ZZ-mart 24-7 Convenience Store

A plastic square sign lit by fluorescent lights on it's inside flickers from dark to bright, a hole carved into one of it's underside corners with a mass of dead bugs clearly littering the insides. A simple red logo adorns the sign, which itself is attached (perhaps not so firmly now as it once was) to an uninspiring grey cement facade, just above and to the right of the main entrance, which, like the rest of the building, is dreadfully functional, with no care given for appearance. It's a strangely modern little building that sits on a tiny lot of bare land right near the start of the Damrak, across the street and the water, not far away at all, sits the Central Station, it's monumental architecture providing for a surreal contrast with the little dinky store. A simple minimalistic glass door which opens up into a store filled with a number of rows, each containing racks of junkfood or assorted other items which while clearly not food, can still be called junk. Lip Balsem, Q-Tips, Dental Floss and other hygiene projects originating from brands whose names are utterly unfamiliar. On another rack sit DVD's of movies you've never heard of with actors you'll never see on the big screen. Next to them you find equally obscure magazines dedicated to subjects you can't imagine anyone giving a shit about. In the back, you find the poorly refridgerated beer and hard liquor, only the cheapest kinds ofcourse, with a stack of Condoms adorning a makeshift little side-rack next to it; Well that figures. The floor is just laminated tiling in a white-black checkers pattern. Or least, it used to be white-black, now it's just yellow-black.

No matter what time of day or night you enter, the air is always stale, and there's always some guy in there mumbling to himself about what chewing gum he likes best or how he has this great idea for a book about a juggling detective, if only he could stop enjoying his beers for long enough to get down to writing it. And it's never the same guy either. It's like the place is a magnet for them. The clerk doesn't even seem to notice. Or if he does, he's obviously too dimwitted to care; if you didn't know any better, you'd think he was one of them. There's always a dull stare in his eyes. His clothes are as unkept as his hair is, and the baseball caps he always wears don't do much to dissuade you from the perception that he is perpetually stoned. The crappy little radio he keeps behind the counter always plays some indie-rock, usually some girl singing about how she lost her man, found a new one, and now hates him because he's not her old man. Or something like that.