The Last Record Store
by Corey Mesler

You walk into the last record store on Earth. It was quite a trek to get there. The clerk has complicated hair and a tattoo that says, “John Lives.” You say to him, “I need that music from that film. The one where the guy meets the gal and she and he do things that people in movies mostly don’t do.” The clerk says, “You’re talking about Johnny Dark and the Fictioneers.” It doesn’t sound right but you’ve come a long way. “Ok,” you say, “Give me that and the one where the female singer sounds like a train colliding with a tangerine.” On the walk home you realize that it wasn’t that movie at all. It was the sequel to the one about the dying Stoic, the one with all the midges. Still, Johnny Dark rings a vague bell. He sounds like Quasimodo. He sounds like your mother. In your review you say, “It’s the kind of music you’d walk to the ends of the Earth for.”

Corey Mesler’s work has appeared in many online and print magazines. With his wife he owns Burke’s Book Store, one of the country’s oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores. He can be found at www.coreymesler.com.

Image, untitled collage 23, by Ira Joel Haber, featured artist. View more of his work here.