The Feels

today's writing prompt:

You live in a world which you can buy bottled emotions

Draft 1

In a shopping plaza, sandwiched between the Gap and the Yellow Finn Sushi restaurant, is a shop called The Feels. It's a place where people can buy bottled emotions to alter or enhance their own.

Happiness is always sold out. Anger, sadness and sorrow rarely sell and have a thick coating of dust to prove it.

If these unpleasant emotions ever get purchaced, they're are usually purchased by someone with malicious intent; a woman who is sick of her mother in laws lack of empathy towards her struggle with chronic-illness-induced depression and fatigue, constant guilt laden BS statements like "people choose happiness," and "I'm sure you're not that tired," or "you should eat yogurt. It's full of good bacteria. That should fix you health- it did wonders for Jaime Lee Curtis."

Then there's the employee sick of the Pollyanna cheeriness of a loud, extroverted, rosy cheeked, dimpled co worker who's never been sad a day in his life that everybody wishes got kidnapped and slowly tortured by Hannibal. Yes, irritated coworkers are big sadness buyers.

Kayla, a 23 year old college drop out, had been working at the feels for five months. the screening process was far from rigorous; the employer desperately needed a replacement employee after the previous week, The cashier, Tom, had stolen serveral bottles of Happiness, OD'ed bad became manic, dropped out of college, sold all his possessions and moved to India to "achieve Nirvana." No one had heard from him since.

His parents had recently threatened to sue Robert, the store owner, to which he threatened to counter sue because the whole, ya know, stealing and consuming store goods bit, all conveniently caught on security footage.

Needless to say, Robert, down to one other employee, needed a fast replacement so he could attend to buisness overseas. He'd worry about the details later.