The Pharmacist

The sign said "vibrators," right at the top of the list, in big red letters. The other items included Netty pot's, heating pads, nicotine patches and other hodgepodge, but "vibrators" caught Melanie's eye and made her smile. She needed toothpaste, not the dark green gelatinous mass they offered at the shelter that tasted like old lady candy, but a nice thick abrasive paste. She wanted to scour the enamel like a porcelain sink. She longed for erosion.
Making sure she appeared to have purpose, eyes scanning her surroundings while keeping her chin determinedly up and forward, she had almost entered the drugstore/check-cashing establishment on 42nd, but an argument wasn't suing inside between the stouts Pakistani man behind the counter and an older grizzled black man she recognized from a shelter she frequented. She had gotten along well with this man, and had never seen the symptoms of his personality disorder. She didn't ever want to, so she had continued walking, knowing somewhere on some corner nearby there must be a Walgreens, surely there must be. But as she walked, she drifted further and further away from the familiar, away from the pawn shops and cricket stores and gas stations and Liberty Tax services she knew from hanging around this rescue mission or that shelter. The air grew quiet and missed Halo the streetlights. She felt as if she had wandered into someone else's dream. It had to be someone else's, because she had stopped dreaming long ago.