Aidan San Francisco — 1983 Consequences

Aidan is making his second delivery. He is early and walks right by The Mystic Eye without seeing it. Odd, he had imagined that the store would be more, not less, evident in daylight. He retraces his steps a dozen times, pacing block, repeating his route, but try as he might, he can’t find the arcane doorway of The Mystic Eye.

Aidan wanders by the next day at noon, once again missing it. He begins frequenting the neighborhood, searching for the shop that only appears at night.

Passers-by and store owners watch Aidan, nonchalant as a cat, prowling the neighborhood. He makes them uneasy. He is an absence, a rip in the sky, a man-shaped dark hole in the afternoon.

People with children clutch their hands a bit tighter when he passes.

Customers get food poisoning, even at the finest of restaurants.

Shoppers discover that every pair of jeans they try is too tight, their hips have widened by at least two sizes, their stomachs have swollen like beach balls.