David woke before the alarm went off with a need for the restroom. He rolled over to see the time and was thankful he woke only five minutes early. He put Angela’s pillow back in its normal spot and with a grunt, he rolled out of the bed to his feet. His eyes opened wide when he was in the middle of stretching with more groans, and then he shuffled quickly over to the bathroom.

  He set his palm on Max’s door about 45 minutes later and listened to the gentler snoring he was now emitting. He smirked.

  “See you for lunch, buddy,” he muttered and then headed for the door that led to the staircase.

  Max had taken an interest in cooking, and Angela insisted they spend the money on installing a small lunch counter in the shop. It wasn’t anything special. Just a simple wok station and flat top griddle and oven underneath with a cold line in front of it and then a counter on the other side of that for people to sit at.

  He went down the stairs and for the next hour he was operating mostly in auto-mode. Sliding around different stands and adjusting stock on the shelves. David didn’t even turn on the lights in the store. Once he turned on the lights, people would try to come in through the locked glass door, and he just wasn’t ready to deal with people yet.

  David was barely awake as he walked around. His eyes half closed, and he tripped over various things he forgot to pick up before he went upstairs the night before. One time, he even stumbled into a bread rack. He scratched at the stubble he left on his face and could almost hear Angela yelling that he should have shaved. David smirked and nodded his head, still in the dream. He knew he should have, but he went to sleep too late.

  The shop had three rows of shelves that came up to about David’s chest. The shop sold various things that you would normally find in an Asian grocer. He had an entire section devoted to instant noodles, which was a guilty pleasure of his. They devoted one entire section of shelving to the things right from China that Angela used to have to get through her connections. Things you used to only get from mainland China. Still, the older folks came in and bought the items and appreciated that he carried them.

  The older folks knew and respected him and Angela. The shop had been here and stayed open and standing during some of the hard times in Chinatown and David and Angela had some very lean months while they did what they could for the community. For a while, they were selling the items at cost, and if that was still too high for people, they sold below that. That’s what it was all about, wasn’t it? Helping your fellow man?

  It was true David was the more pragmatic of the two and worried more about being able to pay the bills than his wife. He knew she was right to do the things they did to help people. He just worried more than she ever did. She knew that the good karma would see them through, and in the end, while times were still rough, the shop was still open.

  He went through the entire process of opening. He walked all around the shop, making sure things were in their proper place. There were only two things to do before he unlocked the door, and then flipped on the little neon glow sign that said ‘Open.’ He had to flip on the coffee machine and kiss the picture he had behind the counter of his wife.

  The photo was one he took of her just before she passed. It ended up being their last date night together, and their last time being intimate together. They closed the shop and did the whole bit. Dinner, the theater, and then dancing. It was a lovely evening and one that he cherished to this day. She wore a slinky black dress, and he dressed in an old tux that may have been a little too tight.

  The frame was this beautiful simple silver 8x10, and she was standing in front of The Great Star Theater, bundled in a scarf and his jacket. Her brown almond eyes were deep and endless, the red lips flawless. David grinned when he thought of it and that night. Looking back, though, he couldn’t even remember what they saw, not that it mattered.

  He stepped behind the counter. It was a corner counter so that the corner of the two sides was only a few feet away from the front door to the shop. There was just enough room between the short side of the counter and the wall for an ever dwindling magazine and newspaper rack. Racks of snacks lined the bottom of the counter. They mostly kept the counter clean, except for some containers of sweet bakery items from down the street. Behind the counter were cigarettes and booze. Then after a little break in the counter came Max’s lunch counter.

  David reached for the frame of his wife that was kept facing his usual leaning position by the cash register next to the corner on the longer side of the counter. He didn’t quite realize that something was off when he first grabbed it. He was still half asleep. It wasn’t until he put the picture to his lips and instead of feeling the cold glass, he felt fabric.

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  His eyes were closed, and he held his lips to the fabric. The shopkeeper’s mind ran through the possibilities of why his lips would be on fabric instead of glass. His fingers felt like they were holding the same silver frame they held onto. David pulled the frame away from his face and opened his eyes to look at what the hell was going on.

