John Jon

“A pack of Marlboro Reds and a clipper please” John Jon muttered into his chest after finally reaching the checkout. The cash assistant hesitated, and while John was rifling through the change in his wallet made no effort to hide the fact she was staring directly at John’s bald spot. Apart from the unpleasant circle of scalp now staring the woman square in the face, John was a man who to her looked no older than twenty five.
She raised herself onto tiptoes in an effort to measure the extent of the bald spot; it was at least two inches in circumference, situated dead centre of the skull.
John looked up, catching the woman raising herself over the counter so that she stood no more than half a foot from him. The cash lackey’s gaze flittered uneasily from John’s widening eyes to the now wrinkling bald spot. Both faces suspended above the counter, inches from one another, both desperately attempting to ignore the “One hundred Greatest Love Ballads” chart on the radio.
“I want to know what love is” the radio proclaimed, as if urging John on to a feat of almost incomprehensibly reckless and altogether random public affection.
“Holy shit is this going to happen?” John thought, in an instant remembering a lifetime entirely devoid of romance. He leaned in, lips puckering in the manner he had seen in countless romantic dramas and never practiced himself, his shaking hands moving blindly over the counter longing to feel her hands waiting for his. For the first time in his life he felt loved, he felt understood, he felt the inalienable affection shared by those so helplessly in love as they were at this very moment.
“I want to know what love is”
Years of loneliness were swept away in an instant, replaced by the prospect of a life shared in complete and mutual adoration. “Who says love cannot be found in the most unlikely of circumstances?” John thought as his mind raced, “The wedding! The children! Our first house! And even when we grow old, and our youthful attraction fades it will be replaced by a mutual respect, for a lifetime spent together forms a bond stronger than that of the superficial lusts of youth!”
Quivering fingers outstretched he felt the icy touch of metal in his palm; the ring that ornamented her slender fingers no doubt. It rested upon his hand, unlike his her hand was steady, it was confident; “self assurance is a most attractive quality in a woman” he thought as he took the final few inches over the counter, awaiting the inevitable contact.
A chime rang out, preceded by the sound of the receipt being printed. Opening his eyes he looked to his hands, and expecting to find her hand in his he had felt on his he found in its place a twenty pence piece. He looked to the woman who tore the receipt from the till and putting that in his palm along with the rest of the change she said, “I think that’s all.”
John’s heart sank, the change rattled in his hand as it shook uncontrollably. “Are you sure?” he asked, feeling the hope drain from the soles of his feet into the reflective tiled floor of the shop.
The woman stood for a moment mentally recalculating the transaction, “Yup, that’s your lot!” she said cheerily.
“Are you certain there was nothing else..? Nothing at all?”
She didn’t respond.
“So this is how it feels to be left at the altar.” John thought as he left the shop, he took a cigarette, a memento of that moment that they, or rather he, had shared. Lighting it he watched as that moment was slowly dissolved in the glowing ember that tipped the cigarette, it all seemed rather poetic, though he was not quite sure how.