So a decent day. Jackie flipped the sign on the door to CLOSED, her hand touching the window, leaving its ghost upon the glass, a hand raised to say “Stop” or “Come here” or “Hello” or “Help” or maybe only “I am here. This hand, at least, is real.”

She looked down to adjust the items on the counter, and when she looked up, the man was there.

He was wearing a tan jacket, and holding a deerskin suitcase. He had normal human features. He had arms and legs. He might have had hair, or maybe was wearing a hat. Everything was normal.

“Hello,” he said. “My name is Everett.”

Jackie screamed. The man was perfectly normal. She screamed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Are you closed?”

“No, that’s okay, no. Can I help you?”

“Yes, I hope so,” he said. There was buzzing coming from somewhere. His mouth?

“I have an item I would very much like to pawn.”

“I . . .” she said, and waved her hand to indicate everything she might have said next. He nodded at her hand.

“Thank you for your help. Have I introduced myself?”

“No.”

“Ah, I apologize. My name is Emmett.”

They shook hands. Her hand continued to shake after he let go.

“Yes, well,” he said. “Here is the item.”

He set a small slip of paper on the counter. On it, written in dull, smeared pencil, were the words “KING CITY.” The handwriting was shaky and the pencil had been pressed down hard. She couldn’t stop staring at it, although she didn’t know what about it was interesting.

“Interesting,” she said.

“No, not very,” said the man in the tan jacket.

The man washed his hands and quietly chanted, and Jackie forced herself to lean back and put her feet on the counter. There is a way these things are done. She looked a few times at the man’s face, but she found she forgot it the moment she stopped looking.

“Eleven dollars,” she said. The man hummed, and other small voices joined him, apparently from within the deerskin suitcase.

“Where did this come from?” she asked. “Why are you offering it to me? What would I do with it?”

Her voice was high and cracked. It did not sound like her at all.

The man was now harmonizing with the voices from his suitcase. He did not seem to register her questions.

“No, no, I’m sorry,” she said, fully aware of, but unable to stop, her poor negotiating technique. “My mistake. Thirty dollars and an idea about time.”

“Done,” he said, smiling. Was that a smile?

She gave him the thirty dollars and told him her idea about time.

“That is very interesting,” he said. “I’ve never thought of it that way. Generally, I don’t think at all.”