BEEP,BEEP,BEEP,BEEP

The sound of an alarm clock rings off the walls of a small run down studio apartment. Tucked at the back of the 3rd floor of a building that should have been condemned and torn down by now, except for the fact that the greasy landlord still made money off those who couldn't afford anything else in this gutter swamp of a town.

A sleepy Mj rolls out of bed and sets her feet on the floor “COLD” she gasps as she pulls her feet back under the covers. “Ooh so warm” is the last thing that trickles across her mind as she lays back down and drifts off to sleep once again.

The sound of sirens and yelling through thin walls jerked her back awake. She sat up with a start and looked at her alarm clock “SHIT” was all that came out as she saw it was now 7:30, and she was already over half an hour late for work on a normal day, but today she was supposed to be up extra early. “Great”, she thought as she rushed to pull on her shirt and pants and stuff the wild, dirty blonde hair on her head into a messy bun and rush out the door.

MollyJay was a woman lost in the world around her, at almost 30 years of age she lived on her own, no family to speak of and very few friends, if she could even call them that as they were all just people she worked with. She was an ordinary enough girl, about 5ft 3 with dull blue-green eyes, pretty generic, neutral skin and dirty blonde hair. She was the poster child of forgotten. And mostly, that was ok by her. Mj watched the crowds on the street as she made her way toward the center of town. All the hustle and bustle of individuals and their messy lives. “It was hard enough to live day to day with the surrounding crap, let alone involve someone in that mess.” She felt watching as people scolded their kids for being late for school. Or as a couple had a very public argument about someone cheating on someone else while clothes and dishes thrown from a nearby apartment window to the unlucky adulteress below.

“Thankfully” she thought “I don't have to deal with any of that dumb shit, just my own foolish self and the inability to wake up on time.

“When the fuck am I going to grow up?” she huffed to herself with the realization she was now in her late twenties, working in a slaughterhouse in the same town she had been in for over 20 years!

She had little education outside high school and had no other real-world experience. “So doing anything else with her life didn't seem possible, anyway”. The depressing thought lingered as she made her way to work.

Mj worked 3 jobs at the moment. A part-time job at the slaughterhouse, a part-time position as a butcher's assistant and a night spot as a bartender. It kept her pretty busy, so a more social existence wasn't something she missed. But on mornings like this one, sometimes she wondered what it would be like to have someone to talk to.

The town of Lowder wasn't very big so Mj never bothered with a car. She would have had to maintain it and pay for insurance, and buying new shoes every couple months seemed more cost-effective and much less headache to deal with.

She reached the butcher shop and took a deep breath before pulling the door open “that better be one MollyJay Bijou” a yell came from the back room. An older man in his late 60s snakes his head around the door jamb and threw one hand up in the air. “What the fuck? You were supposed to be here at 4 to approve the new shipment of cutlets, but instead I have a sorry we missed you note pinned on my door this morning, care to explain?”

Mj hung her head, of all the mornings to oversleep it had to be the morning Lou was getting a fresh shipment “I'm really sorry Lou” Mj mumbles as she stuffed her hands in her pockets “I hit the snooze on the alarm clock and fell asleep”.

Mj felt guilty, Lou was a truly easy-going boss, and a better person. Lou had little family aside from his sister Beth, as far as MJ knew if he did Lou didn't like to talk about them or spend any time with them at all.

MJ had worked for Lou for almost 3 years, and he was consistently at the shop. Even on holidays, it was one thing Lou liked about MJ, that she would work any day of the week no matter what time of year, but every holiday season Lou would give MJ a prime cut of whatever new meat he was hooked on that month and regularly made the excuse that a customer special ordered it and never picked it up.

“Punk kids and their damn prank calls!” Lou would grumble and hand her a neatly wrapped package that lasted MJ until the next holiday. MJ caught on to what he was doing about a year ago and confronted him about it. She didn't think it was a big deal to ask him why he gave her things, but Lou, the normally gentle giant of a fellow he was, absolutely lost his mind.

He yelled and shouted and broke the front door to the shop. He roared and wagged his finger in her face, “I gave nobody anything in they whole damn life MollyJay, what the hell makes you think I would start now.”

It's true that Lou was a large man both in stature and girth, but he was such a solitary man one almost forgot how terrifying he could be, even for his age. Although MJ was never truly afraid of Lou, be it that his outbursts were few and far between or that peculiar or silly things usually caused them and the only objects that ever suffered any physical wrath were the shop itself.

“Look Lou, if you want I can get the truck down to the slaughterhouse and pick it up right now,”, MJ said while looking at the ground “you can even take the gas money out of my pay” she offered to help sooth the irritated man that was now engulfing the doorway he had peeked out from. “Fuckin aye right you will missy!” Lou said as he crossed his arms and pointed his chin at her “and after that, you will wash the shopfront windows and the sign.”

MJ rolled her eyes and nodded, Lou reached into his pocket and tossed her a set of keys. MJ fumbled to get her hands out of her pockets and the keys hit the floor. “Could you be any more clumsy?” Lou said, through a belly laugh that made MJ giggle a little, she shrugged “don't have to be quick to cut up what's already dead, and don't call me MollyJay Old man”. She threw a little gut behind the last two words.

MJ hated her name, and not just her first name, but her last name too. “What the hell kind of person named their kid MollyJay Bijou, anyway?” She would have changed it, but MJ was found after a flood when she was about 4, and she was afraid that if she did and her family ever came looking for her, they wouldn't know whom to look for.

But she was almost 30 now and still had found know one, “after all, how many people could have that name anyhow?” She wasn't even sure it was her actual name, it's just the only name she could remember. MJ had a vague vision of her mother, sitting with her under a tree stroking her face and singing to her “MollyJay Bijou, little bird I love you” but nothing else after that.

“Alright Moll just get your ass movin we got lots of work ta do” Lou said in a fatherly tone that made MJ smile, she wasn't fond of being called Moll either, but Lou was the only one who did, and it was better than the alternative, so she let it slide “you got it boss” she chirped as she bent over and scooped up the keys.