those worth saving

The boy Henry and the girl Kayla were the last young persons in that town. Everyone else old and tired, thirty at least and waning, becoming again like the dust surrounding.

He came to know so many by name when he did not want to. There was the one man who came in hobbling on a cane too short for him who wondered at why he was developing a stoop – always renting Gladiator and nothing else. Another odd one who thought one film just as good as the next and went through them from end to end. The old lady who never remembered when the movies were due and so argued endlessly and unsuccessfully every time to get the late fees taken off. The most successful man in town, who had three wives that did the town's laundry with the power for which Unk had slaved to institute and for which he now lay dead in some unknown place – and who never failed to hold the line up out of the store with seven rentals at once, changing his mind two or three times every transaction and acting shocked when he returned to the store to find thrice his original purchase in late fees after keeping the movies three times as long as he should have.

None of them willing to say what happened to the clerk's predecessor, despite questions. He disappeared one day, they all said, few hours after that dumb sonbitch you shot up t'other day rolled on in. Many of them not around when it happened, having moved out here after it. Place was small then – maybe thirty folks. Now 'bout two hunnerd – but we ain't seen Unk no more. Didn't even hear the gunshots, didn't check to see if he was all right? Nah – we just figgered mebbe he ate a gun like the little Henry boy's dad – isn't that right, Henry?

None worth saving? None? I didn't use to be this way. Didn't used to feel this way about people. Not even wearing a stupid-looking polo shirt and standing in the same place for eight hours at a clip, listening to the same formulaic excuses and demands and insults, bearing the same smug self-importance. Not even when I was a slave did I feel people were utterly without redemption. They couldn't have taken all of them away – could they?

The boy Henry is worth it. Shut up. He is. I don't care about him. You do, though. I'll leave him behind. I reckon so, friend-o – but you will feel like a douchebag. If I cared about any of them I would've kept running – Wouldn't have brought this down on them. Yet you did. Because I hate them and I don't care anymore. That isn't true – You'll still feel bad about it... forever. No – Sooner or later I've got to stop feeling - I think that might be the last thing left. You'll stop breathing before you stop caring.

I'll stop breathing soon.

I'm returning this video and I want my money back!

He blinked, returning to the tangibility of behind the counter. The man and his dried up old girlfriend before him. Was there a problem, sir?

I can't get it to copy onto a tape at home. I want a refund.

Without taking his eyes off the customer, he flicked the hammers of the guns back, then reached for the penny the last customer had declined to accept.

How do you feel about a fifty-fifty chance?