Perennial

It’s the in-between hours of the business that Bottleshock hates the most. No one comes in, which means he doesn’t make any money. After their usual small lunch crowd, no one sets foot in the bar until later on in the evening. He’s already made everyone clock out and go on break until later service hours, but he remains behind the bar as per usual. He lazily pushes a rag across the counter, pretending to clean but not fooling anyone if they were watching. Honestly, he’s not even watching what he’s doing; rather, he’s looking out the front window. 

There’s not much to see outside, unfortunately. Potholes in the streets of the near ghost town he’s set the bar up in. Not many Impim wandering around at this time of day. Only one he can see from his vantage point, and from the looks of it, it’s a rather young Imp. Perhaps twelve years old, if that. She’s sitting on the side of the street near the corner, feet tucked under her, holding a dog-eared cardboard sign. Bottleshock can’t read the sign from his position, but he doesn’t have to. They all say the same things. It only makes him think of the times when he himself held up such a sign.. only he’d been doing it to swindle everyone. He hadn’t really needed it. Maybe that kid does.

Scrunching his face, Bottleshock lifts himself up to sit on one of the barstools, crossing one levitating glass leg over the other. Thinking. It’s not any of his concern what kids are out there doing or being. He has nothing to do with any of it. If that kid is hungry or whatever, then maybe he should go do something about it.

Yet for all he tries, Bottleshock can’t seem to derive any satisfaction from his thoughts. Usually he’d feel better about putting himself above the less-fortunate, but not this time. He idly pushes a glass digit through his cold cheese fries, picking one up only to drop it back in the pile, noting the little flower patterns on the plate that Dot had made with the spicy ketchup. It’s springtime, isn’t it? In this area, sometimes it’s hard to tell. No one ever seems to notice the seasons until it starts snowing. Bottleshock vaguely recalls when he was a kid himself, how there used to be a little springtime event in the town he grew up in. It was a very low-income area, festered with crime sprees and nothing good. But in the first week of springtime, if the weather permitted, some of the Impim would get together in the center of the town. Usually all of the kids, and some of their parents, if they had any. Bottleshock didn’t. They would all make crowns from whatever leafy weeds were already sprouting from the ground, and they would paint rocks. Rocks, only because they didn’t have eggs, like the nicer neighboring towns did. They all painted eggs and would hide them for their kids, but Bottleshock’s town was always discouraged from going there. Class differences, he figured out as he grew older. No one there wanted the poor kids around.

He looks back out the window at the kid on the street corner. No one seemed to want them around either.

A low, irritated sigh emanates from his chest, enough to catch Sherbet’s attention. She’s wiping down the last of her tables, but the sound has her looking in Bottleshock’s direction.

“Did we do bad business today?” Sherbet adds a few sugar packets to the caddy on the table, calling over at him as she does.

Bottleshock shrugs half-heartedly. “I haven’t counted down yet.”

Sherbet’s third eye widens in surprise, and she slowly makes her way towards him through the maze of tables and chairs. “It ain’t like you to not count down your money first thing after the day crowd.” She takes a seat near him, pulling out her order notebook and begins ripping out the used pages. “Something on your mind?”

“I dunno,” he mumbles, “Just thinking about stuff.”

“What kinda stuff?”

Pursing his lips in irritation, Bottleshock licks his sabers with the tip of his tongue, giving himself a pouty look. “Was just thinking about like.. stuff that I used to do in springtime when I was a kid. I didn’t have nothin’ to my name back then but I still managed to have a fun time despite that. We’d make crowns out of yard weeds and paint rocks with whatever materials we had that we could call paint. Hide ‘em around for each other like the egg hunts that the rich folks would have. I had to be careful at the time, ‘cause my limbs would crack and scratch real bad if I got hurt or something. Rocks would mess up my hands.” He holds them up at eye level, looking at his shiny, flawless palms. “I guess I just kinda forgot it was springtime. This deadbeat town never does anything for solstices or whatever. We’ve got our bar crowds, but they’re here to drink, or get something to eat, or listen to Ezra, or gawk at Oni for the three seconds he’ll show his face out here.” Bottleshock tugs the middle of his hood downwards, pulling it over his face. “Just kinda sucks that we’re ignoring a nice time of year.”

Sherbet tucks her pen inside the notebook, snapping it shut and tucking it in her apron pocket. “Sounds to me like you’re nostalgic.”

“Whatever.”

“Come on. You’re over here yappin’ about some wistful memories of stuff you did as a kid and made it sound all emotional. You can’t fool me. I’m not stupid.”

Bottleshock glares at her from underneath his hood, sticking his tongue out at her for good measure. 

She ignores it.

“Look,” Sherbet says firmly, turning in her chair to look at Bottleshock, “Clearly this is something important if you’re thinking about it this much. So just stop thinking about it. Do something about it. Or don’t. It’s up to you.” She then hops off the chair, grabbing her cleaning rag and heading back to the kitchen. “If I were you, I’d think about what kid-you would want you to do.”

