Later, Stanley finally came to The Purple Spoon supermarket at last. He breathed in and out as he opened the doors and walked inside, hopefully arriving not too late. As soon as Stanley entered, the boss greeted him instantly. He stood there with his hands on his hips and tapped his foot.

“Hey, you’re late!” He thundered.

“Ah! I—I’m sorry!” Stanley bowed and exclaimed.

“Sorry doesn’t cut it. So, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“Um, well...”

“Hey, wait.” A voice called out.

The boss turned to face Hilary, who walked over to be a part of the conversation.

“Hilary? You’re supposed to be at your shift by now.” The boss pointed out.

“Yeah, but I want to mention that Stanley had an excuse for being late,” Hilary said.

“Really? Well then, let’s hear it.” Hilary whispered in his ear about what happened beforehand. “Oh, I had no idea.” He turned to Stanley. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s ok,” Stanley replied.

“Alright, I’ll let you off the hook this time.” The boss said.

“Thank you, sir. Can I go back to work?”

“Well, since you’re here, there’s something else I want you to do.”

“R—Really?”

“There are some of our workers that ended up calling in sick and had to stay home.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Could you take over their roles for the time being?”

“What would the job be, then?” Stanley questioned.

“A clerk. But don’t worry, Hilary will give you some basics if you ever need any help.” The boss soon left to go back to his room.

Stanley turned to Hilary and lowered his body to bow in front of her. “Thank you for having me; I hope to be of use to you.”

“Don’t go thanking me just yet,” Hilary responded as she extended her hand to grab his sleeve and took him over to the shelves and aisles. “Come on, let’s get going.”

Once the two arrived in-between more open-ended aisles in the market, Stanley asked what his job would be for today. Hilary took a list from her pocket and handed it to him. The listing said to re-stack and shuffle the specific canned foods in different sections and orders. Stanley figured this could be an easy enough job to handle with no problems, and Hilary would also be there in case he ever needed any help with anything.

Stanley and Hilary went to move a medium-sized cart with cans sorted out in lines across the floor. They ended up going over a slight bump, and near a wet floor sign, Stanley didn’t pay attention to his surroundings and nearly tripped and fell. Hilary went over to check if he was alright as he picked himself off the ground.

Hilary talked to a worker to ask for some directions on which shelf to re-stack and where. After she pointed and showed them the way, the two grabbed some cans and headed over to the tall rack.

Hilary noticed one being out of place and tried to reach it by standing on her toes, to no avail. Stanley reached up, grabbed the can, and gave it to her. She accepted it with a thank you and put it away back in the cart.

As Stanley helped sort the cans in alphabetical order, he noticed something odd about them. He inspected the labels as they read different assortments that they contained:

Canned Bread, Canned Juice, Canned Cans, even Canned— wait, why is the word next to scribbled out? Stanley looked around and realized that the only things available in the market were cans.

“Hey, Hilary?” Stanley asked while holding a can of his hands. “What’s up with this lack of variety here?”

“Oh, that,” Hilary said. “Well, it’s easy to store, carry, eat, and drink the contents inside, and use other materials that are in there. It was the boss’s idea.”

“Well, if you say so.”

“Don’t worry; I’m certain you’ll get the hang of this job.”

“I sure hope so.”

Later, the boss showed up again to meet with Stanley and check on his progress so far.

“Ok, it’s your turn.” He said, pointing at Stanley.

“Huh? What is it, boss?” Stanley questioned.

“There’s a daily shift that the workers do at overtime. Clean this place up and make it nice and stuff.”

“Alright...?”

“Can you do us that favor?”

“Uh, sure thing?”

“Great to hear!” The boss exclaimed as he walked off. “I’ll see you tomorrow...”

Stanley soon got a nudge on his shoulder and turned to find Hilary watching over him.

“Are you afraid of the dark?” She asked, with her arms behind her back.

“Of course not. Why do you ask?” Stanley inquired.

“A lot of places here look different at nighttime, is your hometown from before like that?”

“I wouldn’t know just yet; I haven’t seen many areas here at night to judge...”

“Oh, I see,” Hilary said in a stern voice. “Man, I wish I could...” She turned and muttered under her breath.

Stanley couldn’t quite hear the last words she said. He didn’t want to step into her business, but at the same time, his curiosity grew, wondering what she mentioned.

“Did you say something?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing.” Hilary responded.

Eventually, nighttime fell over, and Hilary jolted out of the market as soon as she could.

Stanley cleaned the floors, dusted the shelves, and even fixed the light bulbs from the ceiling. The area got dark and ambient, with the only source of light shown from the lamps above. Flies and bugs moved around near the glow.

Stanley wiped his forehead as he looked around the area. Hilary was right; it looked different at nighttime. He did enough for the day and didn’t want to stay long anymore and left the scene as quickly as possible.