to stay here. It’s not safe for an old man like me anyway
…” he mused, narrowing his eyes. As Danni and I tried to figure out what he
could mean by that, he continued.
    “I need to go somewhere
quiet, somewhere safe…” he muttered, now lightly tapping at the glass at the
front of his shop.
    “This isn’t a ghetto,
Shakes. You act like you’re gonna get stabbed for
walking outside.” Danni finally spoke up with a tone of annoyance. How could
someone who has lived here so long have such a sudden change of heart? He
turned quickly and stared her down, forcing her to retreat with a small step
backwards and a drooping of her shoulders.
    “It’s gonna GET nasty! You don’t get it, you haven’t seen what I have! You don’t PAY
ATTENTION like I have!” he pointed a bony finger at us, his temper flaring and
his wrath shown.
    “Just calm down, calm down.
Why are you so scared? You’re being paranoid.” I spoke softly, trying to stay
on Shakes’ good side. He let out a hack, a wheeze, and finally sat down in a
wooden chair across from us.
    “They’re all gone.
Everybody’s gone. In…you have to have seen it by now. In Europe…!” he started
taking shorter breaths, looking at everything in the room besides us. For the
longest second of my life, he stared at the floor, and then he immediately shot
up from his chair, and darted to us from across the room. He laid his spidery
fingers upon my shoulders, staring into my eyes with his own, glazed and
trembling.
    “Boy, all the Europeans are
gone! Everybody I talked to and loved! They’re all gone! Nobody else wants to
talk about it! Everybody’s scared, everybody’s GONE!” his ancient voice filled
the room at once. He now clutched his head in his hands, once again finding
solace by speaking to everything else in the room.
    “Nobody wants to talk about
it! WHY does nobody want to talk about it?! They talk and talk and talk but
don’t COMMUNICATE!” he was shouting at the floor. Danni and I took a few steps
back, sweat forming on both our brows.
    “How do they not see what’s
happening? How can they not see?!” his eyes darted to us once more, now furious
and vengeful.
    “ GET OUT OF MY SHOP! ”
    That was all we needed.
Danni and I flew past Shakes to get to the door. We didn’t look back, nor did
we even close the door behind us. Once we were far out of sight, we slumped up
against a brick wall, panting and tired from our little escape.
    “What…the hell…was that? ”
I had to ask, my breathing now becoming more regular.
    “Well don’t ask me!” she
retorted.
    “He was always so friendly…”
I looked around, seemingly asking the skies above for answers.
    “Maybe he finally lost it. He’s
so old, it wouldn’t surprise me.” Danni suggested, although her tone seemed to
be a bit more of an attempt at comfort than her true belief.
    “Maybe his family wanted to
sell the place and he just couldn’t handle that.” I chipped in.
    “Then why did he talk about
the Europeans never answering him anymore?” she responded, her lack of
assurance starting to show through again. I stopped for a moment, trying to
find some excuse in the recesses of my mind, but I didn’t need to look that far
back.
    “On TV! Remember? Everybody
was fighting over a new pandemic in Europe?” I was able to recall.
    “Oh yeah! Everybody must
just be shut up in their house, nobody wants to go anywhere. Nobody must want
to leave. Too dangerous to send boats and ships over unless it’s really
necessary. There we go, that’s that. Shakes must not have been able to keep up
with rental fees and stuff without any imports for all the die-hards. It’d just
take too long for the disease over there to be cured for him to stay in business
all by himself like that. He just couldn’t imagine losing the shop his