Comic Trip

         He moved quickly amongst the snow-covered pillars of concrete, dodging the few people that would get in his way. Upon arriving at the spot where his means of transportation stops, he bounced on his toes as he waited for the last few minutes on the ice-covered walkway. It arrived, and he snagged a seat close to the back. It wasn’t packed, but a man who looked so old that a single breath out of place would surely shatter all of his bones came and sat down beside him. The man greeted him, then started talking of Franz Kafka and Salvador Dalí, who our boy knew nothing about. He tried to focus on something else besides the chatty gentleman beside him, who was seemingly getting older by the second (he was definitely not getting any younger), but the elderly chap sitting there kept him in the conversation whether he was paying attention or not, mostly by asking questions about what was just said, and then repeating himself. Sometimes the gentleman would nudge him, going, “Eh? Eh?” and then laughing a nasally, painful laugh (our boy could feel the man’s pain, even though he doubt the man was actually in any pain to begin with), which then turned into a good, ol’ smoker’s cough, as if the ancient human next to him had been smoking since before birth. Since being distracted by this interesting, but potentially malodorous, eerie Grandpa-type, our boy missed his stop and was then disoriented after ringing the bell, bidding the thousand year old mortal adieu, and getting off of Transit. He looked around him: suits of different colours would pass him, tall buildings towered overtop of him, small children were quickly led around him, Vancouver eccentrics spoke harsh words at him… One portly man walked by eating cabbage and talking to a wine bottle. Another asked for hot dogs. Our boy was bewildered, and needed desperately to find a familiar façade. Before another oddball could ask him for purple spotted kittens, he dashed down the sidewalk, turned a few random roads and lo! he found his target. Beaming up at the signage and swollen with pride, he enthusiastically marched into his store of choice; Golden Age Collectables, a store which majored in comic books and the likes. He strode over to the back of the store, for today was a Thursday, and that meant new-fangled reading materials for the masses. Elated, he searched through the other narratives looking for his document of desire. But what was this? It wasn’t there? There must have been a mistake. There just must have! He raced up to the front counter. What was the meaning of this? Why was this happening to him? They couldn’t have sold out already; that was impossible! The blue-haired chap behind the elevated counter informed him of something; something awful. Considering the dreadful weather outside, the new-fangled reading materials for the masses had been delayed at least another two days. Appalling! Malicious! Horrid! How could Mother Nature do this to our poor boy? After all his troubles what with the nearly dead, but overly-talkative, gentleman on the bus, and the oddballs while he was lost on the streets, and the freezing winds, this was to be the end of his journey? He couldn’t believe his misfortune, and fell to his knees, causing the floorboards to scream at the sudden impact of teenage boy weight. Raising his hands up to the Heavens, he cried out negatives as people looked on, reading their new-fangled reading materials. He rose, defeated, and whispered farewell to the blue-haired chap behind the counter, and left the store.