  Blink.

  He stared for a moment and then blinked again.

  He was, in fact, holding onto a picture of his wife in the same silver frame that he had kept there. The glass was indeed gone, and instead of the actual picture he had, it looked like his wife was painting on canvas.

  “What the fuck?” he asked out loud and clenched his fingers tightly around the frame.

  Little things suddenly didn’t quite add up in his head from his morning routine. He reached for the light switch that he normally kept right next to the picture of his wife. The light switch was gone, and he growled. It would still be forever before the sun came up and he could get an electrician here to figure out what the hell was going on.

  He looked back towards the coolers at the back of the shop. There were seven cooler doors in the corner opposite him. Four had refrigerated items on the very back wall, and three on the wall opposite him with frozen goods. Normally there were always lights on just around the door frame. Now that his brain was working and the morning fog was blown away, he realized the light was gone. He went to throw the picture down, but he remembered himself and set it down on the counter at the last moment before he ran to the back of the shop.

  He found the coolers were still there, they were just wildly different. Instead of the glass doors he was used to, they were little wooden panels that you slid open. When he slid the middle door open, he could feel cold coming out.

  “At least my stock isn’t going to go bad, but…” he trailed off, but he was still very confused.

  He noticed there were stones around each doorway and then a large one in the back behind the rack he was currently standing in front of. David also saw some very weird-looking symbols he couldn’t quite take as Chinese characters. They also didn’t look Japanese. He wasn’t sure what the hell they were.

  He carefully slid the panel shut and then moved towards the front of the shop. Outside was where he needed to go and see. He stopped at a stand that was covered with a dark cloth and pulled the cloth free. Normally, he didn’t wake Pepper this early, but it was an emergency. The birdcage was exactly what it normally looked like and inside was a small black Jackdaw who sat in the middle.

  “You okay Pepper?” David asked the bird, who eyed him.

  Pepper tilted his head and gave a small caw. David was surprised the bird was awake already. Usually, he woke him up in the morning. The bird seemed to look ruffled and had a crazed look in his eye. Eventually, after a moment of the two staring at each other, Pepper nodded his head slightly and cawed once more.

  David wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but he wasn’t expecting Pepper to be perfectly fine. Maybe a little ruffled but fine. Maybe the bird was restless and just flew around and bumped into the cage in the dark. David couldn’t explain the bird’s rough appearance, and he didn’t even really try. He just nodded once to Pepper and then turned and headed for the front of the shop.

  Normally, the shop had large windows on the top half of the wall to let in tons of natural light and allow David and his family to see things outside while still being able to maintain the shop. There were no blinds or anything, but as David moved closer, he saw there were heavy curtains that didn’t allow him to see outside. When he finally got to the window and pulled open one of the heavy dark blue curtains, he realized there wasn’t any glass in the windows.

  David squinted and stared out of the window. To be honest, he didn’t even really notice the missing glass panes at first. Instead, he noticed how he very much isn’t in Chinatown anymore. The buildings very much still had the Chinese feel and look to them, except they were real Chinese designs.

  David’s eyes grew wide, and he gasped. “What the fuck?”

  He moved towards the door and unlocked it before going outside. The paved street was gone, replaced by a dirt road. Everything was dusty and dirty, and he was wrong when he thought it was still before sunrise. The curtains were heavy and very good at keeping out the sunlight. It wasn’t past sunrise, but the sun was barely peeking up off the horizon.

  There were a few carts being pulled by people in both directions up and down the road. “Good morning Senior,” one of the younger ones said and nodded his head in respect to David.

  The man was pulling a handcart with big wagon wheels and wore a simple threadbare dark gray robe. David just waved to him and gave a hello that sounded more like a strangled mess of noncoherent words.

  A look upstairs and he saw Max’s window. The same blue cloth covered the window, and David was sure there were no glass panels.

  “MAX,” David yelled. Before the name even fully came out of his mouth, though, he was moving back through the store and to the back area where the staircase to go upstairs was. The whole time he yelled his son’s name.

  “Max, wake up! Wake the fuck up!”

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