Bottleshock is left to his own devices, lightly scratching his left cheek with glassy claws as he ponders her words. She’s annoying, but he hired her as his lead server because she has her head on straight. Lord knows he doesn’t. He only ever prioritizes himself, and money. Considering he still hasn’t counted down the drawer from lunch, it’s safe to say he’s prioritizing something else at the moment.

He stands up suddenly, walking over to the register and opening the drawer. He quickly grabs a fistful of money, which he carries with him as he heads into the kitchen. “Hey, Dot. I need you to run an errand for me.”

His head cook is still at their station, cutting up fruit for tonight’s bar shift. Dot puts the knife down, turning over to see what he wants. “Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

Extending his levitating hand, Bottleshock offers the money to Dot. “Go to the corner store and buy a few dozen eggs. I’m taking all of the hardboiled ones from the cooler.”

“But, but those were for my egg salad!!” Dot protests.

“I know, I know,” Bottleshock waves them off, making the gesture of handing them the money again, “Buy more, and we’ll boil those. We can do egg salad tomorrow.

Dot wipes their hands on their apron before taking it off, and dutifully accepts the cash. “Alright then. Anything else you need from there?”

“Yeah. See if there’s any paint, and little paint brushes. And uh.. grab whatever day-old flowers are still there. They’re cheaper.”

After Dot takes the money and runs off, Bottleshock slowly turns to face Sherbet, who is standing near the dish pit with a smirk on her face. “You’re a big ol’ softie. I knew it was down in that cold heart of yours somewhere.” She smiles wide, seemingly pleased with herself.

“Whatever,” Bottleshock says again, “I don’t care at all.”

“Yeah, you don’t care, which is why you’re using your own money to celebrate something that no one around here but you cares about. You care. Admit it!!”

“Ugh.” 

Bottleshock heads back out into the bar, idling by the counter for a minute before he takes a deep breath and heads outside. The kid is still on the street corner. He walks over to her, standing awkwardly near where she’s sitting.

The young Impim turns to look up at Bottleshock, her dirty face looking tired and hungry under her limp hood. She doesn’t say anything, but she does hold up a dirty paper cup that she’d probably fished out of a trash can somewhere. Looking down into it, Bottleshock can only see a few grimy coins, and figures that she probably found those in the gutter somewhere.

“Look uh, this is awkward, but..” Bottleshock scratches the back of his head with one hand, opting to look up at the clouds rather than down at the kid. “Do you like, have friends? Like other kids? Are there any around here?”

She looks confused for a moment, but nods as she lowers the cup back into her lap. “Some,” she says quietly, “All around the town.”

Bottleshock chews on his tongue for a moment, knowing that this is the last opportunity he has to turn back. But he doesn’t. “Alright, uh.. go, like.. get them. Bring ‘em all here. I uh.. have something fun planned. For you kids, I mean.”

The kid stares at him confusedly, and perhaps with a little bit of distrust, and Bottleshock has never felt more awkward and stupid in his life than he does right now.

“Uh.. there’s gonna be food, and—”

That’s all he has to say before the kid leaps up and takes off running down the street like a cartoon character. Bottleshock watches her go, blinking a few times as she almost leaves a dust cloud behind her.

But it’s fine. He has stuff to set up anyway.

Back inside the bar, he starts pushing tables together, trying to make a bit of a conglomerative space as best he can in the cramped dining area. He grabs a large roll of shelving paper from the storage room, which was in there when he bought the place, and begins tearing off large sheets and taping them to the tabletops. Sherbet comes out to help, and Dot also lends a hand after they return. Oni remains in the kitchen, and Bottleshock prefers he stays there for the time being. No need to scare the kids. 

It’s not long before the bar is filled with about 15 or so street kids. They’re all dirty, they smell, and they all seem to have been lured here by the promise of food. Knowing that the kids would sooner eat the hardboiled eggs rather than painting them, Bottleshock tells Dot to drop french fries and chicken tenders in the frier. Deciding to let the kids eat first. He briefly tells the kids about what he’s trying to do for the sake of his own old tradition, but doesn’t elaborate too much, knowing that they’re more interested in the food than they are anything else.

The kids are quick to eat up the food that Dot brings out, wolfing it down so fast that Bottleshock idly wonders if they’ll make themselves sick. No ones does, but it could have happened.

Floppy flower crowns are made, including one for Bottleshock, which sits on his head at a lopsided angle. The kids seem to enjoy painting several dozen eggs, probably never having done anything like that before. 

He doesn’t have time to hide the eggs for a hunt, unfortunately, since the evening approaches quickly and he knows that he needs to prepare for the night time bar services.

All of the kids are escorted out of the bar, each with several paper cups full of painted eggs and stray french fries. All of them wearing flower crowns. All of them smiling as they leave. Despite the nagging voice in the back of his head berating him for senselessly wasting money on all of this, Bottleshock feels content with how the day panned out. He ignores smug comments from Sherbet, telling her to clean up the dining room and get it all set back up for evening service. He sits behind the bar again, wiping down the counter with the same cloth, but not feeling as moody as he had that afternoon.

Maybe springtime can be a good time of the year again.